Mac Source Ports

Developer: New World Computing
Release Date: March 3, 1999

Heroes of Might and Magic III is another 4X turn-based strategy game and is one of the best games in the series.

Although my aim is to host signed and notarized game bundles on Mac Source Ports, the VCMI project recently added Apple Silicon support and is sufficiently complex that at this time I'm going to link to their work. We may host a notarized version in the future.

Because the app bundle is not notarized, on first run you may run into issues. The shortest answer is to right-click on the app bundle (VCMI.app) and select Open. The long answer is here.

  Buy Heroes of Might and Magic III on GOG.com

Developer: Epic MegaGames
Release Date: August 1, 1994

In the great mascot character wars of the 90's, Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic the Hedehog, and the PC had Jazz Jackrabbit. Two of those characters are big enough have their own movie franchises now. The other one is Jazz Jackrabbit.

Nevertheless, back when work on the Unreal engine hadn't even started yet and before Epic became a billion dollar Fortnite force, they were Epic MegaGames and they released Jazz Jackrabbit the little game that could... show off your Super VGA graphics card.

Yeah this game didn't change the world, although it did get is own sequel and there was even the beginnings of a Super Mario 64 leap into 3D, but it's still a pretty charming game that's fun to play, if nowhere near as polished as its cartridge comrades.

  Buy Jazz Jackrabbit on GOG.com

Developer: Chris Sawyer
Release Date: October 15, 2002

Another game from the mind of Chris Sawyer, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 shares the same pixel art style and hardcore interface as his other games.

  Buy RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 on GOG.com

  Buy RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 on the Humble Store

Developer: Epic MegaGames
Release Date: May 7, 1998

Although never as big as Mario or Sonic, Jazz Jackrabbit did well enough with a hungry PC gaming crowd to merit a second game in the series. It's your standard shareware sequel story: more levels, more twists, better technology. If you liked the original you'll like this one.

It also has a very confusing release strategy. The original game was shareware, when you bought it you got the full Jazz Jackrabbit 2 game. Later, it was re-released with an additional episode under the title Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Secret Files. Then came a release called Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Christmas Chronicles, which adds Christmas-themed levels. So when you get the game on GOG you might spot two entries, neither of which look like they're the base game, but both should work in Jazz² Resurrection.

  Buy Jazz Jackrabbit 2 on GOG.com

Developer: New World Computing
Release Date: October 1, 1996

Heroes of Might and Magic II is a 4X turn-based strategy game. Ranked once by PC Gamer as the sixth-best game of all time it features resource building, new factions, skills, and a single-player campaign.

  Buy Heroes of Might and Magic II on GOG.com

Developer: Blizard Entertainment
Release Date: January 3, 1997

Diablo more or less invented the modern action RPG, combining addictive gameplay with roguelike elements such as randomly generated levels. You choose from one of three character classes and play as a lone hero from Tristram in the Kingdom of Khanduras who ventures into the dungeons below to fight demons, score loot, and eventually entering Hell to confront Diablo, the Lord of Terror. The formula has been duplicated multiple times over the years and the series has spawned multiple sequels.

The original game in the series, while groundbreaking, has received less attention and updates from Blizzard, but also has a unique distinction in that it's the only entry whose source has been reverse engineered. The story is sort of wild and involves an effort whose catalyst involved the discovery of a debug symbols file on the retail Japanese PlayStation 1 copy of the game. The result was the Devilution project, which recreates the original source code, and the DevilutionX project which enhances the original and allows for ports to everything from the Amiga to the Nintendo Switch.

Mac Source Ports is now handling an official build for the DevilutionX project. As a bonus, another individual on the DevilutionX team has built versions that run on 32-bit Intel and PowerPC Macs so this is the rare entry on our site that can be played as far back as Mac OS X 10.4. Science isn't about why, it's about why not!

  Buy Diablo on GOG.com

Developer: GSC Game World
Release Date: October 2, 2009

I know I've used the term "hardcore" a bit on here but this game is not only pretty hardcore, the process of running it is going to be a little involved too.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a series of survival horror FPS games set in a fictional dystopian version of Ukraine after a second Chernobyl disaster. You play as a stalker, someone who ventures into the wasteland looking for loot and encountering mutated monsters.

Combining elements of FPS games, survival horror, role playing elements and the bleak atmosphere and resource scarcity associated with Eastern European game development, the series has always had a fairly devout niche. The developer released a trilogy of games in three years, the last of which was S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. In the years since the OpenXray project has worked on a source port for modern systems.

I try not to use the "Early Access" tag on here too often but it's appropriate here since we're hosting a build with some caveats. For now it's Apple Silicon only until I can hammer out some issues with Intel builds. The game also requires additional data to be present that is not in the original game data or in the app bundle, so there is a second file of data to download and install. Please read the instructions carefully.

KNOWN ISSUE: quitting the game via CMD+Q may cause the game to crash or hang, however exiting via the menu works correctly.

  Buy S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat on GOG.com

Developer: Valve Software
Release Date: November 19, 1998

For the 100th game on Mac Source Ports, I wanted it to be something special. It turned out to be a quite a doozy as well.

It's not an overstatement to say Half-Life changed everything. It challenged what we thought first person shooters, narrative content, and gaming atmosphere in general were capable of. It spawned spinoffs, sequels, and launched Valve software into the massive force it is today. It says something that in a world filled with tons of games to choose from, everyone is still begging Valve to make another entry in this series to tie off the now fifteen-year cliffhanger of Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

Half-Life and the Mac have an interesting history, as well. Long before Steam was even a thought in their head, Valve announced and began work on porting the game to Mac OS 9, but it was eventually canceled. Then in 2013, Valve decided to release Steam for the Mac, the first non-Windows computer platform for it, and ported their games to Steam in the process, so now finally Half-Life was available on the Mac. However, the releases were 32-bit apps so when macOS 10.15 Catalina cut off support for 32-bit apps, Half-Life became unavailable to anyone who upgraded, and Apple Silicon Macs never had a chance to play it.

Meanwhile, a project arose called Xash3D. Since the engine for Half-Life, now retronymed GoldSrc for various reasons, was derived from Quake and Quake II, and the SDK for mods was also available, theoretically someone could reverse engineer the game with a lot of effort. The Xash3D project and the later successor project, Xash3D FWGS, appear to have done exactly that over the course of many years now. The result is a fascinating Frankenstein project meshing various id Tech engines and source ports together, the net effect of which is Half-Life can be played on everything from an Android phone to a Raspberry Pi.

In 2019, the Xash3D FWGS project dropped any official support for macOS and iOS due to Apple's deprecation of OpenGL and decision to move towards signed and notarized code (they have since restored support). As a result, I've had many people ask me to build this project so I figured I'd eventually do it and the one year anniversary of the site and the 100th game seemed appropriate to me. However the one year anniversary of the site was a month ago, but if there's an appropriate project for Valve Time to affect, it would be this one.

They're waiting for you. In the test chamber...

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used one of the previous builds of Xash3D FWGS that we hosted here on Mac Source Ports, note that the location of the data has changed from ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D to ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D FWGS. If you get an error about how the engine could not find the "valve" folder, this is why.

Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: November 19, 1999

Half-Life: Opposing Force is the first expansion pack for Half-Life. It takes place during the events of the original game, but instead of playing as Gordon Freeman having a bad day at work you play from the perspective of one of the Marines sent into the complex. It was definitely an interesting maneuver, and one that avoided having to explain what happened after the end of the first game, they wouldn't go there until the sequel.

NOTE: the support for Opposing Force as a Xash3D FWGS mod is still in development. You may notice quirks like glitches with weapon animations. For this reason I have labeled the game as "Early Access". If you're willing to ignore the issues you can go ahead and experience the expansion pack on your Mac again.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used one of the previous builds of Xash3D FWGS that we hosted here on Mac Source Ports, note that the location of the data has changed from ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D to ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D FWGS. If you get an error about how the engine could not find the "valve" folder, this is why.

Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: June 12, 2001

OK, so here's the deal: around 2001, Gearbox Software was contracted to port Half-Life to the Sega Dreamcast. Seeing as how they handled making the Half-Life: Opposing Force expansion, it made sense to hand the task off to them. And just to make the port even more special, Gearbox made a second expansion pack, Half-Life: Blue Shift, that would be exclusive to the Dreamcast version of the game. Whereas the first expansion followed the original game's story through the viewpoint of one of the Marines sent into the Black Mesa facility, Half-Life: Blue Shift does the same but from the perspective of Black Mesa security guard Barney.

Gamers were annoyed at the prospect of a single player expansion they couldn't run on their PC, so Valve capitulated and decided to release the expansion retail for PC gamers as well.

And then the Dreamcast port of Half-Life was canceled at the last minute. Like, almost literally the last mintue - some number of press review copies had alredy been sent out. There's a very small number of actual copies of the game.

Then when Blue Shift finally came out for the PC, many gamers were disappointed with its short length, unaware of the Dreamcast back story.

In any event, one of the mods that the Xash3D FWGS project supports is a port of Blue Shift, so I've updated the build to include it. You will need both the original game and the expansion. If you want more Half-Life, duty calls...

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used one of the previous builds of Xash3D FWGS that we hosted here on Mac Source Ports, note that the location of the data has changed from ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D to ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D FWGS. If you get an error about how the engine could not find the "valve" folder, this is why.