Mac Source Ports

Developer: id Software
Release Date: June 22, 1996
Source Code Release Date: December 21, 1999

Quake is a first-person shooter, the first in the Quake series, which added polygonal enemies, advanced geometry, and a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails. A fascinating example of grappling with technology changes in parallel to gameplay, it spawned entire industries of modders and mutiplayer gaming.

The vkQuake port was derived from the QuakeSpasm Spiked port and uses Vulkan on macOS by way of MoltenVK. In addition, vkQuake recently added support for the remastered version of Quake from Night Dive Studios.

And because I've had a few requests for it, we are now hosting a build of DarkPlaces as an alternative port.

If you want to experience what it was like to play Quake at laumch before the advent of GLQuake or hardware acceleration, we have added Chocolate Quake as an additional option.

  Buy Quake on GOG.com

  Buy Quake on the Humble Store

Developer: PopCap Games
Release Date: May 5, 2009

Plants vs. Zombies is an example of casual game perfection, from developer PopCap Games at their peak, pre-acquisition. Effectively a tower defense game without being a tower defense game, it has a difficulty curve so incredibly well done that at some point you're pulling off elaborate strategies without ever feeling like you're not ready for it. With an addicting amount of depth, additional mini-games once you finish the campaign, and no microtransactions or mismatched mechanics, it's a game that absolutely holds up.

It's also a game where I had no idea there was a modding community, let alone a nearly perfect reverse engineered source port nearly five years in the making. I honestly thought for a minute it was some sort of trick but no, PvZ Portable is a true reverse engineered port.

NOTE: While PvZ-Portable definitely works with Plants vs. Zombies: Game of the Year Edition, I'm not clar if it works with the regular (non-GOTY) edition. As of this writing the GOTY edition is the only version on Steam. As far as I can tell it does not work with the recent Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted edition.

Developer: Raven Software
Release Date: September 16, 2003
Source Code Release Date: April 3, 2013

The fourth and most recent entry in the franchise that gave up on numbers, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (aka Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy) continues to use id Tech 3, which powered Quake III: Arena. This gives the game a more consistent look compared to its the previous title. Although seemingly less of a sales force than its predecessor, it enjoys a multiplayer community that is still active today.

  Buy Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy on GOG.com

  Buy Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy on the Humble Store

Developer: Raven Software
Release Date: March 26, 2002
Source Code Release Date: April 3, 2013

The third entry in the increasingly confusingly named franchise, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (aka Star Wars: Dark Forces III: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast) eschews a custom engine in favor of id Tech 3, which powered Quake III: Arena. The result is a game that has graphically aged better than its predecessors.

  Buy Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast on GOG.com

  Buy Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast on the Humble Store

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: September 2004

Another game from Chris Sawyer, Locomotion served as his spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon and like that game and Rollercoaster Tycoon the game has his signature isometric pixel art style and a hardcore group of followers willing to reimplement and reiterate on it in the form of open source projects. The OpenLoco team recently hammered out the issues necessary for their project to work on 64-bit operating systems so I've made a build of it available here.

  Buy Chris Sawyer's Locomotion on GOG.com

  Buy Chris Sawyer's Locomotion on the Humble Store

Developer: PopCap Games
Release Date: December 12, 2003

I'm pretty sure that of all the games on this site, this is the first one I've ever built that I originally played on the iPod. Zuma is essentially a match-3 puzzle game, with the twist being that the tiles are balls rolling down an etched path, and you play as a stationary frog idol thing and shoot matching balls from your mouth, with the goal to be clearing the chain before it can reach tne end of the path.

It has great music and sound design, colorful graphics, addictive gameplay, and works great for both quick diversions as well as extended gameplay sessions. I almost wish you could still use an iPod wheel as a controller.

Zuma was later re-released in an enhanced version dubbed Zuma Deluxe, which is the version you can still get off of Steam to this day, and the version that Zuma Portable uses.

Developer: Pumpkin Studios
Release Date: April 10, 1999
Source Code Release Date: December 6, 2004

Warzone 2100 is a post-apocalyptic real-time strategy game from 1999 whose source was released in 2004 and whose content was released as freeware in 2008.

Although my aim is to host signed and notarized game bundles on Mac Source Ports, the Warzone 2100 Project has done incredible work on this port and has logistical reasons for not being notarized yet. While they work through that process, I decided it was worth making an exception to the site's policy so that Apple Silicon gamers looking for a full, free and polished RTS would be able to find it.

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 (wz2100.app) and select Open. The long answer is here.

Developer: Chris Sawyer
Release Date: 1995

Transport Tycoon Deluxe was released in 1995, a simulation game by Chris Sawyer in his graphic/UI style about managing transportation in a city. Sort of the progenitor to things like Cities Skylines. Or maybe just the transportation parts of SimCity.

The source port OpenTTD, as its name might suggest, is a reimplementation of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Like some other ports on this site, it is not based on existing code, it is a reimplimentation of the engine designed to consume the Transport Tycoon Deluxe data files.

For a long time, Transport Tycoon Deluxe was not commercially, so em>OpenTTD allows you to download third party clean room data implementations of the game data files. When you run the game for the first time, it will prompt you to download the files for you. There's also tons others to choose from. More recently the game was resurrected so you can get the official files from Steam or GOG as well.

  Buy Transport Tycoon Deluxe on GOG.com

Developer: BioWare
Release Date: December 21, 1998

The first game to use the Infinity Engine, Baldur's Gate uses Dungeons & Dragons rules and gameplay settings to create an iconic style of gameplay. This source port will also play the expansion pack, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, which is usually included in modern digital repackagings.

Note that GemRB requires the files from the original game, not the Enhanced Edition, however digital retailers such as GOG will also include the regular edition when you purchased the Enhanced Edition.

  Buy Baldur's Gate on GOG.com