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: Jonas Echterhoff
Release Date: 2000

In another example of the charm of early 2000's Macintosh shareware, Reckless Drivin' is a fun top down driving game where you attempt to balance damaging other cars, avoiding the police, and making it to the end of the level in one piece. It was released in 2000 by Jonas Echterhoff who put out the source code and released the game as freeware in 2019 it was recently ported to modern systems by Darren Cohen.

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: BioWare
Release Date: September 21, 2000

The sequel to the original, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is bigger and more ambitious than its predecessor. This source port will also play the expansion pack, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, 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 II: Shadows of Amn on GOG.com

Developer: Black Isle Studios
Release Date: June 29, 2000

Another Infinity Engine game taking place in a different Dungeons & Dragons region, Icewind Dale was developed by Black Isle studios, the developer beind the original Fallout games. This source port will also play the expansion pack, Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, 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. Also worth noting that the GemRB site says that the sequel Icewind Dale II is playable but not completable, so if you want to try that one out just be advised support for it is incomplete.

  Buy Icewind Dale on GOG.com

Developer: Black Isle Studios
Release Date: August 27, 2002

So as much as the GemRB project is great, one thing people have pointed out to me is that you can already play modern versions of the Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate with the Enhanced Editions that are already native to the Mac, which is true. But one thing you'll notice is that there are five Infinity Engine games but only four Enhanced Editions. The fifth and final game, Icewind Dale II, has never had an EE.

The reason? The source code has been lost. Yeah, for whatever reason due to bad backups or the dissolution of the developer or just the state of source control around the turn of the century the source code has been lost.

My bet is that it turns up eventually in someone's attic (hey, it's happened before) but in the meantime the only way to play the game on a modern source port is if someone were to reverse engineer the differences and while that may be infeasible for commercial development, the GemRB project has stepped up to the plate and as of October 2024 the game is reported to be "completable".

Note that "completable" is not the same thing as "polished" so I'm labeling this as Early Access because it's more for the brave gamers who really want to play this lost game right now (reportedly it will be more polished in the forthcoming Version 0.9.4)

  Buy Icewind Dale II on GOG.com

Developer: Black Isle Studios
Release Date: December 10, 1999

There are games that are cult classics, and then there are games like Planescape: Torment that define the term cult classic.

So, true story: I'm working for a Babbage's circa 2001 or so and the Infinity Engine games are very popular. We had customers that came in asking for more. They'd played Baldur's Gate and its expansion and Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale and they wanted more and we would tell them sorry, there's not any more. Utterly and completely oblivious that this game with maybe the worst box art ever was indeed another Infinity Engine game and exactly what they were looking for.

Yes, Planescape: Torment is the game everyone wanted long after it was out of print. It uses a D&D setting that's unusual and it turns several RPG conventions on their heads, like how in some cases your character dying is how you *solve* a puzzle.

Note that like other Infinity Engine games, the GemRB project plays the original version, not the Enhanced Edition, but on places like GOG will also include the regular edition when you purchased the Enhanced Edition. Also note that according to the GemRB status page, Planescape: Torment is listed as finishable, but not yet polished.

  Buy Planescape: Torment 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

Developer: Epic Games
Release Date: March 30, 2004

For a brief window it seemed as if the twitch arena shooter was going to go the way of the annual sports franchise, for better or worse. In that vein, Epic released the sequel to Unreal Tournament in 2003 as... Unreal Tournament 2003. This was then followed up in 2004 by Unreal Tournament 2004.

While content-wise, Unreal Tournament 2004 is a superset of Unreal Tournament 2003, the initial plans to make it cross-play with the matching maps from the previous entry did not survive technical changes. Neverheless, it was a popular entry with tons of content, maps, modes, and the DVD-ROM version contained a disc full of map editing and modding tutorials that may have produced innumerable game developers, cementing Unreal as a game engine licensing force. It was truly a golden era of gaming.

Unfortunately things didn't last - Epic's planned break from the yearly cadence eventually meant that what would have been Unreal Tournament 2007 became Unreal Tournament III, eschewing the annual concept, and a planned 2014 reboot got consumed by an unclear business plan and their decision to shift everything to Fortnite.

Still, the OldUnreal guys have done it again - and by that I mean they convinced Epic to let them work their magic on yet another Unreal-the-franchise title. This is a preview release, so I'm labeling it Early Access, but fire it up and experience what at least one gamer called "I had to check to make sure there wasn't an Xbox under my desk."

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.