Anyone know any good Mac shmups?

[null1024]

We have a Linux shmup thread, so why no Mac thread?

There are...
the ABA Games games -- http://homepage.mac.com/qtq/rr/index_e.html , http://shinh.skr.jp/osxbin/
...and that's it. Anyone know any more?

[kengou]

One of my favorite shmups ever was a mac exclusive, OS 8 or 9 though, doesn't work on X (nor compatibility mode, I've tried everything believe me). A game called Giants. If you happen to have an old OS 8 imac lying around, look it up.

[Rozyrg]

You'll find some pretty poor ones just browsing shareware/demos on places like MacUpdate; but there are gems too..

Kill Monty is badass, for one. It's a Robotron/Smash TV style arena shooter
http://www.freeverse.com/games/game/?id=5006

Gridrunner ++ has an OSX version as well. Also highly recommended
http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/gridrunner.php

There's a few more good ones I've played; but can't remember the names atm, I'd have to get back on my mac to see.

[croikle]

Mars Rising and Deimos Rising were probably the first shmups I ever played. Dunno how they hold up after experience with "real" shmups.

[MathU]

Oh yes, everything made by Ambrosia Software is a load of fun. I remember playing a cool Centipede clone by them once.

[ZacharyB]

Damn, Ambrosia Software and Freeverse are still around? Good for them. I remember begging my Mom for $20 to register Escape Velocity. And my friend had an intership at Freeverse.

[Cthulhu]

There's, uh, MameOSX?

I think Jets & Guns has a Mac version as well, but that game is rather old hat. I also seem to remember someone making Mac ports of some of Kenta Cho's games for the Mac, but I might be mistaken, and even if I'm not, they're not really Mac-exclusive.

I <3 my Mac, but it's not my gaming system, that's for sure.

[Rozyrg]

Whoops. Dunno how I forgot Jets'n'Guns.. I actually bought Gold not too long ago. Maybe it's the fact I hate it as much I like it?

Top choice for the platform, still...

[TMR]

Ooh, that's a point; i've got an old system 7 laptop so are there any shooters that'll run on that? =-)

[Zaarock]

Check out Area 2048 on osxbin as well, its a great arena shmup.

MAME OS X is a great mame client but it appears to be discontinued. I like the ability to use core image/video/audio and their effects in it. for some reason audio started bugging for me on the emulator though, making a lot of games only play audio through the other speaker.

For SDLMAME I found the best osx frontend so far to be MAME Launcher by nekocan: http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~nekocan/gro ... _soft.html , it looks great and has pretty much every feature you could want.. apart from a rom listing where it only shows roms you have, I couldnt find that in the frontend at least. The frontend lists the roms in japanese by default, so go to preferences and appearance options and switch the language to english.
nekocan's site also has a great listing of emulators for osx and also a games page with a STG section and so on.

Garden of Coloured lights has an OSX port and seems like White Butterfly could also be ported easily as both were made using Allegro.

I like Ambrosia softwares games too, one of the games I would love to be able to play on OSX was Ferazel's Wand. Escape Velocity Nova is a great space adventure game and I found the combat to be surprisingly fun once you have a decent ship. It has a PC port too due to large demand, I'd recommend trying it out there is also a large fanbase which is still making plugins and total conversions for the game.



If you have an intel mac, Crossover/Wine can run a lot of shmups great now. I listed some info on games using it on the linux shmups thread, I'll copy it here.

Here are the games I've gotten to work with it so far. I'm using the lowest end intel mac which is the mac mini, though.

Crossover Games 7.2.0:

Patriotdark - runs great, doesnt play music (cant play .ogg files)

Cho Ren Sha 68K - music glitches, otherwise perfect

Kamui - Runs great when not windowed. music doesnt play on some of the levels... I'd recommend turning it off and listening to your own, the midi music also makes the game lag.

Blue Wish Resurrection Plus - Runs great, no music. remember to change the second number on custom.dat to 1

Eden's Aegis - same as the above

Warning Forever - runs perfectly

Guxt - no music

[kozo]

This sounds like a cop-out, but I just run Windows on my Intel Macintosh using Boot Camp. In other words, when I need to work, I boot up in Mac OS. When I want to play, I boot up in Windows. For the record, I can run most Falcom games and every shmup I've thrown at my little Mac Mini in 60 FPS with settings up all the way. I was shocked at how well it runs games when it's running native Windows. Just a thought.

[MR_Soren]

Space Phallus has a Mac version available.

Wingnuts from Freeverse Software is kinda slow-paced, but it's a free download on their Wingnuts 2 page. (click Goodies)

Maelstrom is a fun Asteroids clone. It was originally mac exclusive, but it's been made into open-source freeware and is now available for multiple systems.

[dnbiola]

Space Phallus has a Mac version available.

What the...

Wow, I must have missed that one.

[Warp_Rattler]

Not sure what this one is called, but you get a bunch of Macs out in a field with your choice of rifle/shotgun/handgun/etc and go wild. Loads of fun and best Mac shoot-em-up ever made.

[MR_Soren]

Not sure what this one is called, but you get a bunch of Macs out in a field with your choice of rifle/shotgun/handgun/etc and go wild. Loads of fun and best Mac shoot-em-up ever made.

The explosions are realistic, but the scoring system sucks.

[Rozyrg]

Space Phallus has a Mac version available.

Wingnuts from Freeverse Software is kinda slow-paced, but it's a free download on their Wingnuts 2 page. (click Goodies)

Maelstrom is a fun Asteroids clone. It was originally mac exclusive, but it's been made into open-source freeware and is now available for multiple systems.

Both Wingnuts games are pretty cool IMO; but yeah, probably not most folks here's cup of tea.

Also, I remember playing Maelstrom on my buddy's Performa loooong ago.

[Cthulhu]

This sounds like a cop-out, but I just run Windows on my Intel Macintosh using Boot Camp. In other words, when I need to work, I boot up in Mac OS. When I want to play, I boot up in Windows. For the record, I can run most Falcom games and every shmup I've thrown at my little Mac Mini in 60 FPS with settings up all the way. I was shocked at how well it runs games when it's running native Windows. Just a thought.

Not a cop-out. Just taking advantage of what the system can do.

[Ed Oscuro]

Not sure what this one is called, but you get a bunch of Macs out in a field with your choice of rifle/shotgun/handgun/etc and go wild. Loads of fun and best Mac shoot-em-up ever made.

Ironically, I think there's a game on the classic Mac where you fight Windows machines.

Scoring system still sucks, and the explosions aren't realistic, of course

[null1024]

Man, I wish I had a newer Mac. It's a G3 500MHz with 10.3 on it.

I totally forgot about Ambrosia's stuff, great games.
GOCL had a Mac port? Woo [runs off to d/l]... or not, 10.4 only, and I can't find the [Mac] source to try a compile...

[MR_Soren]

Man, I wish I had a newer Mac. It's a G3 500MHz with 10.3 on it.

I totally forgot about Ambrosia's stuff, great games.

Me too. I've got a G3 400Mhz PowerBook with 10.4 on it. Bought it in 2000 and it's still my primary computer, but it's not so hot for games anymore. rRootage, Wingnuts, and Maelstrom all run fine though. I haven't tried any of Ambrosia's more recent shmups.

[null1024]

Man, I wish I had a newer Mac. It's a G3 500MHz with 10.3 on it.

I totally forgot about Ambrosia's stuff, great games.

Me too. I've got a G3 400Mhz PowerBook with 10.4 on it. Bought it in 2000 and it's still my primary computer, but it's not so hot for games anymore. rRootage, Wingnuts, and Maelstrom all run fine though. I haven't tried any of Ambrosia's more recent shmups.

How much ram and HDD space do you have left? I really want to put 10.4 on, but 3 things:
1: I have 4.7GB left. Sure, I've ditched a *lot*of stuff from back when I did a dual boot of 10.1 [and later replaced it with 10.2] + 9.2, and back then, I had 3GB or so, but I really would like to have some legroom. Of course, if I had 10.4, I wouldn't need XCode... I write Java apps [javac is included with the BSD tools!], and wouldn't need to do my own compiles of stuff [read: DOSbox, which took 5 hours]
2: Upgrading to 10.3 was a nightmare, namely since it took all day, and I was trying to back up a bunch of stuff, and I couldn't get it to fit onto a single 700MB CD-RW, ended up leaving everything but my Photoshop stuff [but now, I have 2 CD-RWs, and a 512MB flash drive]. And then, the installer wouldn't start installing, unless I clicked a menu bar right before the continue button lit up [it'd just lock up if I didn't do that...].
3: I have 192MB of ram. This is the biggest problem. 10.4 says it needs 256MB. Will I end up with my computer swapping furiously?

Also, back on topic, if anyone hasn't noticed, in one of those links I put in the first post, there's Z-Lock, which is pretty decent.

[MR_Soren]

Man, I wish I had a newer Mac. It's a G3 500MHz with 10.3 on it.

I totally forgot about Ambrosia's stuff, great games.

Me too. I've got a G3 400Mhz PowerBook with 10.4 on it. Bought it in 2000 and it's still my primary computer, but it's not so hot for games anymore. rRootage, Wingnuts, and Maelstrom all run fine though. I haven't tried any of Ambrosia's more recent shmups.

How much ram and HDD space do you have left? I really want to put 10.4 on, but 3 things:
1: I have 4.7GB left. Sure, I've ditched a *lot*of stuff from back when I did a dual boot of 10.1 [and later replaced it with 10.2] + 9.2, and back then, I had 3GB or so, but I really would like to have some legroom. Of course, if I had 10.4, I wouldn't need XCode... I write Java apps [javac is included with the BSD tools!], and wouldn't need to do my own compiles of stuff [read: DOSbox, which took 5 hours]
2: Upgrading to 10.3 was a nightmare, namely since it took all day, and I was trying to back up a bunch of stuff, and I couldn't get it to fit onto a single 700MB CD-RW, ended up leaving everything but my Photoshop stuff [but now, I have 2 CD-RWs, and a 512MB flash drive]. And then, the installer wouldn't start installing, unless I clicked a menu bar right before the continue button lit up [it'd just lock up if I didn't do that...].
3: I have 192MB of ram. This is the biggest problem. 10.4 says it needs 256MB. Will I end up with my computer swapping furiously?

Also, back on topic, if anyone hasn't noticed, in one of those links I put in the first post, there's Z-Lock, which is pretty decent.

I updated to a 40GB Hard drive and I currently have 512 MB RAM. You would not be happy with 192 MB. When I upgraded to 10.4, I backed up my personal files to an external hard drive, re-formatted my internal hard drive, installed the OS, then copied my files back. It's more work, and you have to re-install and configure the applications you use, but it's a much smoother process overall, IMO.

Anyway, I'm going to download Z-Lock now.