2026-09-20 · 3 min read
Opening the games on a Mac
Every game has its own macOS package. The first time you open it, the Mac blocks it because it is unsigned, and there are two different ways out. On top of that, in three packages out of nine the app still carries the internal project name instead of the game's.
On every game page, under Download the game, next to the Windows and Linux packages there is one for macOS. There are nine of them, one per game, built by the same server that prepares the browser version.
Compared to Windows there is one extra step, and it is better told in full than left for the player to discover.
The Mac blocks the app, and it is right to
Our packages carry no Apple signature and are not notarized. To macOS they are software from an unverified source, so the first double click stops. It is not a bug in the game: it is the system doing its job.
Two different messages can show up, and they need two different fixes.
"The app can't be opened because the developer cannot be verified." Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom: the name of the app you just tried appears there, with an Open Anyway button.
"The app is damaged and can't be opened." It is not damaged. It is the quarantine attribute macOS attaches to everything coming from the internet, and it shows up often on unsigned zip archives. It comes off from the Terminal — type this, then drag the app into the window before pressing Enter:
``
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine
From then on the game opens like any other app, offline too.
Inside the package there is a name that is not the game's
Checking the nine archives, we found something we had never looked at: the name of the app inside the zip.
| Game | App name on the Mac |
|---|---|
| Micro Doc | gioco-2d-stile-eartworm-jim-deve-rien.app |
| Maze Lume | raccogli-luci.app |
| Standing Order | standing-order-sparatutto-2d-a-doppia-vi.app |
Those names are the project folders, born from the sentence the game was asked for. Godot's export preset uses that folder name until someone says otherwise. So whoever downloads Micro Doc ends up with an app on their desk called gioco-2d-stile-eartworm-jim-deve-rien.
The other six are not wrong, but they are not pretty either: they carry the lowercase hyphenated slug, like countdown-clones.app and uno-la-catena.app. And one of them, le-stanze-vuote.app, carries a name the game no longer uses: it is called SUBSTRATUM:Deep Facility now.
The fix is one field per game in the export presets, and it shows up in the next package.
The number next to the download
Next to every package is the version it contains, and it can be lower than the one running in the browser: Micro Doc is at v28 in the browser and v24 in the zip. The browser gets every improvement as soon as it is ready, while packages are rebuilt in batches. When the two numbers differ, the game page says so.
What we take away
- Something that works but frightens you on first launch only half works: the instructions belong on the game page, not in an email reply.
- An internal name that travels all the way to someone's desk is not a technical detail: it is the name the game lives under on that computer.
- We found this only because we went and looked inside the archives. The things nobody opens are the things nobody checks.
