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Happy to hear they are working on it for people who play on Mac and prefer not using translation layers. The game is worth being played by as many people as possible.
I almost know nothing about Macs except for the tiny parts that I have to help with at work. Do those translation layers (like the mentioned Whisky) work well on the ARM based new CPU's? My guess is that it's a bit more complicated to get that to work and are there big downsides? There might be more ARM based CPU's coming in the future, so I am curious just in case they are coming to PC's as well.
I think it’s complicated, but don’t think Mac users are overtly demanding or greedy. In most cases they are not. They are simply expressing a preference for an efficient, native build, because…why not? The latest chips themselves are very efficient (especially the latest M3-series at 3 nm) so it just seems like a waste to add multiple translation layers on top of that, which compromises the experience they paid for. The vast majority of Mac users looking to play games like this are laptop owners (the vast majority sold too I’m guessing) and so for laptops, poor efficiency can mean the following:
1. Excess heat,
2. Excess noise;
3. Poor performance; and
4. Faster battery drain
These are the things I’m trying to get away from on my Intel MacBook Pro.
I have no doubt that a 2D game like this will perform perfectly fine under translation on a decent M-series chip, but more demanding 3D games: not so much. Of course Windows is always going to be the best gaming platform, while consoles do pretty well too because their market reach (and price) enables a lot of work in optimising titles for their specific hardware.
There are always Linux users requesting native Linux builds as well, including separate threads in this game’s forum, and so they should, because again: why not? There is no harm in simply asking, right?
Where it gets harder for Mac I think is because Linux users typically run x86 CPU’s just like most PCs. I know very little about it but I assume the ARM architecture works a bit differently, and therefore translation is more complicated and difficult, so results are not as good as something like Proton?
And yes, I have heard very good things about the new chips, especially about the efficiency. I have also heard some complaints at work (I work at a university) from people who can't get some compilers to work for their research, which is mainly why I was interested for the whole translation on ARM.
I did forget about the fact that the majority of Mac users is probably using a Macbook, so it makes sense as far as the things you mentioned goes. It makes sense that you want your software to be as efficient as possible if you are running on battery.
And I guess you are right that I have seen Linux users also ask about it before. While I have only been gaming on Linux for a little over half a year, there are cases where the Windows build just runs better than the Linux build as well, which is understandable as the WIndows build is understandably the focus. I assume there used to be more requests years ago because proton is getting pretty good nowadays.
As far as the ARM thing goes, I am not that knowledgeable about it but I do work in IT (sorry if it gets too technical) and I am pretty sure the ARM chips have a restricted instruction set compared to x86. This is basically the commands a CPU knows. So I can only imagine it being more difficult compared to for WIndows -> Linux just translating commands as you probably will need workarounds for some of them for x86 -> ARM.
Anyway, I hope the dev can get it done. I have read it's a single developer for this game so it might take some time I imagine, but maybe they can use others for the porting.
BTW game works with Whisky. Create a bottle, add steam.exe and then install the game
For a long time I used Intel MacBooks because they could run macOS and Windows natively, so compatibility was never an issue; I could simply boot up the Windows partition. It was the best of both worlds, almost.
Now of course with ARM that’s not possible in the same way. You get many advantages of the “Apple Silicon” but a big step back in Windows support. I think this is why you’re seeing “native Mac build” requests very commonly now in Steam forums. These gamers were always there, but they were simply running the Windows versions on their Macs and now they can’t, or can’t as well.
I’ve been in two minds whether to move to an ARM Mac myself. For a while I was considering a gaming PC but the electricity demands seem daunting. I’d like to consider further study myself so a laptop will suit me better, and I just can’t bring myself to consider Windows laptops, especially since I have (and always have had) an iPhone that I’m happy with. I play mainly indie games, many of which do make their way to Mac and then I put in requests for others I’d like (such as this) that haven’t got one.
That makes a lot of sense, again I was more curious on why it was asked than criticizing the requests. I honestly don't understand why Apple doesn't seem to want to support gaming better on Macs, I am not counting Apple Arcade.
They also don't really want to focus on companies/universities either from my experience and treat them like any other customer. As an example, the warranty procedure especially is really bad compared to Dell/HP since we have to rely on 3rd parties to get support without having to go to an Apple store, which we don't have in the neighborhood. For comparison, wiith Dell/HP we just call them and the next day they come by to fix or replace the part that is broken (in the cases where it's possible). We obviously pay an extra fee for that extra warranty, but it's usually cheaper than AppleCare and it's for a longer duration. I sometimes don't really understand what their focus is.
I think Apple would win a bunch of customers by creating their own translation layer specifically for games. There are so many iPhone users and plenty of them mainly play video games that would run perfectly fine on a Macbook if the translation layer was baked into MacOS.