There has been a lot of confusion about Macintosh compatibility, and I am still trying to wrap my head around it.
I might need to adjust this later, but here's my current understanding. Take with salt, and feel free to do your own searching. Do please correct me if I'm grossly incorrect.
Short, "safe" answer:
Rorasuketo will run on your Mac for a year with Rosetta 2. But in a year, Apple will make big changes that may stop many apps, including Rorasuketo, from running. (See the section below titled "So, if you are on a Macintosh, should you buy/play Rorasuketo?")
Also, Rora is 32-bit, and I don't see an immediate 64-bit option in the game deployment. So if you are restricted to 64-bit apps for whatever reason, this won't fly.
Longer, more accurate and nuanced answer:
Rorasuketo is Intel-based, and Apple has been trying to move away from Intel-based apps. In fall 2027, Apple says they will stop supporting the workaround known as Rosetta 2, and some apps will no longer run natively. If you open Rorasuketo on a Mac as of this writing, you will get a warning about support for Intel-based apps, but this does not prevent the game from opening. (At least, that's how it is on my MacBook.) If you can get Rosetta 2 working on your Mac, you are good to go. But with macOS 28, you may need to find a different, third-party workaround, and I'm not sure what that will look like. I *might* be able to update Rorasuketo in some way, but I do not have the tools or knowledge to do that right now, and I don't want to guarantee that I will.
Sources: Apple Insider, Tech Times
More details, for those who are curious:
I picked up a MacBook for the sole purpose of deploying Rorasuketo to Apple machines. Rora runs fine on this MacBook, which has an M1 chip and macOS 26.6. The only asterisk is the "Soon, Apple will stop supporting this!" warning that pops up, which admittedly is very scary-looking.
So why don't I do something about this? Well, the engine I used to make Rorasuketo is RPG Maker MZ, which is Intel-based and exports in a 32-bit format. I am not a mad programming guru, nor do I have a team that's schooled in cross-platform compatibility. Unfortunately, I am stumbling into the Apple party at a very awkward time, having forgotten my pants and assuring everyone that my friend Buzz is picking up the 12-foot sub sandwich and he'll be here at any moment.
I am still a little foggy on this NWJS business, and the talk about different versions of it having different compatibilities, but it is a bit over my head right now. Part of the trouble is that changing your version of NWJS might cause some plugins to break, which means breaking Rorasuketo in a way I'm not sure I can fix reliably.
Millennial story time:
I grew up with Macs in the '90s and early aughts. Games came out for Windows, and then they came out for Mac six months later - if at all. There were holidays where, under the tree, there was a homemade "coupon" for a copy of whatever game I happened to want, though my friends with PCs were already playing it. (I know, first-world problems.) In my mid-twenties, I switched to Windows - I can't even remember why - and totally lost touch with what Apple was doing, and have been blissfully unaware until pretty recently. When I picked up RPG Maker MZ a few years ago, I knew that it exported to Windows and Mac, and that sounded good enough.
Despite how bad this sounds on the surface, I do know there are various ways of getting around OS barriers. Even back in my teens, I played Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy 7 on my iMac using software that mimicked a PlayStation environment. There are options for mixing and matching operating systems today. The question is whether someone who wants to play Rorasuketo will be willing to seek them out.
To me, it sounds like Apple had this wild phase where it got real loose with Intel, but now it's trying to scrub all those photos from Facebook and possibly smuggle in a bag of their straightedge friend's pee. All because Intel rolled up to the reunion and got a laugh out of everyone by saying, "Think different!" and throwing Apple's Birkenstocks into the bushes. Now Apple has to show them all and become an astronaut because that's what they told everyone when they were six.
(Please don't come after me, Apple.)
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So, if you are on a Macintosh, should you buy/play Rorasuketo?
I want to be honest here, because I will feel very sad if I have to work through a backlog of refunds and people telling me I am a cheat and a scoundrel.
You shouldn't buy Rorasuketo if you are on a Macintosh and:
1. You are not familiar with ways to run Windows-only apps through third-party software, or you don't feel comfortable using "workarounds," and
2. You feel very strongly that you want to be able to replay all of your Steam games multiple times.
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To be completely honest, Rorasuketo will probably be a "one-shot" for a lot of people. It's no Stardew Valley or Skyrim. That's why it is $4. I really hope it touches people, and they want to play it multiple times, and they enjoy the hell out of it - but it is not designed to be played for 400 hours like some games are. In a year, I may have to remove the Mac version of Rorasuketo from the Steam store if I don't know what to do. But a lot can change in a year. So I will remain hopeful... but I still have to figure out what happened to my pants.
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