Steve Jobs was not a fan of video games, and the line of computers his company created is more associated with creative software than gaming. But throughout the '80s and '90s, there was a thriving video games scene on the Mac, one that offered an early platform to pioneering developers and groundbreaking games.
Even some of the most well-known games ever made got their start on the not-so-humble Macintosh, meaning that these computers have well and truly earned their place in gaming history. But which Mac games are the most iconic of all?
10 Escape Velocity
Mac developer Ambrosia Software made a name for themselves with culture-savvy remakes of older arcade games, but Escape Velocity marked a shift in focus. The game casts you as a space pilot, allowing you to pilot the galaxy and either trade with or fight the other ships you encounter; you can also choose one of several political factions to align with, giving the game a pretty impressive amount of freedom.
Escape Velocity spawned two sequels, one of which was ported to Windows in the early 2000s, and it inspired a slew of other games. There was even a Star Wars game that used Escape Velocity's concepts in George Lucas's universe.
9 Spaceship Warlock
Spaceship Warlock is obviously awesome. Anything with a title like that is bound to be cool as hell. Released as a Mac exclusive in 1991 (before being ported to Windows three years later), Spaceship Warlock was an early example of what the newfangled CD-ROM format could do.
It featured graphics and sound so extraordinary at the time that it was seen as a killer app for the medium, and it was a key driver of sales of CD-ROM drives. Heck, its world-building was so unprecedented, even the game's creators referred to it more as an interactive movie than a video game.
8 The Colony
It's definitely primitive by today's standards, but The Colony was impressive when it was released on the Mac in 1988. It featured 3D polygonal graphics, rendered in real-time, and the Mac release was the only one that rendered those glorious polygons in full color.
The Colony is a first-person shooter - one of the earliest examples of the genre - and tasks you as a space marshal who has to stop an alien invasion on a distant, uh, colony. Its programming ingenuity was only matched by its hardcore difficulty, but hey, that's just what it was like in the '80s.
7 The Journeyman Project
The Journeyman Project hits all the right notes of a mid-'90s sci-fi adventure game. It's got time travel, aliens, utopian flying cities, a cinematic presentation complete with full voice acting and some righteous pre-rendered 3D backdrops, and an incredibly intrusive UI.
Moreover, The Journeyman Project represents one of the earliest indie gaming successes. It was self-published by its developer, Presto Studios, and its impressive world-building earned it a ton of praise upon release.
6 You Don't Know Jack
The original Macintosh was compatible with a custom development kit called HyperCard, which allowed users to program basic databases and software. It was mostly used in business and educational applications, but enterprising developers occasionally used it to create games.
One of these was You Don't Know Jack, which was prototyped using HyperCard. It's basically a trivia game for a computer, but back in the '90s, this was incredible stuff. Its success established Jackbox Games as a go-to purveyor of social games, and given how many nights have been spent with friends and roommates playing these great party games, it's fair to say they're still at it.
5 Marathon
Before Bungie jumped to Microsoft and created the genre-defining Halo, they made a similar sci-fi FPS series for Microsoft's rival, Apple. This series was Marathon, a beloved cult classic for the Mac. The first installment casts you as a security guard on the space station Marathon, fending off an invasion of hostile aliens while trying to figure out the reasons for their appearance and the history of the station.
In many ways, these games' deep lore and thoughtful level design laid the groundwork for modern first-person shooters, and fan theories that connect Marathon and Halo have run rampant in the years since its release. It's not as famous as its successors, but it's an important game nonetheless.
4 Prince Of Persia
Was Prince Of Persia technically released on a Mac? Well... not really. Jordan Mechner's groundbreaking action-platformer was originally exclusive to the Macintosh's predecessor, the Apple II. But given that Apple manufactured both computers, we'll count it.
The original Prince Of Persia was the first of its kind: a cinematic platformer, featuring rotoscoped animation that gives its gameplay an impressively fluid look and feel. Despite its brutal difficulty, the game turned into a slow-burn success, spawning a series that continues to this day. And in the early '90s, it was eventually ported to the Mac. So it definitely counts.
3 The Oregon Trail
And if Prince Of Persia counts, then The Oregon Trail earns a spot on this list as well. Similar to the previous game, The Oregon Trail was originally released on the Apple II in the '80s before it was ported to the Mac in the early '90s. Since then, the game - or any of its various iterations - has found a home on nearly every platform that can play games and spawned a legion of imitators.
If you were alive in the '80s or '90s, you probably played The Oregon Trail on a school computer... and you probably learned what dysentery was when your poor pioneer died of it. Truly, an educational experience for the ages.
2 Myst
Myst is probably one of the most iconic video games ever made. This point-and-click adventure title was graphically jaw-dropping in its day, as players progressed through a series of gorgeously rendered 3D backdrops packed with detail and charged with mystery.
The gameplay and storytelling were... obtuse, to say the least. But Myst had a certain mystique about it that connected on a massive scale, and it briefly held the title of the best-selling game ever made. And to top it off, this iconic game was originally exclusive to the Macintosh.
1 SimCity
But perhaps even more iconic than Myst is SimCity, Will Wright's genre-defining city-builder. The original game was released on Commodore's Amiga alongside the original Macintosh in 1989, and it represented a huge departure from the action-focused games that dominated the market at the time.
But SimCity's focus on creativity opened up a new world of gaming, and the game would go on to be one of the most successful releases of its era. It paved the way for a whole line of Sim games that would culminate in an obscure little title called The Sims.