Hengband for Mac OS X

[backwardsEric]

In earlier threads about Hengband,

https://hengband.osdn.jp/en/

, like this one,

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=7755

, there were requests for an up-to-date English Mac OS X version.

I've put together one based on the current (2.2.1.7) source code and another based on the last stable (1.6.2) source code from https://github.com/hengband/hengband/
You can find the binaries here:

https://backwardseric.github.io/hengband/

The hope is that the binary will run on Mac OS X 10.8 or later. I only have ready access to a 10.14 or 10.15 system so any tales of success or failure with earlier versions would be appreciated. Also any feedback about what does not work well in the Mac interface would be welcomed - especially any glitches with the graphics or how things like keymaps or macros interact with how the interface passes keystrokes to the game.

The source code for the changes made can be found at the same site with the binary. None of this would have been possible without the source code for Hengband and code from poschengband and Angband. The contributors to those three projects did all the hard work.

[Maddz]

Thank you!

Works fine on 10.13.6, I'll try it on my old iMac later on.

I've been playing Vanilla, and have been heartily bored.

[backwardsEric]

It's good to hear that it worked on 10.13.

There's a revised version that was uploaded around 20:15 GMT on September 10th. A list of the changes can be found at https://backwardseric.github.io/heng...ChangeLog.html . The substantial changes are:

• Fix two potential sources for crashes (spell_RF6_HASTE() and spell_RF6_HEAL() in mspells4.c)
• Change how unidentified scrolls or food items are removed from the pack after use
• Change how charges are deducted after use for unidentified wands or staves in the pack
• Change the rendering for the Mac OS X interface so there's fewer artifacts with fonts like Zapfino or Snell Roundhand

[backwardsEric]

2.2.1.7c

A new version is now available at https://backwardseric.github.io/hengband/index.html and there's a fuller list of changes at https://backwardseric.github.io/heng...ChangeLog.html . The highlights are:

• Now support MacOS 10.8 or later, dropping support for 10.7.
• Changed the handling of key presses. It should be better than my original hack, but if you had set up customized macro triggers, those will likely need to be redone since the encoding of the keycode and modifiers is different.
• Made several improvements in tile rendering.

[GrimaTheBold]

Is there a good place explaining the differences between Hengband, Chengband, OposBand, Composband, FrogComPosBand, etc? Its hard to know the pros and cons of playing these different variants.

I've recently become bored with Vanilla and have started playing FrogComPosBand on angand.live, since there is no OS X version, but I much prefer playing a native app. Hengband is similar right?

[EpicMan]

Is there a good place explaining the differences between Hengband, Chengband, OposBand, Composband, FrogComPosBand, etc? Its hard to know the pros and cons of playing these different variants.

I've recently become bored with Vanilla and have started playing FrogComPosBand on angand.live, since there is no OS X version, but I much prefer playing a native app. Hengband is similar right?

Hengband is the oldest of these, though it has been updated somewhat recently. Chengband was a variant of Hengband with minor changes.

Poschengband introduced huge changes in content, balance, itemization, and probably everything else. It was rapidly developed until Chris, the maintainer got crosswise with some players on OOk and sort of ragequit. (It seems he is back with a new majorly different version now).

Gwarl (angband.live creator and maintainer) made a variant of Poschengband called Composband that added some new races/classes, lots of new quests and revamped the towns.

Frogcomposband is a variant of Composband that has seen a lot of new content and many updates. It is still being regularly updated and is probably the "main" poslike variant right now.

Oposband is a variant of Frogcomposband made by me. It has a number of miscellaneous changes (see the gihub) and random ideas.

[GrimaTheBold]

I tried to download the .dmg file at:

https://osdn.net/projects/hengbandforosx/downloads/72021/Hengband-2.2.1.7c-English.dmg/

and get a File Not Found error.

[backwardsEric]

I tried to download the .dmg file at:

https://osdn.net/projects/hengbandforosx/downloads/72021/Hengband-2.2.1.7c-English.dmg/

and get a File Not Found error.

I'm sorry about that, the link should have been

https://osdn.net/projects/hengbandforosx/downloads/72419/Hengband-2.2.1.7c-English.dmg/

The page where you got it from has also been corrected. In case something like this happens in the future, the OSDN page with all the old releases is at

https://osdn.net/projects/hengbandforosx/releases/

. The GitHub page with the releases since the project moved there is at https://github.com/backwardsEric/hengband/releases.

[backwardsEric]

Added a version based on the last stable release, 1.6.2. The binaries are available with the others at https://backwardseric.github.io/hengband/ . If there's any interest in having a version for 1.4.7, the last stable version without persistent levels, let me know.

There was an update to the version based on 2.2.1.7 in late March which made some adjustments to the title bars for the windows, brought over changes from Angband to the Mac OS X front end, and changed some English messages, primarily in the diary entries.

[backwardsEric]

1.6.2b, 2.2.1.7f

To fix some text rendering problems in the Japanese versions, I've updated the Mac OS interface to Hengband 1.6.2 and 2.2.1.7. The binaries are available with the others at https://backwardseric.github.io/hengband/. For both English and Japanese, I also reverted to using Hengband's versions of the graphical tile sets and added universal binaries that should allow the application to run natively on arm-based Macs.

Upstream, Hengband has started releasing alpha versions of Hengband 3. Details can be found on their Japanese web page. It will likely be a while before I release binaries based on that, but if you're willing to compile from the source code, the macos-develop branch of the Hengband for macOS git repository tries to keep the macOS-specific changes up to date with their changes. If you want to build an English version for Linux or Windows, you'll likely be better off using Hengband's source code (the master branch corresponds to what's been released; the develop branch has the changes they're queuing up for the master branch).

[HugoVirtuoso]

I wonder what's new in Hengband 2.2.x / 3 alpha that's not seen in PosChengband/Composband/FrogComposband, etc.

[backwardsEric]

Their version history and plans are here. It's all in Japanese, however. There's been a lot of code reorganization between 2.2.1 and 3.0.0. In terms of content, balance changes, or quality of life improvements, I largely don't know the details. The merfolk race appears to have been fleshed out some more, and there's been many changes in the lists of monsters and uniques.

[backwardsEric]

1.6.2d, 2.2.1.7h, 3.0.0 Alpha 67

Minor updates to Hengband 1.6.2 and Hengband 2.2.1.7 for macOS, primarily for changes to the English messages ported from the 3.0.0 prereleases, are available at https://github.com/backwardsEric/hengband/releases .

Also there is a binary corresponding to the latest 3.0.0 prerelease, Alpha 67.