Platform: macOS

System Requirements

macOS 12 Monterey or later
Apple Silicon (arm64) or Intel (x86_64) processor
SDL3 (bundled in release packages)

Install from Release

Two formats are provided for each architecture:

File	Format
`Firestaff-x.y.z-macos-arm64.dmg`	Disk image (Apple Silicon)
`Firestaff-x.y.z-macos-arm64.zip`	Portable archive (Apple Silicon)
`Firestaff-x.y.z-macos-x86_64.dmg`	Disk image (Intel)
`Firestaff-x.y.z-macos-x86_64.zip`	Portable archive (Intel)

DMG Installation

Download the .dmg for your architecture.
Open the DMG and drag Firestaff to your Applications folder.
On first launch, macOS may show a Gatekeeper warning since the app is not notarized. Right-click the app and choose Open, then confirm.

ZIP Installation

Extract the .zip archive.
Move the Firestaff.app bundle to any location (Applications recommended).
Double-click to launch. Same Gatekeeper note as above.

Build from Source

brew install cmake ninja sdl3 pkg-config
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=cc -G Ninja
ninja -C build

Game Data Location

~/.firestaff/data/

Place original game files here, organized by game subdirectory. See Game Data for the full directory layout. The data directory can be changed in Settings within the launcher.

Bundled Tools

The macOS release includes three companion tools as standalone .app bundles inside the DMG:

Firestaff Artpack Studio — create and edit V2.2 modern graphics artpacks
Firestaff Dungeon Studio — dungeon viewer and editor
Firestaff Savegame Editor — inspect and edit save files

Troubleshooting

Gatekeeper blocks the app

Right-click the app and select Open. macOS remembers the exception after the first launch.

No audio output

Firestaff uses SDL3’s audio backend. Ensure your default audio output device is configured in System Settings > Sound.

Retina / HiDPI rendering

Firestaff renders at the game’s native resolution (320×200 for DM1/CSB) and scales to your display. The V2.0 filtered and V2.1 upscaled presentation modes provide higher-quality scaling on Retina displays.