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Note to the Dev on a possible fix for mac Upvote so dev can see

 

Mac users seem to be getting an issue when launching the app where a file is improperly marked as a text file instead of an executable. This issue in particular is one I have seen only some people have a problem with.  I downloaded several games from Itch io that didn't have this issue which made me suspect there was a workaround. I spent some  time researching and it seems this is actually an issue with .zip compression. Im not a developer so I cant help too much but here is what I found. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/107903/how-to-create-a-zip-file-in-the-same-format-as-the-finders-compress-menu-item

the other solution I heard is to use .TAR instead of .ZIP https://github.com/golang/go/issues/24057

the comments on this thread are quite informative

It seems that macs default zip compression does not properly store metadata so you need to use the [ditto] command

I also found this from itch.io although you probably already read it https://itch.io/docs/itch/integrating/compatibility-policy.html

I hope that helped some :)

woa thanks for looking into it!

One of the other devs I contacted added a .app.tar download and after testing it I can confirm switching to .TAR compression for mac does fix the issue in at least one case. I also found this as a probable way to fix the zip version If you dont have a Mac. (if you have a mac then instead of using the zip command you need to use the ditto command iirc) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/434641/how-do-i-set-permissions-attributes-on-a-file-in-a-zip-file-using-pythons-zip

(2 edits)

I encountered this issue as well. The way I fixed it was by ctrl-clicking, selecting "Open with" and then unzipping the file with The Unarchiver instead of Mac's default Archive Utility. The latter breaks a lot of indie Mac games. If you don't have The Unarchiver downloaded, you can get it on the Mac app store here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-unarchiver/id425424353?mt=12 

Sometimes you'll encounter a different error saying "App is damaged and can't be opened." In that case, go into Terminal and type "xattr -cr /Applications/Default.app" (minus the quotation marks, and replace "Default" with the name of the application. Also, before you do this make sure you have the game in your Applications folder obviously) Here's more info: https://osxdaily.com/2019/02/13/fix-app-damaged-cant-be-opened-trash-error-mac/ 

Edit: if you do both of these things and you're still encountering an error, follow the instructions for using the chmod +x command posted further down by user maxybaer123 (the person I'm replying to)