For lots of games downloaded through itch.io (approximately half of the ones I've tried so far), I get a "The application (name) can't be opened." dialog when opening the .app file.

My security settings allow apps downloaded from "Anywhere" to be opened.

This happened so far on:

• Mu Cartographer
• Secret Habitat
• Wood for the Trees

Any idea?

Turns out using Keka to extract itch.io zips seems to corrupt some of them. Using Archive Utility works.

Also want to mention that installing & running games with the itch app solves most problems people get with manual downloads. And it keeps them up-to-date automatically too!

for anyone still encountering this issue with specifically Mu Cartographer on a newer mac (OSX 13.4.1 (Ventura) on an M2 Macbook Air) extracting the zip with Archive Utility gave me the "The application Mu Cartographer can't be opened" error but extracting it with The Unarchiver worked