KeeperFX — Apple Silicon fork

Unofficial fork of KeeperFX, the open-source Dungeon Keeper remake, with a native Apple Silicon (arm64) macOS build. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the KeeperFX team; no support; the app is ad-hoc signed, not notarized. The fork ends when upstream ships an official macOS build. For the game itself, and on Windows/Linux, use https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx.

Download (Apple Silicon)

Self-contained KeeperFX.app (currently macos-v1.4.10, tags macos-v*): https://github.com/matthewdeaves/keeperfx/releases/latest

Drop it next to your existing KeeperFX data (and the original Dungeon Keeper files) and double-click. First-launch Gatekeeper and folder-layout notes are under macOS: running; or build it yourself.

Changes in this fork

What this fork adds on top of upstream dkfans/keeperfx:

Apple Silicon / arm64

• Native arm64 build (macos.mk), plus a self-contained, self-locating KeeperFX.app that bundles its dylibs and its own config defaults (so it still works dropped next to an older KeeperFX data install).
• arm64 correctness fixes — unaligned-access (SIGBUS) crashes in the isometric render, sprite/pixel draw, computer-player gold scan, and the named-field config framework; in-memory-only packed structs unpacked for natural alignment. x86 behaviour is unchanged.
• Safety fixes — bounds-check the RNC decompressor and the script command-name lookup; guard the power-hand path against a bad dungeon pointer or out-of-range creature model.
• Thought bubbles — creature states flagged both to show a thought bubble and as sneaky now show it (a one-byte flag was read as two bytes).
• OpenGL renderer by default on macOS — fixes a render-thread deadlock and a black window, so upstream's OpenGL renderer works on Apple Silicon, and makes it the default. RENDERER=SOFTWARE in keeperfx.cfg selects the software renderer. If OpenGL fails to start, the game falls back to software.
• Text rendering, three fixes for the same underlying cost (an upstream bug, also fixed here): word-wrapped text with no alignment set (notably the scrolling tooltip box) re-emitted the whole string from the start at every word-wrap point; glyphs fully outside the current clip rect were still laid out; and every glyph was its own GPU draw call. Text now batches into one draw call per run. Measured on an Apple Silicon Mac: a scrolling tooltip that dropped rendering to 4 FPS now holds a steady 58-60.

User-data locations

• Saves, settings, high scores, netplay config and screenshots now write to the proper per-user location instead of the game folder, so the install can be read-only and replacing the app never touches your saves. Existing saves are migrated once (copied, never moved).
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/KeeperFX
  • Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/keeperfx (default ~/.local/share/keeperfx)
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\KeeperFX
• On macOS, screenshots go to Application Support, not ~/Pictures, so there is no privacy prompt. See docs/adr/0001-macos-userdata-locations.md.

Packaging & CI

• Optional starter keeperfx.cfg shipped with the macOS download: upstream's defaults with a calmer GUI flash rate (5 vs upstream's 1). Only used if the game folder has none.
• CI builds and checks the macOS, Windows and Linux builds on every push to master.

Requirements

Like every KeeperFX build, this needs a game folder containing the KeeperFX data plus the original Dungeon Keeper files (from an old CD, or the digital editions on GOG / EA / Steam) listed in docs/files_required_from_original_dk.txt.

The app needs an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 15 or later. Tested on a MacBook Air (M5, macOS 26 and 27) with Dungeon Keeper Gold from GOG.

macOS: build from source

brew install pkg-config sdl3 sdl3_image sdl3_mixer ffmpeg luajit \
    openal-soft libspng minizip miniupnpc libnatpmp zlib curl dylibbundler
./tools/build_macos_deps.sh                 # one-time: builds astronomy/centijson/enet6
make -f macos.mk -j"$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)"   # -> bin/keeperfx (arm64 Mach-O)

The full write-up is in docs/MACOS_ARM64_PORT.md.

macOS: package a self-contained KeeperFX.app

tools/make_macos_app.sh          # -> dist/KeeperFX.app

This bundles the engine's libraries (via dylibbundler) and ad-hoc signs it, so the .app runs with no Homebrew installed.

macOS: running

KeeperFX.app is a drop-in engine: on startup it locates itself and changes the working directory to the folder containing the .app, so it finds the game data next to it. The layout is:

YourKeeperFX/            <- any folder (including Desktop/Documents)
├── KeeperFX.app         <- drop the app in here, next to the data
├── data/  sound/  ldata/  fxdata/  creatrs/  campgns/  levels/  music/  ...
└── keeperfx.cfg

Double-click KeeperFX.app. On first launch:

• If you downloaded the .app, macOS blocks it with "Apple could not verify…" (it's ad-hoc signed, not notarized). Clear the download flag once — in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/KeeperFX.app — or double-click, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. (A locally built .app has no such flag and just opens.)
• If the folder is privacy-protected (Desktop, Documents, Downloads), macOS asks to let KeeperFX access files there — click Allow.

GOG's Dungeon Keeper Gold app has the original files uncompressed at Contents/Resources/game/{DATA,SOUND}/ (soundtrack keeper0*.ogg in its game root); copy them in with lowercase names.

Windows / Linux

Use the official project: https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx. CI still builds Windows and Linux here (with CMake, as upstream does), but there's no reason to use this fork on those platforms.

License

GNU General Public License v2.0, same as upstream — see LICENSE.