thriftmac | the best Mac freeware and free Mac games

Alien Abduction

Save crash survivors from abduction by evil aliens.

Angband

Take the role of an adventurer, exploring a deep dungeon, fighting monsters, and acquiring the best weaponry you can, in preparation for a final battle with Morgoth, the Lord of Darkness.

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Aquatomic

Slide atoms through the maze-like structures of Aquatomic to create molecules.

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Argonaut

A modern rendering of the classic Asteroids game with glorious graphics.

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Armagetron

3D clone of the popular laser-racing game Tron with a customizable playing arena.

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Armand and the Foppish Hat

Adventure game reminiscent of the Zelda series in glorious retro 2D. The storyline is a hoot, but puzzles give you a run for your money.

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AssaultCube

First-person-shooter set in a realistic looking environment. It’s all about team oriented multiplayer fun.

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Blackjack International

Choose your country, sidle up to the table, and place your bets.

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Boggle

Make as many words as you can in three minutes.

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Bomberman

Work your way through the levels with strategic placement of bombs that kill enemies and destroy obstacles.

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BombSquad

Clear the grid before getting blown up in this Minesweeper clone.

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Bricksmith

Create Lego models with your Mac—looks tricky, though.

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Bug Defender

Buy weapons and ammo and set them up along a path to kill bugs before they get in your house. More kills means more cash for weapons upgrades.

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Bullfrog

Use a bullfrog to clear your yard of pests before time runs out. Beautiful graphics.

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BZFlag

A free multiplayer, multiplatform 3D tank battle game. The name stands for Battle Zone capture Flag. Aside from Mac OS X, it also runs on Irix, Linux, *BSD, Windows and other platforms.

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This Japanese side-scroller has you trying to make your way through a series of caves, avoiding obstacles and enemies along the way. You’ll have to download both the game and a separate English-language patch to make it work — unless, of course, you speak Japanese.

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Coblyn

Avoid obstacles and race against time to collect enough diamonds so you can make it to the next level. A classic from the 1980s.

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Cocoa Mad Race

Race your vehicle against the computer in a bid to make it to the next level.

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Connect4 Fisa

Drop discs into a grid to create a line of four horizontally, vertically or diagonally before your computer opponent beats you to it.

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Crack Attack

Crack Attack is based on the Super Nintendo classic Tetris Attack, featuring full-screen mode.

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Deliantra

Co-operative multiplayer RPG and adventure game that is fully graphical and runs in realtime. It is set in a classical medieval environment with ubiquitious weapons and magic.

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Double

Match the tiles in Double to eliminate them — a good mahjong clone.

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Enigma

A puzzle game the object of which is to uncover pairs of identically colored Oxyd stones. It features hidden traps, vast mazes, laser beams and countless hairy puzzles.

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Find A Word

Use letters from the “pot” to create as many words as you can before time runs out.

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Fishie

Fun little game has you using the space bar (or not) to move a fish around so it can eat everything in sight. Nice graphics, cool music.

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Freecell

A Mac OS X version of the classic solitaire game.

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Freeciv

A free version of the popular Civilization strategy game requires Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and X11.

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Frets on Fire

Your fingers must be nimble on the keyboard to follow the tune in this open source version of Guitar Hero.

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Frozen Bubble

Use a small cannon to shoot bubbles, trying to create groups of three or more of the same colour. Do this and the bubbles go away. Eliminate them all and win.

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Glest

You control two armies on the battlefield of this 3D real-time strategy game: the warriors and mechanical devices of Tech and the mages and summoned creatures of Magic.

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Glider Pro

Float your Glider Pro paper airplane through rooms in a house with many obstacles.

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GLTron

Inspired by the movie TRON, you steer a futuristic bike through a rectangular arena, leaving a trail behind, which you hope to force other players to drive into.

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GNU Backgammon

Think you’re good at backgammon? Try your luck against GNU Backgammon, currently boasting world class capabilities.

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Go Ollie

Use your mouse to make Ollie the worm jump from platform to platform to the finish line, all the while avoiding falls and enemies. Terrific side-scrolling cartoon fun.

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Goban

Play Go against the program or against other players over a local network or the Internet.

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Gridlock

A collection of over 30 abstract strategy board games, including Ataxx, Reversi, Checkers, Gomoku, Connect Four, Breakthrough, and many others. You can play against the computer or over the network.

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HexAddict

A nicely done version of Minesweeper spiced up with great graphics for the themes.

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Hot Spot X

Work your way to the middle of four concentric rings using 32 game tiles with various colours and symbols. The rules make it tricky, though. Maybe even darned near impossible.

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Ivory

A solitaire tile matching game based on the single player game known most often as Mahjongg, and also called Shanghai or Taipei. Beautiful graphics.

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JewelToy

Just like Bejeweled — you switch jewels around on a grid to group them in threes and eliminate them. You’ll want to keep going forever.

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Krank

Create strings of balls by nudging them together with your cursor. Beautiful graphics and soundtrack combine with challenging game play.

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Latrunculi

An ancient Roman board game has your pieces arrayed for battle against the enemy, which in this case uses artificial intelligence.

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Lin City-NG

A city simulation game with nice graphics. Start with a small village and build your way up to a bustling metropolis.

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Lines

Clear the grid by placing same-colour tokens in lines of five. Similar to Bee Cells 3D.

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MacSolitaire

A good clean version by MacSolitaire of good ol’ Klondike.

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Marathon

First-person shooter originally developed by Bungie is now open source with active support.

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Marble Arena

Fans of Marble Blast, which sells for $19.95, will be happy to know that a similar freeware game called Marble Arena is now available. Both involve rolling your marble through intricate and challenging 3D landscapes. Another freeware game along this vein is neverball.

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Marble Solitarus

Jump marbles to clear the board, being careful not to leave any behind.

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Mario Paint Composer

Make music the classic Mario Paint way with this remake of the music system from the original game for the Super NES.

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MyMahj

Match the tiles to clear the mahjong board — but this time in glorious 3D.

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MySokoban

Push the boxes around a maze to their final destination without getting stuck. You’ll like the cute Nintendo-style graphics. If you don’t, have a look at SYASokoban, which is basically the same game.

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Also try: SYASokoban

Neuronyx

Match cards as quickly as possible in this memory game. There are several levels of difficulty, and you can create your own cards.

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neverball

Roll a marble through challenging landscapes to reach your goal. Includes neverputt, a simple golf game.

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Nexuiz

3D death match similar to Quake III: Arena. A 273 MB download — need we say more?

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NinjaQuestX

You play a ninja in a dungeon, exploring the many passages and fighting many fearsome monsters. It’s built to have the feel of a text adventure but with full graphics and a complete ninja-style look. Requires Java.

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Oberin

An online fantasy role-playing game and virtual community, available exclusively for Macintosh.

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OneCard

Match cards against computer players, just like Uno.

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Oolite

A space sim game with a retro feel and modern technology. Fly from planet to planet, buying and selling goods, shooting pirates or committing acts of piracy. It can be complicated, but there is a flight training manual.

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Oops!

Race your pieces around the board, sending your opponents back to the start, in this version of the popular board game Sorry. Play against the computer or go up against opponents on a network, leaving messages as you go.

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OpenArena

Completely free game based on the Q3A engine and gamecode with fully working bots, net play and a vast sellection of maps and player models. You do not need Quake III Arena to play this game.

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OpenLieroX

An addictive realtime worms shoot-em-up backed by an active gamers community. Players choose their weapons, grab a ninja rope and face off for a deathmatch in a closed level.

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OpenTTD

Build a transportation empire by land, air and sea, outwitting your competition along the way.

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Otis

Match the blocks and watch them drop, reminiscent of Same Game.

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Owl Country

Swoop through the night skies of Montreal to attack a flock of pigeons — but watch out for lampposts. The movie trailer is a real hoot.

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Pac the Man

When you play Pac the Man, it’s just like, well, Pac-Man.

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Pakoon III: First Blood

Help the chicks escape by blowing up obstacles in their path with a limited number of bombs.

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Pingus

Lead a band of penguins on a journey in this open source version of the classic Lemmings.

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Plasma Pong

Pong with a twist: inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area.

(The game is currently unavailable due to a trademark infraction, but — as of mid-2008 — the developer has promised something new. We’ll leave the link for awhile in the hope that he comes through.)

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