Jeff Minter and Ivan “Giles” Zorzin have given me years of fun with their games. When I saw that all nine of their Minotaur Project games were running on Windows again, I wanted to see whether I could get them running on my Mac and back onto an iPad. With Claude’s help along the way, that little experiment became Minotaur Project Remastered for Apple.
A head start from Windows
The starting point was jedeyesniv-art’s Windows collection, which already had the games running in a modified version of touchHLE, complete with per-game controller mappings. That work meant I could concentrate on getting the old iPad games running on current Apple hardware.
Getting the old code to run
The games were built for 32-bit iPads. The Apple build translates their old ARM code ahead of time and compiles it for ARM64. When a game asks for an old iOS graphics or audio feature, touchHLE handles that call. The games now sit behind a native picker on Mac, iPad and iPhone, with sprites from the collection tumbling around in a Metal kaleidoscope. On mobile, the original iPad playfield keeps its proportions and touches are mapped back to the game’s own coordinates.
Nine games in one place
The collection includes Gridrunner, Super Ox Wars, Minotron: 2112, Minotaur Rescue, Five A Day, Deflex, Caverns of Minos, GoatUp and GoatUp 2. On Mac you can use a mouse or controller, and there’s a dedicated gamepad option for GoatUp. On iPad and iPhone, the Games button takes you back to the picker.
Give it a go
There’s a signed and notarised download for Apple Silicon Macs. The iPad and iPhone build guide walks through building and signing the app in Xcode. The Windows collection is also available and runs on Steam Deck through Proton.
There are no current plans for an App Store release. The original games and artwork belong to Llamasoft and their respective rights holders, and an App Store release that includes them would need their permission.
This is an unofficial fan project. Thanks, Jeff and Giles, for the games, and thanks to jedeyesniv-art and the touchHLE contributors for the work that made the Apple version possible. If you enjoy these games, have a look at Llamasoft’s other releases.