I built a native macOS app for browsing and playing retro DOS games through the eXoDOS collection.

  The problem: eXoDOS is an incredible curated archive of 7,000+ DOS games with pre-configured DOSBox settings, but it's Windows/Linux focused. On Mac you're stuck with janky shell scripts, manual DOSBox config, and no real way to browse the library. I wanted a proper Mac-native experience.

  What it does:

  - Downloads eXoDOS for you (full or lite — lite fetches games on demand via BitTorrent so you don't need 500GB upfront)
  - Browses the full library with box art, metadata, search, and filtering
  - One-click launch — auto-extracts archives, picks the right DOSBox version per game, handles config
  - Routes games to DOSBox Staging, DOSBox-X, ScummVM, or Wine+ECE automatically
  - Game version selector when multiple exist (Floppy/CD, SoundBlaster/MT-32, EGA/VGA)
  - Also supports eXoScummVM, eXoWin3x, eXoDREAMM collections in the same library
  - ROM support for console emulation via RetroArch/MAME

  A few Mac-specific things I added that I think are fun:
  - Spotlight indexing — Cmd+Space, type "Doom", hit Enter
  - Siri Shortcuts — "Hey Siri, launch a random DOS game"
  - Menu bar quick launcher for recent/favorite games

  Technical bits: Swift/SwiftUI, targets macOS 13+. Game launching is fully independent — I built a database of 1,700+ game version configs (which executable, which subfolder, which DOSBox flags) so the app doesn't depend on any eXo shell scripts.
  There's also a crowd-sourced fix system: if a game doesn't launch correctly, the app parses the dosbox.conf to find the right executable, and if the user confirms it works, the fix gets uploaded and synced to all users.

  €20 with a 14-day free trial. It's been a big project and I'd like to keep working on it.

  https://nostalgi.app