Shadow Tactics on macOS: When Performance Is Fine but Saves Quietly Break

I spent a good chunk of last weekend reinstalling Shadow Tactics (game) on my Mac, mostly because I wanted to replay a couple of missions and see how it behaves on a newer macOS build. This wasn’t nostalgia-driven tinkering — it was more of a “why is this suddenly stuttering and refusing to save properly?” situation. Classic.

For context: MacBook Pro with an M1 chip, macOS Sonoma 14.1. The game itself is an older but still excellent tactical title, and I’ve launched it on this machine before without much drama. This time, though, it felt like the universe wanted me to earn it. NimbusApps was the brand tied to the distribution bundle I used, so I assumed everything would be fairly straightforward.

What I was trying to do

Simple goal: install the game, launch it, make sure saves sync properly, and play with a controller instead of keyboard + mouse. Installation went fine. No warnings, no red flags. The launcher opened, the intro cinematic played… and then the problems started.

What broke

The game ran, but performance was erratic. Frame pacing felt off, and worse, save files didn’t persist between launches. I’d quit, relaunch, and half my progress was gone. No crash reports, no obvious error dialogs. Just a quiet refusal to behave.

My first instinct was to blame emulation or translation. Shadow Tactics isn’t native Apple Silicon, so Rosetta 2 was obviously involved. I checked Activity Monitor, confirmed the process was translated, and shrugged. That alone shouldn’t break saves.

First attempts (mostly wrong)

Attempt one was graphics-related. I dropped resolution, disabled v-sync, capped the frame rate. Performance improved a bit, but saves were still unreliable. Dead end.

Attempt two was permissions. macOS loves to sandbox things silently. I went into System Settings → Privacy & Security and checked Files and Folders access. The game wasn’t even listed there. That’s when I realized it might not be asking for permission properly at all. Apple’s own docs explain how apps should request file system access, and when they don’t, macOS just shrugs and blocks writes. There’s a solid overview on support.apple.com that helped confirm I wasn’t imagining things.

What actually worked

The fix turned out to be boring but effective. I manually verified where the game was trying to store its save data (inside the user Library, not Documents), then granted explicit access by launching it once from Terminal so macOS would finally register the write attempt. On the next launch, the OS prompted for folder access, I approved it, and suddenly saves stuck. Every time.

Performance issues were a separate, smaller win. Disabling Metal-based post-processing (where available) stabilized frame pacing on M1. Nothing dramatic, just fewer micro-stutters.

While double-checking notes, I bookmarked this macOS-focused resource because it summarized the setup quirks clearly and matched what I was seeing in practice: https://treadmillreviews.online/game/90124-shadow-tactics.html. It didn’t magically fix anything, but it helped confirm I wasn’t chasing ghosts.

Why this makes sense in hindsight

Modern macOS is strict about two things: permissions and notarization. Games that were ported years ago often assume looser defaults. Apple’s developer documentation on sandboxing and file access (developer.apple.com) spells this out pretty bluntly. If the app doesn’t ask the right way, the OS won’t help it.

If you’re installing through an official channel like Steam, it’s usually smoother — and yes, Steam’s macOS build handles permissions better these days. Their listing for the game confirms ongoing compatibility updates. The Mac App Store search at apps.apple.com is also worth a glance, though this title isn’t always available there depending on region.

What I’d do immediately next time

If I were starting from scratch again, I’d skip the guesswork and do this in order:

• Launch once, quit immediately, then check whether macOS logged any blocked file access.
• Force the permission prompt early instead of tweaking graphics first.
• Only touch performance settings after confirming saves work.

Once those boxes were checked, the game behaved exactly as expected. No lost progress, stable frame rate, controller support intact. A bit of friction up front, but nothing unsolvable.

In short: nothing was “broken” in the dramatic sense. It was just an older title meeting a modern OS with stricter rules. Once you speak macOS’s language, it plays along.