I've recently upgraded to a new MacBook Pro with Mojave on it and found that the OS X version of EV Nova fails to run on this machine. Supposedly it should still work with the RyuKorijo patch which worked fine in El Capitan, but I have tried all the usual tricks without success. Moreover it will only be a matter of time before the game won't work anymore in an upcoming OS X release so trying to get it running under an emulator seems a better long-term investment of time.
I've tried running it in Windows but even though it does work, it is pretty awful with lots of glitches. Hence I tried SheepShaver instead with the same OS 8.6 and ROM I have been using for ages, and it does run pretty well. It even accepts OS X pilot files.
There are only two major problems:
- Broken buttons on the main screen, but luckily keyboard shortcuts N, O, E, P, A, X do work.
- The ‘target’ mouse cursor is invisible during normal gameplay.
I have tried to force hardware cursor and tried both full screen and windowed, but the cursor remains invisible. I also tried it in OS 9 but same result.
Assuming that the classic version of EV Nova is identical to the OS X one, the cursor should normally be a red cross, obviously not rendered as a typical cursor but as a sprite. It seems the game simply isn't aware of where the actual cursor is until clicking. I guess this is due to the way in which the cursor is emulated.
Is there any hack that can fix this problem? A decent workaround would be a way to always force the default cursor.
Fixing this problem at its root cause would probably improve compatibility with quite a few other games as well…