Populus 1.1.0

How to install

1. Under Assets below, click Populus-1.1.0.dmg to download it.

2. Open the downloaded file and drag Populus onto the Applications folder.

3. The first time you open Populus, your Mac will block it because it is not registered with Apple. Click Done, then go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway.

   Or open the Terminal app, paste this command and press Return:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Populus.app

   You only need to do this once.

Already have 1.0.0? Download the new .dmg and drag Populus to Applications again, choosing Replace.

Needs macOS 26 or later. Runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Full steps with more detail are in the README.

What's new

• Settings (Cmd-,): turn round types on or off, for example cities only, and set the music volume
• A short tutorial the first time you play
• Share a picture of your shape and score from the results
• New background music by Komiku (CC0)
• Populus now tells you when a new version is out. You can turn this off in Settings.

Found a problem? Use Help > Report an Issue in the app.

Populus 1.0.0

First release of Populus, a macOS game where you draw a shape on a real map to enclose a target number of people.

Install

1. Download Populus-1.0.0.dmg, open it, and drag Populus onto the Applications shortcut.

2. The app is not notarized by Apple, so macOS blocks it the first time. Open it once, then go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click "Open Anyway". Or run:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Populus.app

Needs macOS 26 or later. Runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

What's in it

• Rounds for anywhere on Earth, a continent, a country, or one of 77 cities
• Freehand, circle, ellipse, rectangle and polygon tools, with undo
• Day satellite and night city lights maps
• A population heatmap and the biggest cities inside your shape after each guess
• A history of past rounds

Found a problem? Use Help > Report an Issue in the app.

Data files v1

Prebuilt data files for building Populus from source. Scripts/fetch_data.sh downloads these. You do not need this to play the game.