When it comes to personal computers, the Mac has never been known as a gaming heavyweight: Apple doesn't focus on building machines that have the hard-core processing and graphics power you might find in, say, a Razor PC laptop.

That said, there are still a number of excellent games available to play on your Mac — especially of the indie variety. Two-person development teams and small studios shine on Apple's laptops and desktops, building stories with smart twists and heart-wrenching endings.

The Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Origins, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic are probably your best bets out of the 91 options considered. 'Attention to detail in every facet of the game' is the primary reason people pick The Witcher 3 over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision.

There have been many great indie titles for Mac over the years, especially with the advent of the Steam Store, but here are our all-time favorites.

Braid

I'm not generally the type to get overly invested in a game — I'm more of a book and movie person. But when I picked up Braid in 2009 after an off-hand recommendation from a friend, I found myself completely captivated by its mechanics and story.

On its face, Braid is a simple puzzle platformer: You play a man named Tim searching for a princess across the landscape of a strange world, encountering puzzles as you progress through each level. But the true delight of the game is in its controls: Not only can you run forward, jump, and the like — but you can rewind time at any moment, reversing your decisions and movements. It's a simple but beautiful mechanic and quickly becomes one of the primary ways you can solve the hardest puzzles; all the while, it makes you think about time and movement in a completely different way.

Years after its release, Braid is still considered a masterpiece — and it's not hard to see why. (If you can't — just rewind.)

Firewatch

We've said a lot about the magic of Firewatch on iMore over the last year, but the Campo Santo/Panic collaboration continues to merit praise. The 3D mystery and exploration game, which places you as a firewatch in a national park around the late 1980s, captures the essential beauty of being alone in the U.S. wilderness — and the eerieness factor, too. The voice acting here is also top-tier; this is a game that demands headphones and a wistful spirit.

Gone Home

Another entry in the first-person mystery genre, Gone Home puts you in the shoes of a student recently returned from a lengthy overseas trip to her family house, only to find it empty — with her younger sister apparently vanished. It's a wonderful example of the mystery and exploration genre, providing just enough of a creepy flair to keep you on the edge of your seat with just a few major jump-out scares.

For all of its intrigue, however, the game's core centers around family, ambition, and love — and paints those feelings with wrenching truths.

Transistor

Modern RPGs are a dime a dozen, but none are painted in quite so stunning a manner as Transistor. Supergiant Games's sci-fi/action game sets you on a path through a futuristic electro-punk city with a mystical weapon and enemies to outwit and defeat. Though shorter than your average Final Fantasy entry, Transistor nevertheless captivates and offers great replay value with its quests and power-ups — though I'd settle for just exploring its beautifully rendered environments.

Stardew Valley

This was an outlier pick for our indie games list courtesy Mobile Nations video producer Justus Perry, but I have to admit that I quickly fell in love with it myself after a few hours. If you're a fan of simulation games but want a little more quirk and a little less 'send your Sim to work for the fortieth time' monotony, Stardew Valley offers you the chance to run your own pixelated farm, interact with the locals, defeat (or join forces with) a possibly evil corporation, explore caverns, and create all sorts of endless weird cooking experiments.

In a month where it's been hard to regularly read Facebook or Twitter, Stardew Valley is an appropriately delightful escape from the real world.

FTL: Faster Than Light

If you've ever dreamed of captaining a starship, it's hard not to love FTL. Subset Games's tactical strategy title puts you in the captain's chair on your way to save the galaxy — if you can make it through any number of insane and sometimes impossible challenges. And those, honestly, end up being the heart of the game: You become attached to your ship and crew — even when you end up accidentally killing them and having to start over.

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Your favorite indie games for Mac?

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Adventure and role playing games have always been a part of computer games. They started as text-based adventures like the original Colossal Cave. Rogue introduced a graphical twist, and Wizardry pushed the boundaries even further during the salad days of the Apple II. Modern Mac and PC gamers can run online role playing games like World of Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Not to mention what dungeon crawl action RPGs like Diablo have done for the genre.

But there was an era of computer role playing games that for me always stood apart - graphical RPGs that rendered imagery using isometric (three-quarters views) perspectives. One of the high points of this particular style was BioWare's enormously popular Baldur's Gate series, which has returned in renewed form over the past couple of years, but it's not the only one of its ilk. So I've rounded up my favorite from this particular genre that you can still download and play on new Macs, and present them to you now.

Avadon 2: The Corruption

For 20 years Spiderweb Software has been making RPGs. Their inspiration from Wizardry and other RPGs of the classic era are obviously, and they meticulously craft their games to give you hours, weeks, even months of play value as you go on grand, epic quests, innumerable side quests and then replay again as a different class of character.

Avadon 2 puts you in the role of the Keep of Avadon, working as a spy and a warrior. Your goal is to save your homeland from destruction. You can master five different character classes, each with different special abilities and spells, and the choices you make throughout the game will dramatically affect its outcome.

As the name implies, Avadon 2 is a sequel, but you don't need any experience with the first Avadon game to get the most out of this one, so don't let that put you off. There's a nice big demo version you can download if you want to kick the tires, too. Visit the web site for details.

• $9.99 - Download now

Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

We might as well get this one out of the way right up front: Baldur's Gate II is back and better than ever. The game has been rebuilt to run on new Macs and PCs (you can also download an iPad version if you prefer). This game follows Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules and is even set in the Forgotten Realms, a world created for Dungeons & Dragons adventures. It simply reeks of D&D authenticity. It's also terrifically fun to play.

Baldur's Gate II. and the original game, are both available as 'Enhanced Editions' with new party members, new dungeons to explore and other new content. Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition rolls together the original game, Shadows of Amn, with a later released expansion pack called Throne of Bhaal. What's more, there's a new high-level combat pack called The Black Pits 2. Four all-new characters can be included with your party.

(Baldur's Gate II recently arrived on the iPad, as well.)

• $24.99 - Download now

Eschalon Book II

Basilisk Games crafts classic RPGs for Mac, Windows and Linux. They're turn-based, filled with all the accoutrements you'd expect: hundreds of items to loot, 24 unique skills to master and eight base attributes that affect your character, turn-based combat and action, and a storyline that unfolds over hours, days, and weeks.

Eschalon Book II is the most recently-released installment of the game series that started in 2007. It came out in 2011. But there's no putting a time limit on classic RPG fun. Like Avadon 2, there's a demo available from the web site if you'd like to kick the tires before you drop your money.

• $9.99 - Download now

Speaking of which, Basilisk is right on the cusp of releasing the long-awaited conclusion to Eschalon. Book III is expected out in the middle of February. Here's a sneak peek:

Shadowrun Returns

Harebrained Schemes has brought back one of the most beloved computer and tabletop RPGs ever with Shadowrun Returns. This cyberpunk-meets-magic world combines high technology and high fantasy in a really unique mix.

You take the role of a shadowrunner - a mercenary living in the near future, where corporations rule a world increasingly out of control and out of order through the rampant use of uncontrolled technology and the resurgence of ancient magic. This is a straight up single-player turne-based tactical RPG, and it's hugely fun to play.

• $19.99 - Download now

Ultima VII: The Complete Edition

If you're going to go old-school with your computer RPGs, eventually you have to go back to where it started. Ultima changed the way we play RPGs on computers forever, and you can still play the classic Ultima games on modern computers today. GOG.com sells 'em - fit to run on Windows and Mac alike.

Ultima VII: The Complete Edition is one of my favorites of the entire series. For that matter, it's also Richard Garriott's, and he created Ultima to begin with (he said this and Ultima IV are his favorite overall).

You, the Avatar, return to the land of Britannia to unravel a plot laid between an evil creature called The Guardian and a religious order that calls itself The Fellowship. What is at stake is no less than the future of Britannia itself.

• $5.99 - Download now

Obviously, 'old school' means different things to different people, but to me, these harken back to a golden age of role playing adventure games that rank as some of my favorite times playing on the computer. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

I'm really interested to hear what you like, too - do you have some favorite CRPG's that I've left off the list? Let me know in the comments!

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Eve updates app to add new customization and better iCloud syncing

Eve has updated its Eve for HomeKit app, and version 4.2 has a host of new features!