People apparently have gotten the windows version to work through wine, there's some guides in the steam forums for the game.

It works https://re-actor.net/dwarf-fortress-how-to-run-the-game-on-m...

But you need the actual files downloaded obviously. So you either have to have a PC where you can download the game files from Steam (Windows VM works too) and then copy over to your Mac. Or you can buy the game from itch.io (it's the same but you also get self-extracting archive + you get a Steam key as well) https://kitfoxgames.itch.io/dwarf-fortress

With steamcmd (the steam client CLI) one can download whatever version of their owned games they want.

In theory. In practice, it's a headache getting that thing to work.

I bought the Steam version and run it in Wine on both an Intel and M1 Mac. I ended up refunding the Steam version and bought it on itch.io so I could just directly download the game files and updates instead of having to mess with Steam inside Wine (the Mac Steam does not allow you to download Windows files). Also you get a Steam key with itch.io, so when they release a proper Mac version I can add it to my library still.

There are (where?) some issues with missed mouse presses (double click issue) which make it really annoying to play, but there is a workaround for that which worked fine for me: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28983...

>(the Mac Steam does not allow you to download Windows files).

you can !

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/ej1sid/download_wind...