Listen, I spent part of last night poking at Ticket to Ride: First Journey (game) from NimbusApps on my Mac, and I figured I’d write this down the same way I’d explain it to you over coffee — not a guide, just “here’s what actually happened and why it finally worked.”
I wasn’t trying to do anything fancy. Just install the game, launch it, maybe play a couple of rounds to unwind. This was on macOS Sonoma 14.2, MacBook Air M1, clean system, nothing exotic running in the background. I expected a smooth ride. Instead, the app icon bounced once in the Dock and then vanished like it had somewhere better to be.
No crash report. No “app is damaged” dialog. No Gatekeeper warning. Just silence.
At first, I assumed it was a bad download. That’s on me — that’s the oldest reflex in the book. I deleted the game, downloaded it again, rebooted (yes, really), and tried once more. Same behavior. Bounce, disappear, gone. Activity Monitor showed the process starting and exiting immediately, which is macOS-speak for “I don’t like this binary, but I’m not in the mood to explain why.”
So the first thing that didn’t work was reinstalling. Complete waste of ten minutes.
What I slowly realized is that this wasn’t a broken game at all. It was macOS doing its modern security thing quietly. When an app isn’t notarized exactly the way Gatekeeper expects, macOS sometimes doesn’t block it loudly anymore. It just… declines to cooperate.
I forced the issue by right-clicking the app and choosing “Open” instead of double-clicking. That finally triggered Gatekeeper to show its hand. A brief warning popped up about the developer not being verified, with the option to open anyway. Apple explains this behavior in their own words here, and it lined up perfectly with what I was seeing: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491
After allowing it manually, the game actually launched. Menu appeared, audio worked, mouse input felt fine. I thought I was done. Then I started a new game and it froze hard while trying to create a save. Beachball, fans spinning up, no recovery.
That’s the moment where it clicked: this wasn’t just Gatekeeper. It was permissions.
By default, newer macOS versions are very picky about where apps can write files. This game was trying to store its save data outside the standard sandbox container, probably in Documents or a shared folder. macOS didn’t block it with a warning — it just let the app hang itself.
I went into System Settings → Privacy & Security and checked Files and Folders. Sure enough, the game wasn’t allowed to touch anything meaningful. I granted access, relaunched… and it almost worked. It got further, but still felt unstable, especially when I switched apps or minimized the window.
At that point I did something slightly unscientific but effective: I moved the app bundle out of the Applications folder into a clean directory inside my home folder, then removed and re-added it under Privacy & Security so macOS would re-evaluate it from scratch. I also disabled App Nap for it in Finder (Get Info → uncheck “Prevent App Nap” — yes, that label is confusing).
Apple’s developer docs on sandboxing and filesystem access explain why this kind of thing happens, even though they don’t make it sound nearly as annoying as it is in practice: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/app_sandbox
After that reset, everything snapped into place. The game launched consistently. Saves were created instantly. No more freezes when switching spaces or letting the window sit in the background. It finally behaved like a normal macOS app.
While I was sorting this out, I found this page useful as a reference point for how recent macOS versions handle game installs and permissions, and I kept it bookmarked while testing: https://carwallpaper.xyz/game/23423-ticket-to-ride-first-journey.html
One thing worth noting: performance itself was never the issue. Once the permissions problem was solved, the game ran smoothly even on the M1, no spikes, no weird frame pacing. The whole problem was macOS blocking file access without clearly saying so.
If someone wanted to avoid all this drama, the safest path is honestly the App Store build, since Apple pre-clears most of these security hurdles there. Even if you’re not sure about the exact listing, the official search is here: https://apps.apple.com/us/search?term=Ticket%20to%20Ride%20First%20Journey
NimbusApps’ own site and docs are light on macOS-specific troubleshooting, but the game itself isn’t doing anything unreasonable — it’s just colliding with Apple’s increasingly strict defaults.
If I had to sum up what I learned, it’s this: on modern macOS, when a game “just doesn’t launch” or freezes silently, assume security and permissions before assuming bugs. The OS is very polite about blocking things now, to the point of being unhelpful.
For future me (and maybe future you), here’s the short mental checklist I wish I’d started with: – Try right-click → Open once to surface Gatekeeper. – Check Privacy & Security for file access before reinstalling. – Reset permissions if the app was moved or updated. – Disable App Nap for games that freeze in the background.
That’s it. The game itself is fine. macOS just needed to be convinced that it wasn’t a threat. Once I spoke its language, it stopped sulking and everything worked as expected.