do i need a mac to distribute my game to OS X platform?

I’m developing on Window 10 with VS2015. I want to create a .app file suitable for deploying my game to OS X.

Do I need to just break down and buy a cheap used Mac Mini from eBay for ~$125 and set it up for local VNC so I have a way to test and deploy on OS X? Or is there a way I can avoid this and sitll deploy without having direct access to a Mac?

I do have OS X Mavericks running on VirtualBox, but it’s really buggy and my game doesn’t work on there.

@SoundGoddess

You need a Mac machine along with a Apple developer program attached to a Apple ID if you want to deploy to the App Store. Xamarin’s plugin for Visual Studio can connect to a Mac build host over the local network though. (It’s slow in my opinion but hey it works!)

If you don’t need to publish your app to the App Store, you don’t need a Mac or an Apple developer subscription to build, package and publish games which can run on OS X.

DesktopGL projects are meant to work on Windows, OS X and Linux independently of the environment that built them.

They must however be packaged with either MonoKickstart or mkbundle to run on OS X or Linux (on end-users machines). You can refer to flibitijibibo’s documentation to package with MonoKickstart, but be sure to use the monogame fork linked (which include essential dependencies for MonoGame projects). A proper MonoGame documentation for this specific needs is on its way.

Since Xamarin has changed their Mono licensing, it is no longer required to use their products to package application for OS X or Linux.

You’ll still need an Apple developer subscription if you plan on publishing your app to the App Store.