How to play Aquaventure on Mac

Game summary

Aquaventure is a bit of a mystery in the prototype world. It was never mentioned in any Atari press releases nor does it show up on any internal part lists. Aquaventure seems to have popped out of the woodwork one day without any public fanfare nor any history behind its mysterious origins. In any case, Aquaventure seems to be complete and ready for release, we can only speculate as to why it was shelved. The game concept is simple; you must dive to the bottom of an undersea cavern and retrieve a fabulous treasure (which just happens to look like a small house of some sort). Along the way you must avoid fish, sea horses, and other underwater creatures attempting to block your path. Your diver came prepared however, for he is armed with a spear gun which he can use to temporarily kill one of the creatures. However, each enemy you kill is soon replaced by a faster and indestructible version of itself, so you need to carefully carve a path to the bottom only destroying the creatures that get in your way. After retrieving the treasure and returning it to the top of the cavern, a mermaid will appear. Touching the mermaid will take you to the next level, where you get to do it all over again. At the top of the screen there is a turtle, which shows how much air you have left. If the turtle reaches the Air sign at the far end of the screen before you complete the level you loose a life.
First released: Dec 1983

Play Aquaventure on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Aquaventure on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Aquaventure installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Aquaventure like you would on any PC.
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