How to play Galaga '88 on Mac

Game summary

The gameplay in Galaga '88 is built on the same premise as that of the original Galaga game, but is in many ways more complex and more difficult. The game is divided into a series of 29 Stages distributed through eight Worlds. The starship Galaga accelerates between Stages and Worlds and even to higher dimensions (go to the section on Dimensional Travel below to find out more). With the exception of the third and eighth, each World culminates in a Challenging Stage. There are six such stages to engage in any full game, and each begins with the on-screen announcement "That's Galactic Dancin'!" and has its own YM2151-generated song to which the enemy formations dance. In any given Challenging Stage, both the design of the enemies and their dancing formations shall vary according to the player's current Dimension. As in Galaga, the objective is to destroy all forty enemies before they fly away off the screen. However, refraining completely from touching any controls for the duration of a Challenging Stage awards a "secret bonus" ranging in value from 10000 to 25000 points, and equal to the "special bonus" which would have been awarded for destroying all forty enemy aliens instead. Galaga '88 introduces a variety of new enemies and behaviors. Most of these special enemies are worth varying amounts of bonus points when destroyed. Some enemies can combine into larger enemies which take multiple hits to destroy, while others arrive in eggs, explode in a shower of fireworks, grow with multiple hits, or sport armor which makes them invincible while in formation. Certain enemies drop small formations of tiny creatures that wiggle their way down the screen, and still others can act as escorts to incoming groups of enemies and then quickly dive at the player before leaving the game. Most stages also include various obstacles which appear once the enemy formation has been assembled. These can be destroyed with either one or several shots, and the first one on each stage wi
First released: Dec 1987

Play Galaga '88 on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Galaga '88 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).

Galaga '88 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 Galaga '88 like you would on any PC.
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