How to play Influent on Mac

PlatformsPlatform, Computer

Game summary

Inspired by Dreamcast titles of old (namely Shenmue and Toy Commander) Influent immerses players in a fully interactive 3D environment where the names for absolutely every object in the game can be gleaned with a single click! In fact, even more information can be learned with a double-click! Every door, drawer, and cabinet can be opened with a right-click here and a right-click there, revealing more and more things to be learned! Packed to the brim with hundreds of native audio pronunciations (painstakingly recorded specifically for this game), Influent offers players a unique opportunity to enjoy learning both vocabulary and pronunciation in the language of their choice. With 10 languages currently available for download, Influent combines the joys of playing a video game with the language learning process, resulting in real-life rewards and achievements that will remain with players for the rest of their lives. Influent is a Language Learning Game focusing primarily on vocabulary acquisition and pronunciation. It was initially developed in Japan at the University of Tsukuba's Entertainment Computing Laboratory under the Monbukagakusho Government Research Scholarship. After research funding ran out, further funding from a wildly successful Kickstarter Campaign allowed for the completion of the game. A research paper on the ideas surrounding the game and its applications was published by the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), which can be viewed in its entirety here.
First released: Feb 2014

Play Influent on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Influent 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).

Influent 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 Influent like you would on any PC.
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