How to play Pokémon Art Academy on Mac

Game summary

This Pokémon-themed installment of the Art Academy series offers Pokémon fans and budding illustrators alike 40 unique lessons to learn how to paint, sketch and draw beloved Pokémon characters in 2D. Along the way, students of Pokémon Art Academy can pick up actual illustration skills that they can transfer onto real canvas, or share their digital masterpieces with the world. Pokémon Art Academy boasts 40 lessons in which players can encounter favorite Pokémon from throughout the series, such as Pikachu, Oshawott, Charizard, Torchic, Fletchling and Fennekin. The Art Academy series offers a comprehensive virtual art studio with a variety of realistically behaving art materials. Wield the stylus with tactile precision on the Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo 2DS touch screen to use a plethora of paint, pencils and pastels. A hallmark of the Art Academy franchise is its easy-to-follow lessons with step-by-step guides that teach painting and drawing techniques. A friendly tutor takes students of all ages through these lessons, each of which breaks down complex-looking images into simple steps. Gradually, players pick up more new techniques that allow anyone to create artwork they can be proud of.
First released: Jun 2014

Play Pokémon Art Academy on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Pokémon Art Academy 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).

Pokémon Art Academy 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 Pokémon Art Academy like you would on any PC.
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