How to play P.T. Barnum's Acrobats on Mac

Game summary

P.T. BARNUM'S ACROBATS! (1 or 2 players at a time) SINGLE PLAYER VERSIONS Press 0 on the numeric section of the keyboard. You are under the Big Top at the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus! One of the acrobats is standing on the platform at the left side of the screen. His partner is on the teeter board at the center of the screen. Three rows of balloons are dancing back and forth high above their heads. Use the joystick of the right hand control to move the teeter board from side to side. Use the action button to make the acrobat jump from the platform. If he lands on the high end of the teeter board, the other acrobat will fly into the air. (The closer the first acrobat lands to the high end of the teeter board, the higher the second acrobat jumps. If he does not jump high enough to reach the first row of balloons, he will crash.) If the flying acrobat hits a balloon it will pop and give him a bouncing chance to pop some others. Keep moving the teeter board so he lands on the high end when he finally comes down. A complete game is a series of ten jumps. The number of jumps left in the game is displayed at the lower center of the screen. Scoring: BALLOONS IN BOTTOM ROW - 2 POINTS BALLOONS IN MIDDLE ROW - 4 POINTS BALLOONS IN TOP ROW - 6 POINTS Your score is displayed at the lower right corner of the screen. Bonus scoring: ALL BALLOONS IN BOTTOM ROW - 15 POINTS ALL BALLOONS IN MIDDLE ROW - 20 POINTS ALL BALLOONS IN TOP ROW - 25 POINTS When all of the balloons in a row have been popped, a full row of new balloons will appear automatically. If you score over 999 (Nothing is impossible!), the counter at the lower right of the screen will start again at 000. A line directly over it will indicate you are working on your second thousand points! To play again, press any key except SPACE or RESET! Pressing SPACE will display the best score in a series of games at the lower left corner of the screen. Pressing
First released: Feb 1982

Play P.T. Barnum's Acrobats on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play P.T. Barnum's Acrobats 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).

P.T. Barnum's Acrobats 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 P.T. Barnum's Acrobats like you would on any PC.
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