How to play Puckman on Mac
Game summary
Of all the electronic hand-helds to have at school in the early 1980s, the Grandstand Munchman was the king at my school. Looking back at it now, I can only assume this was based on size and appearance rather than gameplay.
Compared to something like the Grandstand Mini Munchman, or the Tandy Ogre Eater, the Grandstand Munchman's gameplay is quite weak. Munchman himself can only face in one direction, a necessity of LED space, and the pills can therefore only be eaten from one direction, right to left. Ghosts and Munchman can never fully occupy the same space and so collisions are unrealistic. Ghosts do not change colour once you've eaten a power star, there's just an irritating clicking noise instead. But was quality an issue back then? Nope. It was enough to own one of these things to be the most popular kid in the class on "bring your games day". This toy lights up, and board games just can't compare to that. It also plays the same start-game music of the original Pac-Man arcade machine.
However, the product design of the game itself is gorgeous. There's no mistaking the casing for anything else, looking like a giant yellow munchman-UFO hybrid. The electronics inside this casing occupy less than 50% of the internal space. Just like other handhelds of the time, this was from an era where electronics really were Made In Japan and with Munchman being based/licenced on the Japanese TOMY original "Puck-Man", the Grandstand Munchman is no different. Quality plastic, perfect fit. Only the sticker above the screen is a potential wear-point.
Play Puckman on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)
The easiest way to play Puckman 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).
Puckman 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 Puckman like you would on any PC.
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