How to play Spectar on Mac

Game summary

Spectar, released by Exidy in 1980, is the follow-up of Targ. Gameplay is apparently unchanged, you control a vehicle called Whummel into a 9x9 grid maze, chasing down, and being chased by, the alien invaders. Targs have evolved into the more dangerous Rammers, and Spectars appears more often, shooting at player's ship. You use a 4 way joystick to guide your vehicle in the maze, and a pushbutton to shoot at enemies. Up to two players can alternate in gameplay. The most noticeable difference from his predecessor is that to complete a level you must now collect all the gems in the maze, in a Pacman-like game. Rammers and Spectars continue to appear from flashing pods, so you cannot rest and plan your course easily, or you will be overwhelmed by the alien force. Graphic is highly improved compared to his predecessor: the maze now has barricades that must be avoided or can be used as a shielding against the enemies, and has ten environement settings, changing from the "square-block town" of Targ to a city, a forest, a lunar landscape and many more. The enemies too are smarter and faster, and the fact that they go on spawning from the pods makes the game a even more frenzy challenge.
First released: Dec 1980

Play Spectar on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Spectar 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).

Spectar 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 Spectar like you would on any PC.
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