How to play Subterranea on Mac
Game summary
Subterranea is Imagic's entry into the Defender category. Subterranea's gameplay is broken into two types of screens. The first is a side view dogfight between your ship and some hapless enemies that are trying to home in on it. Things heat up in the second (and far more common) type of screen, which consists of Defender-style action minus the humanoids. You're required to shoot a specific number of aliens, then pass through a gate to the next stage.
Like Defender, aliens come in all shapes and sizes, and have varying attack patterns. Some of them shoot at you, some bounce, but all the action is a far cry faster than Defender. Once all the aliens are destroyed, you must pass through an electro gate that zaps in certain patterns--failing this forces you to repeat the current level without scoring any points. After at least three Defender style screens, it's back to the dogfight. Subterranea awards extra lives not by scoring, but by completing stages without being hit. while Subterranea borrows concepts from other games and doesn't appear to be very original, there's just something about it that keeps you coming back for yet another game.
First released: Dec 1983
Play Subterranea on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)
The easiest way to play Subterranea 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).
Subterranea 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 Subterranea like you would on any PC.
Did it work?
Help us improve our guide by letting us know if it worked for you.
👎👍