How to play Tape Worm on Mac

Game summary

With Tapeworm, Spectravision gives a whole new meaning to the slithering slimes that people love to hate. According to the manual of the game, tapeworms live in bean patches, love to eat fruit and are preyed upon by other critters named Beeky the Bird, Spanky the Spider and Mystery Beetle. Uhhhh, right. Our hero here is Slinky, a tapeworm who's patrolling the local bean patch. In order for him to get to the fruit he loves, he has to slither around the screen eating up all the beans. He consumes them by touching a bean with his head (merely a yellow square), and by doing so, another bean appears somewhere else on the screen, and then you're off again. The more beans Slinky eats, the longer he grows. Which is a problem. As you steer the worm through the bean patch, you need to take great care not to coil him back over himself because, omnivore that he is, Slinky will eat himself. Don't tread too gingerly because while Slinky is hot after those beans, a beetle is moving across the bottom of the screen, outside the patch, bearing down on something you're supposed to believe is an apple (on later levels, different fruits take the apple's place.) Trust me when I say that it takes a great imagination to believe the block graphics resemble anything you'd find at a farmer's market. Anyway, if the beetle gets to the fruit before Slinky eats his bean, two more beans appear on the screen and Slinky has to eat them, too. Other predators include the Mystery Beetle, Beeky and Spanky. They bleep across the bean patch at random intervals. If they happen to touch Slinky's head, it's curtains for the worm. Taken as a whole, Tapeworm isn't too bad. It borrows elements from Atari's Surround and Rock-Ola's obscure Nibbler. But what where Tapeworm fails is in its presentation (i.e. - crap graphics) and unresponsive controls.
First released: Jun 1982

Play Tape Worm on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Tape Worm 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).

Tape Worm 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 Tape Worm like you would on any PC.
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