How to play Valhalla on Mac
Game summary
Valhalla was a ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 adventure game published in 1983 by Legend.
Valhalla is mostly text-based with some graphics showing the location and the characters there. It was set mainly in Asgard and Midgard, though when your character died you would reappear in Hell (Niflheim under another name) and be able to walk out.
Within its limits, the text parser would understand multi-part sentences, so long as they were written using the words it understood, which (unlike in many other games) were helpfully listed in the manual.
The aim was to collect six mythical objects, for which you needed the help of other characters, who were taken from Norse mythology and would wander around randomly. The six objects were Ofnir (key), Drapnir (ring), Skornir (shield), Skalir (sword), Felstrong (axe) and Grimnir (helmet). These objects were needed to access otherwise unreachable parts of the game, however carrying any of them would sap your strength.
To help with the quest, your character had an alignment (between good and evil) that would change depending on which other characters you helped. Thus, the more you helped good characters, the more other good characters would help you. Characters include gods, goddesses, dwarves, dragons, wolves, a snake and a raven.
Within the game world, characters would move about and interact independently without any action required from you. If you do nothing, the game will 'play' itself, with the characters moving about whilst you decide what to do.
Typing in a swear word would generate the message "Mary is not amused..." and a dwarf[1] would dash onto the screen to punch the player. Mary could be found in El Vinos but killing her achieved little as she would return within a minute.
The game engine had a limit of eight objects that could be left in any one location, whether on the ground, in a chest, or in a cupboard. If the player dropped an object when the limit had been reached, a character called Klepto
First released: Dec 1983
Play Valhalla on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)
The easiest way to play Valhalla 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).
Valhalla 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 Valhalla like you would on any PC.
Did it work?
Help us improve our guide by letting us know if it worked for you.
👎👍