How to play VGA Planets on Mac

PlatformsComputer

Game summary

VGA Planets is a multi-player, space strategy war game originally released in 1992. The game simulates combat in space between galactic scale empires. It follows the 4X game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate) model: The players start with a homeworld, and have to build spaceships, explore the galaxy, colonize planets, mine minerals, build up their industry. The game is set in the "Echo Cluster" where 11 different races fight for control. It was one of the first indie games to become commercially successful. It was notable for being played via email, without a central server: each game of up to 11 players is handled independently, with the players sending their orders for each turn to the computer which manages that game. A hosted web version is now available.

Play VGA Planets on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play VGA Planets 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).

VGA Planets 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 VGA Planets like you would on any PC.
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