Pararena
Pararena | |
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Developer(s) | John Calhoun |
Platform(s) | Classic Mac OS |
Release date(s) | 1990 |
Genre(s) | Action |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Pararena is an action computer game for the Apple Macintosh computer originally written in 1990 by John Calhoun and released as shareware.
Gameplay
It is a mouse-controlled ball game where two players compete on hoverboards in a parabolic arena with two "goals" on the sides. The objective is to gain scores by getting the ball into the other player's goal and, on the other hand, to protect one's own goal. The ball can be held for a while by squatting on it (holding the mouse button down) and then thrown to the current direction. If a player is tossed out of the arena still holding the ball, the opponent will get a score and the player will respawn in a few seconds.
The game is situated in space and the two competing teams are called "Earth" and "Taygete".
History
Pararena was written in 1990 by John Calhoun. In 1992, in association with Casady & Greene, Calhoun wrote version 2.0 of Pararena which had 16 color graphics and was then a commercial product.
On 27 Jan 2016, the source code, graphics, and sound data for Pararena were released on GitHub with the source code being licensed under the MIT license.[1][2]
Reception
Pararena was reviewed by Metthew Wilber who described the game as "one of the great hits that never was" praising "clean graphics, memorable characters" and "elegantly simple game play".[3][1]
References
- 1 2 Get a window into classic Mac dev with Glider source code by Christian Nutt on Gamasutra (February 12, 2016)
- ↑ Calhoun, John (2016-01-29). "Sources for the Macintosh game, pararena, written by John Calhoun and published by Casady & Green Inc.". GitHub.
- ↑ Pararena 2 Review by Matthew Wilber
External links
- Pararena 1.2.1 as a StuffIt archive in FUNET's FTP archive of old Macintosh games
- The Vintage Mac Museum: Pararena Slideshows
- Pararena download at the Macintosh Garden
- Pararena 2 source code repository on github.com