| Ambrosia Software | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | August 18, 1993 |
| Headquarters | Rochester, New York |
| Key people | Andrew Welch — President |
| Industry | Software industry/Computer and video game industry |
| Products | Shareware games and utilities |
| Website | http://www.ambrosiasw.com/ |
Ambrosia Software is a predominantly Macintosh software company located in Rochester, New York. Incorporated August 18, 1993 by its president, Andrew Welch, Ambrosia produces utilities and games. Ambrosia's products are distributed as crippleware; demo versions can be downloaded and used for up to 30 days. Ambrosia's best-selling program is the utility SnapzPro[1], although the company is better known for the production and the distribution of games. The first game produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom, a remake of the Asteroids arcade game. Maelstrom quickly became popular in the Macintosh community, and won a number of software awards.[2] This initial success led Ambrosia to release several more arcade-style games. These included Apeiron (a remake of Centipede), and Swoop (a remake of Space Invaders). The unofficial mascot of Ambrosia Software is Hector the Parrot.
Contents |
Products
Games
Ambrosia Software's games are, in order of release:
- Maelstrom
- Chiral
- Apeiron — later ported to Mac OS X
- Swoop
- Barrack
- Escape Velocity
- Avara
- Bubble Trouble — later ported to Mac OS X
- Harry the Handsome Executive
- Mars Rising
- EV Override
- Slithereens
- Cythera
- Ares
- Ferazel's Wand
- Pillars of Garendall
- Deimos Rising
- Coldstone game engine
- Escape Velocity Nova
- Bubble Trouble X — Mac OS X port of original, with minor gameplay changes
- pop-pop
- Uplink — Mac OS X port
- Aki
- Apeiron X — Mac OS X port of the original, with enhanced graphics
- GooBall
- Darwinia — Mac OS X port
- El Ballo
- Redline
- SketchFighter 4000 Alpha
- DEFCON
- pop-pop — Universal Binary release
Ambrosia's announced upcoming games and utilities, as of September 2007, include:
- Aquaria — Mac OS X port
- Siege — not on Ambrosia's upcoming page, presumed inactive
- Rockfall — not on Ambrosia's upcoming page, presumed discontinued
- Cythera X — not on Ambrosia's upcoming page, presumed inactive
Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the Escape Velocity Nova Card Game.
Productivity software
Ambrosia Software's utilities, in descending order of release:
- WireTap Studio — Audio recording, editing and master storage
- iToner — iPhone custom ringtone transfer utility
- Dragster — File transfer application
- EasyEnvelopes — Mac OS X v10.4 dashboard widget
- Screen Cleaner Pro — April Fool's joke
- WireTap Pro — Audio recording utility
- Snapz Pro X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original
- iSeek — Desktop search application
- Snapz Pro— Screen capture application
- ColorSwitch Pro
- Eclipse
Community
Ambrosia Software has gathered a sizeable following in the Macintosh community in part due to forum-based discussion of its products, and the outgoing personalities of the company's employees. Mainly supported through the company's web site forums and their IRC server (irc.ambrosia.net), the community lists over 20,000 members with support forums for each of Ambrosia's utilities and games, complemented by general discussion forums focusing on politics, graphics, games and general camaraderie.
"Crippled" shareware
One of Ambrosia's founding mantras was that shareware software should not be distributed as crippleware. The company's software was released on the honor system with only a short reminder that you had used the unregistered software for "x" amount of time; so-called nagware. This policy has since been changed and the company today employs typical shareware piracy prevention measures. Their software products now fall under the category of crippleware. An article in the company's newsletter, the Ambrosia Times, outlines the factors that played into the policy change.[3]
References
- ^ http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/1836201&mode=archive
- ^ Into the Maelstrom. The Mac Observer (199-12-08). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.
- ^ The Ambrosia Times Newsletter
External links
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| Games | Aki · Apeiron · Aquaria · Ares · Avara · Barrack · Bubble Trouble · Chiral · Cythera · Darwinia · DEFCON · Deimos Rising · The Adventures of El Ballo · Escape Velocity · Escape Velocity Nova · Escape Velocity Override · Ferazel's Wand · GooBall · Harry the Handsome Executive · Maelstrom · Mars Rising · Pillars of Garendall · pop-pop · Redline · SketchFighter 4000 Alpha · Slithereens · Swoop · Uplink |
| Software | Coldstone game engine · ColorSwitch Pro · Dragster · EasyEnvelopes · Eclipse · iSeek · Screen Cleaner Pro · Snapz Pro · Snapz Pro X · WireTap Pro |
