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By Brad Cook Need a little pick-me-up during the middle of the day, when your body rebels against your brain’s demands to finish your assignments?
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 Ambrosia delivers thrills with Deimos Rising. |
Then indulge in one of the sweet treats located on Ambrosia Software’s web site. We think a couple levels of blasting spaceships in Deimos Rising, or a little fantasy adventuring in Pillars of Garendall, will do the trick.
And if you really want to fire your synapses, load Coldstone on your Mac and create your own games, playable on any platform. Better yet, challenge your friends to game-building contests. Or build plug-ins for your friends’ Coldstone games. Then distribute your masterworks far and wide and bask in accolades from gamers around the world.
The arcade style action of Deimos Rising will
keep you on your toes.
keep you on your toes.
Don’t forget that all of Ambrosia’s new titles are built for Mac OS X, so you can switch between games and work with ease, thanks to the operating system’s protected memory and multitasking abilities. These will come in handy when the boss stops by your office.
A Dream
“For me, Mac OS X is a dream,” says Andrew Welch, the “el Presidente” and founder of Ambrosia Software.
He continues: “Gaming Nirvana is playing my favorite game — such as Deimos Rising — in a window under Mac OS X while iTunes is kickin’ it in the background, a few dozen applications are open that I can switch in and out of during game breaks, and having it all just work.”
Welch places extra emphasis on that final word because, at the end of the day when the last spaceship has been blown to smithereens and the last spell has been cast, he appreciates the operating system’s ability to keep everything running on his Mac without a hitch.
It’s all about “being able to have games running that are just other tasks that you can glide seamlessly between,” he says. “Let’s just say that it fits the short attention span theater that’s become my life.”
Something for Everyone
Whether your attention span runs long or short, Ambrosia has a game for you. Take their latest titles for example: the shoot-em-up arcade game Deimos Rising recalls the best of that genre from the 1980s while it takes full advantage of today’s technology, such as enhanced sound effects and more detailed graphics.
Design your own fantasy land with Coldstone.
“We’ve made the Mac OS X version as good, if not actually better than, the Mac OS 9 version,” says Welch.
And Pillars of Garendall is an epic fantasy role-playing game that may remind you of too many late nights spent with Baldur’s Gate II, but without the overly intricate rulebook.
“It’s almost like a fun old fable brought to life via a computer game,” Welch explains. “Your job is to weave yourself into it, not keep track of a myriad of numbers and statistics like some other role-playing games force you to.”
Impressive Stuff
Ambrosia, in conjunction with developer Beenox, built Pillars of Garendall with Coldstone, which Welch says “was the only way we could ensure that Coldstone was capable of more than just a theoretical game.
“Once Coldstone was up to speed, the rapid prototyping it offered allowed Beenox to try many different ideas quickly and easily.”
So don’t be intimidated by Coldstone before you give it a whirl. Welch says it was “designed from the ground up to do one thing well... produce professional quality games. You can have a very modest game up and running on Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X within 10 minutes of launching Coldstone. That’s impressive stuff.”
Even more impressive is the fact that you don’t need a technical background to create games with Coldstone, which Welch believes will herald a revolution much like the desktop publishing movement.
“Coldstone allows people to create things that were formerly impossible for them to do,” he explains. “That’s what computers are all about.”
Charming graphics await you in POG
And if you don’t want to build an entire game from scratch, you can always create a plug-in similar to Trinity, which expands Pillars of Garendall with three new character classes. “The plug-in architecture ensures that anyone can extend the game as long as we choose,” says Welch. “[Trinity] gives a small glimpse into what can be accomplished with plug-ins.”
An Evil Plot
Pillars of Garendall isn’t the first expandable Ambrosia game, however. Gamers have been adding to the open-ended environments in the popular science-fiction strategy games Escape Velocity and Escape Velocity Override since the former arrived in 1996.
Soon, Ambrosia will add a third title, Escape Velocity Nova, to the franchise. “Bigger, badder, and deeper” than the first two games, according to Welch, this one features a rich storyline that allows players to follow one of nine story threads (six major, three minor) depending on the choices made.
Equip your player and head out for adventure in POG.
“Escape Velocity has been such a popular series because it’s so easy to learn, offers so many hours of gameplay, and doesn’t restrict the player from being able to do what they like,” says project manager Dave Williams of ATMOS Software Productions. “They can explore the galaxy, make a fortune as a free trader, or hire themselves out as a mercenary. All for top dollar, of course.”
Creator Matt Burch, who overhauled the game’s code for this title, adds that the series’ popularity is also “due to its expandable nature. If you seek further challenges beyond what’s offered by the game’s default scenario, it’s a simple matter to download plug-in files whose effects range from the addition of a few ships to ‘total conversions’ that replace the entire game universe with a fresh one.”
Like the first two titles, Nova includes editing tools that will keep players busy for a long time.
“Just as our evil plot to sap productivity worldwide has predicted,” Welch says with a laugh.
If you want to keep up with the latest news on Ambrosia’s dastardly plans, click over to their web site, where you can download free demo versions of Deimos Rising, Pillars of Garendall, Coldstone, and many other games and utilities. If you like what you play, you can purchase the complete version of each game for a small fee.
Whoops, better get back to work — the boss is headed for your office.
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 Get a history lesson in Ambrosia 101 andhas to offer. 
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