Ambrosia Software

Ambrosia Software is a predominantly Apple Macintosh Software company located in Rochester, Monroe County, New York, New York. Incorporated August 18th, 1993 by its president, Andrew Welch, Ambrosia produces utilities and games. Their primary method of business is shareware; they allow for 30 day trials of any of their software. Registration is voluntary, however, in most of the games, if one does not register they do not have full access to the computer program.

While the utility Snapz Pro has sold the most copies, Ambrosia is most notable for the distribution of games. The first game ever produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom (computer game) (basically a version of Asteroids, but with improved Graphics), which became quite popular. Other popular games are the Escape Velocity (computer game) series, the Macintosh version of Uplink (computer game) and Apeiron (computer game) (recently ported to Mac OS X). Recently, Ambrosia released WireTap Pro, a digital recording program. WireTap Pro is used to record audio from any application on Mac OS X and save it to any of a variety of formats.

The unofficial mascot of Ambrosia Software is Hector (Ambrosia Mascot).

=Titles=

==Anti-Productivity Software (Games)==

Ambrosia Software s games include (in order of release date, latest at the top):

*El Ballo (computer game) *Darwinia (computer game) - Mac OS X port *Gooball (computer game) *Apeiron (computer game) - Mac OS X port of the original, with enhanced graphics *Aki (computer game) *Uplink (computer game) - Mac OS X port *pop-pop *Bubble Trouble - Mac OS X port of original, with minor gameplay changes *Escape Velocity Nova *Coldstone *Deimos Rising *Pillars of Garendall *Ferazel s Wand *Ares (computer game) *Cythera (computer game) *Slithereens *Escape Velocity (computer game) *Mars Rising *Harry the Handsome Executive *Bubble Trouble - later ported to Mac OS X, original no longer available *Avara *Escape Velocity (computer game) *Barrack (computer game) *Swoop (computer game) *Apieron (computer game) *Chiral (computer game *Maelstrom (computer game)

Ambrosia s announced upcoming games, as of October 2005, include:

*Redline (computer game) *Siege (computer game) - not on Ambrosia s upcoming page, presumed inactive *Rockfall (computer game) - not on Ambrosia s upcoming page, presumed discontinued

Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the Escape Velocity Nova Card Game.

==Productivity Software (Utilities)==

Ambrosia Software s utilities include (in order of release date, latest at the top): *EasyEnvelopes - Mac OS X v10.4 Dashboard (software) widget *Screen Cleaner Pro - April Fool s joke *WireTap Pro *Snapz Pro X - Mac OS X-compatible version of original *iSeek *Snapz Pro *ColorSwitch Pro *Eclipse (software)

=Community=

Ambrosia Software has gathered a sizeable following in the Apple Macintosh community in part due to forum-based discussion of its products, and the out-going personalities of the company s employees. Mainly supported through the company s web site internet forum and their Internet Relay Chat server (irc.ambrosia.net), the community lists over 10,000 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 software 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.

=External links=

*[http://www.ambrosiasw.com Ambrosia Software] *[http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/ Ambrosia s Forums] *[http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/upcoming/ Upcoming Games Directory] *[http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/newsletter/ The Ambrosia Times] *[http://ev3.jonpearse.net/ #ev3 Quote Archive] *[http://www.macgamer.net/games/ MacGamer.net], contains strategy guides to many of Ambrosia s games