Industry Software, video games Website www.ambrosiasw.com Type Privately held company | Key people Andrew Welch Founded 18 August 1993 | |
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Products Shareware video games and utilities Headquarters Rochester, New York, United States Video games Escape Velocity Nova, Escape Velocity, Escape Velocity Override, Apeiron, Maelstrom | ||
Ambrosia Software is a predominantly Macintosh software company located in Rochester, New York, U.S. Ambrosia produces utilities and games. Its products are distributed as shareware; demo versions can be downloaded and used for up to 30 days.
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Ambrosia's best-selling program is the utility Snapz Pro X, according to a 2002 interview with company president Andrew Welch, although the company is better known for the production and the distribution of games. It was incorporated August 18, 1993 by Welch after he graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992.
The first game produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom, a 1992 remake of the 1979 Asteroids arcade game. Maelstrom won a number of software awards. This initial success led Ambrosia to release several more arcade-style games, including Apeiron (a remake of Centipede), Swoop (a clone of Galaxian), and Barrack (a clone of JezzBall). In 1999, Cameron Crotty of Macworld wrote "No other company has gotten so much mileage out of renovating mid-1980s arcade hits."
At least half of the company's ten employees were laid off in 2013, but Welch denied rumors of the company shutting down.
Games
Ambrosia Software's games, in order of release:
Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the Escape Velocity Nova Card Game.
Productivity Software
Ambrosia Software's utilities, in order of release:
No "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, creating what is commonly called nagware. This policy has since been changed and the company today employs typical shareware piracy prevention measures, as well as more innovative ones such as used in the Escape Velocity line of games where Hector the Parrot will use her heavily armed frigate to attack players of unregistered copies after the trial period has expired. Their software products now fall under the category of crippleware. Matt Slot has written about the factors that played into the policy change.