from Hacker News

The Rise and Fall of Ambrosia Software (2019)

by kaptain on 12/11/20, 8:05 AM with 138 comments

by mewse on 12/12/20, 1:18 AM
Andrew kind of took me under his wing during the early days of Ambrosia and taught me a lot about game coding, while I was still in high school.
He eventually bought the rights to a game that I had put together and basically transformed it; it became “Chiral”, which I believe was the second game released by Ambrosia.
For $1500 he got the source code, data, IP rights, and a time-limited non-compete. It seemed like an almost unimaginably large amount of money to me back then (I was in my last year of high school), but I’m sure it was the smallest of his costs in polishing up the game to his standards! In retrospect, I’d be startled if he didn’t decide the code was a complete write-off and needed to be rewritten from scratch; I’d been an absolute neophyte at the time! But he was kind enough not to tell me about it, if so!
Andrew and I still have never met face to face; our conversations were entirely online. And we lost touch shortly after I went off to university. I’m a little embarrassed to have missed this talk, even though was actually in the building at the time. I was exhibiting my own game over in the expo hall, and I had completely lost track of time. Exhibiting your own game is definitely a bit overwhelming; a lot more than exhibiting somebody else’s one!
Andrew was definitely the one who got me seriously into game development and made me think about it as a viable career. In a lot of ways, I’m in the industry today because of him.
by TomAnthony on 12/11/20, 9:37 PM
Former Ambrosia employee checking in! TomWoozle was my handle back then.
I worked at the company from 2003-2005, having (like many here) grown up on their games and spent hours modding Escape Velocity.
I mainly worked on the website (I wrote a version of the online store ground up in PHP), but also ran testing for a while and worked managing the later Windows conversion of EV Nova.
It was an incredible place to work and I learnt so so much. Andrew was an amazing mentor and an extremely generous guy. My time there absolutely changed my life.
One thing that stands out, and it feels like something that won’t be regained from that era, is that everyone there was just having great great fun. I loved going to work. We were a business, but I never remember money being the deciding factor in any decision. It was all passion.
I miss those times!
If people are interested AMA (though late here so may be tomorrow when I answer).
by rezmason on 12/11/20, 8:38 PM
The Ambrosia game portfolio's biggest impact was just being so much more polished than Mac games typically were at the time. The publishing model, I suppose, afforded them the resources it required to make everything really pop.
I remember the first time my brother and I ran Maelstrom. The splash screen was hypnotic. I was like, "Computers can do this?"
Back then their Zeus logo had me thinking they were a team of like a hundred people.
Also, I probably wouldn't have spent any time in ResEdit if it weren't for games like Ambrosia's that encouraged folks to make custom sprite and sound packs.
by sleazebreeze on 12/11/20, 7:12 PM
Modding Escape Velocity games was a critical part of my childhood and probably set me on the path of becoming a software engineer.
The parts in this post about the 90s Mac fanaticism are spot-on. I remember having many arguments with friends and neighbors that all were "Winblowz" users and my feelings of smug superiority over them.
by unpixer on 12/12/20, 1:14 AM
Long ago, Ambrosia Software had a booth at one of the major tech conferences. Contests, trivia questions, t-shirts to win, the usual. Also, they were at the end of a major push to fix bugs in their games, and to celebrate they'd cooked up a bunch of food with bugs in it, and--somehow--convinced their marketing guy to eat the stuff in front of a bunch of attendees. (Maybe he lost a bet?)
And yes, I mean actual bugs. Insects. I'm talking roach pizza, worm casserole, that sort of thing.
Anyway, he shilly-shallied a bit, and finally agreed to do it, as long as he got to wash the stuff down with wine. (I'm assuming this part was staged as they'd brought a bottle.)
There was just one problem.
No corkscrew.
An appeal went out to the couple of dozen attendees: "Does anyone have a corkscrew?" Bunch of nerds at a tech conference, and nobody had a corkscrew...what are the chances?
Well, nobody except me, because I'm so ragingly dorky I never go anywhere without a Swiss Army knife of some sort.
I offered it up, the bottle was opened, there were cheers, and the guy standing next to me began lobbying the employees to give me a free t-shirt. Other attendees around him took up the chant, and the Ambrosia Software employees, to their credit, handed me a t-shirt when they returned my knife. It was a really nice one, black cotton with that big square maroon Ambrosia Software logo on the back, and the single word 'thaumaturgy' on the front in white lowercase monospaced font.
I wore that shirt for years afterward, until it somehow got lost in the shuffle of dropping laundry off at the laundromat. I'm still sad about its loss, because I was wearing that t-shirt the first time I talked to the woman who later became my wife. It was the shirt that initially caught her attention. We're still together to this day.
So thank you, Ambrosia Software. Thanks for the games...and everything else.
by oofabz on 12/11/20, 7:22 PM
For me, it was Avara. An online multiplayer FPS in 1996, when 3D graphics and the internet still felt like science fiction. The skill ceiling was high and games were very competitive. Shout out to the ®ed §quadron, the clan I was in. I am still in touch with friends I met in the game, more than 20 years later.
The game has been ported to modern OSs: https://github.com/avaraline/Avara/
There is a video of gameplay with commentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AutG8KO4DsY
by danaris on 12/11/20, 8:09 PM
As someone who grew up on Ambrosia games—from Maelstrom and Apeiron to EV Nova and pop-pop—I'm honestly glad that the company ended the way it did, rather than getting sold off to some megacorporation like Activision or EA and having its soul destroyed and its name tarnished.
Ambrosia Software defined an era, for those who lived in the Mac world during that time, and while it would have made me happy to see them continue on, I think the circumstances that allowed them to exist and be successful could only exist during that era.
Also worth noting that there's been a recent successful Kickstarter[0] for a modern remake of/successor to EV Override, called Cosmic Frontier: Override. The impression I've gotten so far from the updates is that their timeline for release is going to be some time in the 2022-23ish time frame.
[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cosmicfrontier/cosmic-f...
by dougmwne on 12/11/20, 8:16 PM
Shout out to EV Nova, still one of my top 5 videogames. It was the 3rd game in the series and the most polished. It had multiple storylines you could play through and each was epic and memorable.
by natechols on 12/11/20, 6:52 PM
Any chance some of the copyright holders would be interested in open-sourcing the code? Escape Velocity in particular. EDIT: especially since these games are no longer playable without registration, ouch. Hope I still have my EV Nova code somewhere.
by re on 12/11/20, 9:24 PM
I'm still bummed that the removal of Carbon and 32-bit support in macOS Catalina meant the final death of running EV Nova natively on macOS. It got me checking out emulation options for older OSes to see if there would be a way that I could ever play it again, but I either couldn't get them to boot properly (for most versions of OS X), or the performance was too poor (in Sheepshaver).
by crusso on 12/11/20, 9:53 PM
Andrew Welch had an intense Bolo addiction for a while. It was in the latter part of my own Bolo addiction, but we played quite a few games together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_(1987_video_game)
Ah, Bolo.
by Waterluvian on 12/12/20, 1:07 AM
Escape Velocity + ResEdit was how I got into programming at 8 years old.
Back then I didn't have internet access and had hours upon hours of time to explore my family mac without distraction. I came across ResEdit and teduously learned how to change stuff in the game. First thing I learned is to always back up your software. I would make mods for my brother to play. Javelin Spray was my favourite.
My brother and I would also daisy chain AFB keyboards and he would control the ship and I would control the escorts.
Some of my fondest childhood memories.
by kaptain on 12/11/20, 8:07 AM
An archive for some of the software can be found here: http://www.ambrosiaarchive.com/.
by amatecha on 12/11/20, 9:52 PM
Ambrosia is probably the most legendary Mac game developer. There was no other singular studio whose games were so avidly anticipated and played. Such well-polished games, with great gameplay. I can easily recall every single game they ever made. I think Maelstrom was the first one I played. Great memories :)
by sitharus on 12/11/20, 11:51 PM
Oh wow this brings back memories. I spent many of my teenage year playing, modding and beta testing the Escape Velocity games. I learnt 3d modelling for modding using a pirated copy of lightwave (I’m not proud, but a 13 year old in New Zealand was never going to afford that - even the shareware fee for the games made my dad think)
I spent so much time on the IRC server and forums I ended up moderating the ev developers board, even on the unofficial ones after the software change drama. I used the inventive nickname ‘blackhole’ then. Teenagers. Met a lot of weird and wonderful people.
I’ve been checking on the site every so often since 2008, but it’s sad to see them go. It was a special time.
by Detrus on 12/11/20, 9:53 PM
My favorite was Ares. https://github.com/arescentral/antares
A unique combination of strategy and action.
Played a lot of Escape Velocity too. Those games were special.
by somedude895 on 12/11/20, 6:55 PM
Growing up in a Mac household, Harry the Handsome Executive was my childhood. I loved all of Ambrosia's stuff.
by TomMasz on 12/12/20, 3:04 PM
I live just down the street from their office. I remember their parking lot full of cars. Then one day, it was empty and there was a large sign on the front door. Their sign is still up, oddly enough.
by spike021 on 12/11/20, 11:39 PM
I really miss EV: Nova. It's probably one of the games I've re-played the most. I even kept playing it for the longest time with the expired trial where the ultra-modded, overpowered Starbridge follows you around to kill you for not paying for the full version.
Not easy to install anymore with the license server down and all, and I've tried playing the games that try to be clones but they've never really hit the same way.
by plasticsoprano on 12/11/20, 7:16 PM
EV was great but I wasted so many hours with Barrack. It's the one game I wish would return.
by aerovistae on 12/11/20, 11:54 PM
It's worth noting that two of the people who worked on escape velocity are creating a remastered version of sorts, called Cosmic Frontier. Search for the kickstarter and you'll find their project updates!
by KnightofNININI on 12/12/20, 11:59 AM
Ambrosia was my first meeting with message boards. I joined in 2000 I think. I loved to play EV, Override, Nova, and Ferazel's Wand. The EV games combined with Resedit were my first forays into modding games, and Ferazel's Wand along with Mascot was great fun. I still run SheepShaver on my modern systems because of Ambrosia Software.
A friend of mine, who was also a member and fan, wrote a personal reimagination of Barrack as a hobby project while learning coding. While it does lack the ever-charming Bosco, the gameplay is still good!
by paloaltokid on 12/11/20, 7:49 PM
There's a game from the 90s called Hyperspeed by MicroProse that I wish someone would do a similar writeup on. I freaking loved that game and I can't find it anywhere now.
by EamonnMR on 12/12/20, 2:42 PM
I wasn't gonna post this until it was more Done, but if anyone is reading this they might enjoy my multiplayer EV clone in Godot: https://github.com/eamonnmr/mpevmvp
The server runs best on Linux, and you need to host a server (press host server in the main menu) before you can play. It's not very complete but most of the basics are there.
by poulsbohemian on 12/12/20, 12:39 AM
The details escape me, but I recall being about 13 around 1990, 1992?, newly into coding, and meeting up with Andrew Welch in some kind of chat forum. What I remember was that he was incredibly kind and offered words of encouragement for my budding programming future. Ambrosia was a serious fan favorite for their commitment to quality games. The 90s were exciting times for software.
by wlesieutre on 12/12/20, 12:17 AM
All this talk of Escape Velocity inspired me to do a bit of googling, and I just wanted to let everyone know that Captain Hector's namesake (Hector D Byrd) has his own twitter and will be turning 28 in about a month: https://twitter.com/hectordbyrd
by ingenieros on 12/11/20, 8:35 PM
Snapz Pro was nearly impossible to delete from your machine once installed. Not quite ransomware, but close enough.
by fwipsy on 12/11/20, 11:12 PM
Ah, nostalgia. I bought a 2006-ish Mac Mini recently just so I could go back and play Ambrosia stuff. Managed to get Sketchfighter and Diemos Rising working, but not Gooball unfortunately - this was since the registration server went down, and I guess the DRM hasn't been cracked.
by pwinnski on 12/11/20, 6:52 PM
Wow, does this bring back memories!
Ambrosia was a huge part of my early days with the Mac. Such great stuff!
by geogra4 on 12/11/20, 8:29 PM
The first piece of shareware I ever purchased was escape velocity. Wonderful little game
by DoofusOfDeath on 12/11/20, 7:23 PM
Chiral was awesome. I still remember how my pulse would race during the harder levels.
by inetknght on 12/11/20, 9:01 PM
I'm using Firefox. It says:
> You must enable DRM to play some audio or video on this page.
Uhh... what's up with that?
by leelin on 12/12/20, 5:24 AM
Reading the ending hits closer to home and made me more sad than expected!
Andrew Welch was uneasy about the idea of scaling up, especially when they could survive as they were just fine off their utility products
Way back in the day, YC always said not to worry about competitors raising tons of money (not sure if that's still the rec). The 2008 DHH boostrapping talk during Startup School is still one of the most influential videos on my career as a founder. But that path is increasingly less popular! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY
Lastly, for all the bolo comments out there, I remember the huge transition from modems to school ethernet that made it playable - it was honestly one of the reasons I was looking forward to dorm life!
by poisonarena on 12/11/20, 10:04 PM
For me, it was Taskmaker and Tomb Of the Taskmaker
by unhammer on 12/11/20, 6:56 PM
Blogs require DRM now?? :-((
by ketamine__ on 12/11/20, 7:30 PM
Cythera was pretty cool.