Collection of Apple Macintosh shareware games, sourced from a large collection of (UK edition) Apple Mac magazine cover CDs, spanning mid-1990s through to early-2000s.

Ambrosia Software was a predominantly Macintoshsoftware company founded in 1993 and located in Rochester, New York, U.S. Ambrosia Software was best known for its video games, but also published utility software. Its products were distributed as shareware; demo versions could be downloaded and used for up to 30 days. The company also released some products for iOS. Ambrosia's best-selling program was the utility Snapz Pro X,^[1] according to a 2002 interview with company president Andrew Welch.

In 2017, customers reported on Ambrosia's Facebook page that attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful and they were unable to make new purchases.^[2] As of July 2019, the website is offline.

History[edit]

Ambrosia Software was incorporated August 18, 1993 by Andrew Welch after he graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992.^[3]The first game produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom, a 1992 remake of the 1979 Asteroids arcade game. Maelstrom won a number of software awards.^[4] 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.'^[5]

Nearly all of the company's ten employees were laid off in 2013, but Welch denied rumors of the company shutting down.^[6]

Products[edit]

Games[edit]

Ambrosia Software's games, in order of release:

• Maelstrom — Asteroidsremake
• Chiral
• Apeiron — Centipede remake
• Swoop — Galaxian clone
• Barrack — JezzBall clone^[7]
• Bubble Trouble — Pengo remake
• Harry the Handsome Executive
• Slithereens
• Cythera
• Deimos Rising
• Coldstone game engine
• Bubble Trouble X — Mac OS Xport 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
• Darwinia — Mac OS X port
• DEFCON — Mac OS X port
• pop-pop — Universal Binary release
• Uplink — Universal Binary release
• Aki — Universal Binary release
• Mondo Solitaire
• Aki — iPhone/iPod Touch release
• Aquaria — Mac OS X port
• Escape Velocity Nova — Universal Binary release
• Multiwinia — Mac OS X port
• Hypnoblocks

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

Productivity Software[edit]

Ambrosia Software's utilities, in order of release:

• Eclipse — Screen saverCDEV
• Big Cheese Key — FKey to mask screen image from boss.
• FlashWrite — Text editor Desk Accessory
• FlashWrite ][
• ColorSwitch — Menu bar item to change monitor color depth
• EasyEnvelopes — Envelope printing Desk accessory. Later a Mac OS X v10.4 and Mac OS X v10.5Dashboard widget.
• Snapz
• To Do!
• Oracle
• Snapz Pro— Screen capture application
• iSeek — Desktop search application
• Snapz Pro X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original
• WireTap Pro — Audio recording utility
• Screen Cleaner Pro — April Fool's joke
• Dragster — File transfer application
• iToner — iPhone custom ringtone transfer utility
• WireTap Studio — Audio recording, editing and master storage; won a 2007 'Eddy Award' from Macworld
• WireTap Anywhere — professional virtual audio patchbay utility, enabling the recording of any Mac OS X application's audio output from within any Mac OS X audio application.
• Soundboard — Mac OS X Audio playback ('computerized cart machine')
• Big Cheese Key X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original

No 'Crippled' shareware[edit]

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.^[8]

This policy was later changed and the company employed typical shareware piracy prevention measures,^[9] as well as more innovative ones such as used in the Escape Velocity line of games where the team's mascot, Hector the Parrot (known in-game as Cap'n Hector), would use her heavily armed ship to ceaselessly attack players of unregistered copies after the trial period had expired. Their software products therefore fell under the category of crippleware.^[9] Now that the company no longer provides new expiring license codes, customers who had purchased Ambrosia software are now treated as though they have expired trial versions, for instance meaning that Cap'n Hector's attacks in Escape Velocity games cannot be stopped.

Free mac apps downloads. I've looked at, but I know my iCloud and App Store passwords and they've been updated in my settings, but I never get asked for any password.

Matt Slot has written about the factors that played into the policy change.^[8]

References[edit]

1. ^'MacSlash Interview: Andrew Welch of Ambrosia'. MacSlash (retrieved from the Internet Archive). 2002-01-23. Archived from the original on 2007-12-31. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
2. ^'Ambrosia Software'. Facebook. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
3. ^'Home-grown Ambrosia feeds software niche', Michael Saffran. In RIT: The University Magazine, Vol. 10, #1
4. ^'Into the Maelstrom'. The Mac Observer. 1999-12-08. Archived from the original on 8 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
5. ^Crotty, Cameron (January 1999). 'Mars Rising'. Macworld.
6. ^Mathis, Joel. 'Despite layoffs, Ambrosia says it's still in business'. Macworld.
7. ^Salvador, Phil. 'Barrack'. The Obscuritory.
8. ^ ^abSlot, Matt (2002-03-11). 'The Plain Truth about Casual Software Piracy'. TidBITS. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
9. ^ ^abWelch, Andrew (2000-01-22). 'Ambrosia Times: President's Letter: On CDs and Shareware'. Ambrosia Software. Retrieved 2011-04-28.

External links[edit]

• The Ambrosia Archive (a fan-run archive of Ambrosia Software installers)

This is a list of some of the most popular freeware and free and open-source softwarefirst-person shooter games.

Freeware clients[edit]

Some free-to-play online first-person shooters use a client–server model, in which only the client is available for free. They may be associated with business models such as optional microtransactions or in-game advertising. Some of these may be MMOFPS, MMOTPS or MMORPG games.

Game engines[edit]

References[edit]

Top 10 Shareware Programs

1. ^Red Eclipse
2. ^Unvanquished
3. ^ ^abList of free MMOFPS games

Free Shareware Games For Mac