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Tervia

Hi everyone. I'm Tervia. I'm of a similar age to Five and NeoLuna, also having been introduced to Escape Velocity by my dad when the games were current, with Nova being the one I was made most familiar with. I never interacted with the community then, obviously, and had forgotten about it for a good while after, our game licenses lost to time.

But I had found the game again by rediscovering its open-source spiritual successors, and with the abandonware status of the EV series salvaged by the unearthing of an old crack, I was eventually able to play them once again. Over the past few years, I have also felt fortunate to be able to be see a community reconstitute itself around these games, with people and developers, old and new, coming together to forge and enjoy new experiences. And that has lead to the formation of a community forum, something we haven't had since the Ambrosia SW forums went down for good in 2019. This is a great gift that I am eternally thankful to Wizard for.

As of late, I've been playing other space games (FTL: Multiverse mainly) and FFXIV. but with Five's White Dwarf EVN TC now out in beta, I've been sinking my teeth into that, sort of liveblogging my run and reporting potential issues. I hope to do the same with CF:O and hopefully the fan projects that come out of that.

I'm happy to see so many people here! Welcome! And here's to hoping this can be a cool place for all.

croc

Hello, I'm croc. I help maintain the open source port of Avara, ASW's Best Arcade Shooter, and I've been a fan of Ares and EV since I first pulled them off of a MacAddict magazine CD-ROM at age 8 or something.

Glad to see everyone here. I think putting this forum together was a solid gold decision, hopefully it brings more of these disparate projects with common interests together.

And, this forum software is pretty cool. Kinda like discourse, but a little more stylish.

EamonnMR

Hello. I'm Eamonn, not to be confused with the leader of the wild geese in Nova. One of my earliest experiences of really finding a game exciting was EV Override (probably around 98), and returning later to Nova in 2006 had me completely hooked. Of course my nostalgia for the EV series is always going to be somewhat mixed up with enjoying a summer camp computer lab and the atmosphere of everyone in the room playing games, rose colored glasses and all that. It was also my first real taste of being Very Online; I lurked the hell out of the boards and even tried posting my own ill-advised plans and such. The temptation to build your own EV is so strong because it's just possible enough, and that impulse helped set me on the path to my career, so I really can't complain.

As far as my EV Resume goes, I nicely asked Onyx to put his shipyard under a real license. I tracked down a bunch of the Escape Velocity ship designs in old Estes catalogues, with surprising results. I spent an inordinate amount of time pulling old shipyard graphics out of the internet archive and far flung plugins because they're fun to collect, and because I want to make it easier for people to make EV clones. Speaking of EV clones, it's been my hobby horse since I got into programming, so just about every other project I make is a silly little EV clone; some of the highlights include:

The web one, flythrough.space a culmination of my many attempts at an EV TC going all the way back to the aughts. (Retrospective and discussion)
The Multiplayer One, mpevmvp, an attempt to realize a collective dream (or show that it's not as fun as we thought.)
The Current One, Spacecraft22 (that needs a way better name), which mixes in some crafting mechanics and has more emphasis on mining, building space stations, and my attempt to build a 3d shader that adds perspective like the sprites in EV nova while still using an ortho camera.

Rooster

Hi I'm roostersw! I enjoyed the Ambrosia forums for many years. It was a wonderful community for me to be a part of at a young age when I did not connect with people well in what we used to call meatspace. I have fond memories and I am honored if anyone from back then gets a smile out of seeing me here. It's been a long time. I used to make an animated GIF comic series called Roosterman that featured old forum members in amusing, increasingly Stargate-themed adventures. I liked Ambrosia games and especially EV a lot, but nothing remotely approaching the dedication of those of you who are still making very elaborate and laborious plugins and the like. It's really cool what you guys are doing these days. I'm excited about this being a new social space and I look forward to hanging out and getting to know some folks. 🙂

soy

Rooster Lowkey was always looking forward to the next Roosterman to see if I was in it. I think I actually was one time and it was the highlight of my month, haha.

vIsitor

Rooster Oh yeah, I remember those animated GIF comics of yours. Only ever watched a few on the ASW forums because my dial-up internet at the time was kind of shit (and I didn't tend to frequent Banter & Brawl), but I distinctly recall a few things. IIRC, something about an antagonist called 'The Fermentor' who buried character in olives? And a ship powered by a 'cat matrix reactor'? IDK, my memory is fuzzy.

Actually, now I'm kind of wondering if you've still got the comic saved in an archive somewhere. Would certainly be a nostalgic glimpse into peak 90s internet humor, if nothing else.

Zitchas

Greetings, all! Longtime EV fan. Got into it via a copy of EV from (I think) a MacFormat shareware disk, eventually owned all three games. Been on the AmbrosiaSW boards since pretty early on. Still wish I could have seen the "Polaris revamp" project reach completion, with all those tantalizing half-pictures of ships and stuff...

Now I'm backing and looking forward to Cosmic Override revitalizing the game and opening up new opportunities for us to experience the games and write new stories.

DragonMaus

Hello all, DragonMaus here (and everywhere). I played the EVN demo back in the inscrutable mists of the past (mid-late '00s, I think?), and have been an Ambrosia fan ever since. I've mostly lurked around the various ASW communities that have popped up over the years, and will likely continue to do so. You may also spot me lurking around some of the EV/EVO/EVN derivative communities and projects.

kauthor

Ah good memories! Hello all! My name is Kirk Staley! I was originally pulled into testing games... remember Moki? I also had the opportunity to tour ASW Headquarters with @mrxak when I was at RIT/NTID. And it is good to see you, @Meowx !

battledoctor

Glad to see there's still some sort of an ASW community around. I joined the forums in... early 2001? Something like that. Maybe some of you remember me.

Do we have a Discord or anything like that?

nathan67003

battledoctor We sure do!

CaptainSkyblade

Like many here, I stumbled on Escape Velocity in the late 90's off a MacAddict CD as a young kid (I was probably 12 or so). My life was never the same-EV became my drug. I lost count of all the fights I had with my brothers over whose turn it was to play EV. While I spent many of the coming years playing or creating mods for Override, Nova and Ares, I think EV Classic was the game I credit for permanently instilling a love for space gaming and science fiction. The outstanding community of the old UBB forums was also inspirational in developing a passion for 3D art and design (good times on the old art gallery... Weepul, Admiral Zombat, Ragashingo etc). Looking back, I think I was often overwhelmed with all the plug / mod ideas I had for Ambrosia games, since few of those projects ever reached completion... I was constantly bouncing between projects, never quite giving my full attention to a single one. While EVO: Cold Fusion did reach release status, I never got around to finishing the EV Classic version of it, along with the total conversion for Override: Dreden War, and Ares: Override etc. While I certainly regret not wrapping up some of those projects, I definitely don't regret all the great times I had with fellow mod developers and writers. We had some good teams and a lot of fun.

The demise of Ambrosia Software was unfortunate, but seeing elements of the community still around is great to see. It's fantastic that some of that fan following continue to work on reviving and continuing work on some of their classic games.

jeffbyrnes

Hi folks! Found this gem of a community thanks to a Bluesky post. I can’t recall how I originally came across Escape Velocity, but I was already an Ambrosia SW fan at the time, having played Maelstrom courtesy of a MacAddict CD or something like that.

I put in hundreds of hours playing EV, EVO, and EVN, and I’m delighted to be able to replay them thanks to hard work from lots of folks here.

And I had totally forgotten about Ares, so I’m delighted to rediscover that delight of a game!

I never posted much on the old Ambrosia forums, but when I did, it was under the handle “Asckar” or “Gogo” (my choices back in those days), so if you remember may, feel free to say hello 🙂

Jazvolt

Heya!

I was a fairly frequent poster on the old Ambrosia SW site probably around 2002 or 2003. I genuinely can't remember what username I used back then. I remember getting the shareware version of the original EV... I think from a friend, rather than from a demo CD. I definitely ran it on a truly ancient Macintosh LC. I eventually got a G3 iMac for a christmas present, and, since that could run Nova, I had to beg my mom to allow me to put a money order of all things through to New York.

I've kind of hung around the periphery of the community since then. I think it's truly amazing that there's such a nice group that's still in love with Ambrosia's games, and the EV series in particular. I still boot up Nova and do a playthrough every so often, and I'm looking forward to (one day) playing Cosmic Frontier.

captcovfefe515

Hey, everyone.

I never had the opportunity to participate in the original Ambrosia forums back in the day because I was a child at the time, but I grew up on these games and they mean the world to me. I was first introduced to them through a demo disc that my mother found at a sales conference somewhere while she was working for Apple around the time Steve Jobs came back. We had several of those original iMacs and lots of other Mac models that they released around that time, and she got one of the original iPods as well. None of that mattered as much to me as the Ambrosia demo disc though. Those games, particularly EV Override and Nova, Mars Rising, Chiral, Barrack and Harry the Handsome Executive rank as some of my favorites from the disc. After we got high-speed Internet, I went and played the Introversion games Ambrosia released for Mac.

I'm hoping some people in this community have had the opportunity to keep in touch with some of the developers, like Andrew Welch, David Wareing, Ben Spees, Matt Burch, Peter Cartwright or the ATMOS guys. I'd love to chat with them and hear their stories about the business.

Geek

Welcome!

I’m happy to say that one of ATMOS’ dev team is very active in the community. While he’s not often in these forums, you’d find him easily on the Discord server.

songemot

I originally joined the ASW boards as Sponge Tom when I was in my early teens. Several years prior, EVO, Maelstrom, Swoop, and Mars Rising had become some of the first video games I ever played, followed by EVN and Deimos Rising later on.
I was on and off in the forums from the mid- or late-2000s until they went offline, often taking a hiatus whenever I got busier in real life or realized I was losing a debate in JC.
Ambrosia hasn't really been on my radar lately. My gaming regimen these days consists of an occasional couple rounds of TF2, playing Mario Party on the N64 with my oldest daughter, and speedrunning MDK. If my kids are anything like me, it'll be fun taking them through the EV series when they're old enough.
I'm getting off track, but anyway, happy to see a few old familiar names.

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