This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2013) |
Pillars of Garendall | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Beenox Studios [1] |
Publisher(s) | Ambrosia Software |
Composer(s) | Mathieu Lavoie |
Platform(s) | Mac OS Classic Microsoft Windows Mac OS X [2] |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Role-playing |
Pillars of Garendall is a role-playing video game that was built by Beenox Studios and Ambrosia Software. It was built using the Coldstone game engine, which was also a joint Beenox/Ambrosia project. [1] The game was released in 2001 [3] [4] for Mac OS Classic, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. [4] [2]
Due to problems with the Coldstone game engine, which renders Pillars of Garendall unplayable on recent versions of the Mac OS X platform, Ambrosia Software stopped selling licenses for the full game [5] [6] and as of December 2008, the Coldstone game engine has been indicated as being "discontinued" with regard to the latest version information on the Ambrosia Software website. [7] The new management of Beenox is uninterested in fixing these problems with the game engine. [5] Ambrosia Software has stated that they want to fix the Coldstone software, but that they never would have agreed to distribute the project if they had known they would have to provide updates and bug fixes. [8]
In the game, the capital city of the kingdom of Garendall, Gidolan Keep, is being attacked by monsters, and the player must train to eventually defeat them. [9] Demos of the game were made available for the Mac OS platform, the Mac OS X platform and the Windows platform[ citation needed ].
Among other things, the game-making capabilities of the Coldstone game engine software were confirmed by the building of the PoG game. [1] Inside Mac Games gave Pillars of Garendall a 7.75 out of 10 rating, noting the game's detail and elaborateness with such things as 2D sprites in a 3D environment even though the game premise was unoriginal. [10]
The Coldstone game creation software is designed to provide a full solution for creating role-playing or adventure-style games. [11] Although the Coldstone software itself only runs on the Mac OS platform, [12] [13] it is capable of compiling stand-alone games that run on the Mac OS 9 platform, the Mac OS X platform, or the Windows platform. [14] The full version of Coldstone shipped with a CD of royalty free artwork for use in one's custom games. [14]
In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple. It is built into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and uses Apple's open-source browser engine, WebKit, which was derived from KHTML.
Escape Velocity Nova is a video game developed by Ambrosia Software in collaboration with ATMOS. It is the third game in the Escape Velocity series of space trading and combat games. It was released on March 19, 2002 for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, and later ported to Windows and released on July 11, 2003. The game's premise, set in a time period after mankind has discovered hyperspace technology, grants the player freedom to take missions, trade goods, steal from other ships, and enter one of six storylines.
Ambrosia Software was a predominantly Macintosh software company founded in 1993 and located in Rochester, New York, U.S. Ambrosia Software was best known for its Macintosh remakes of older arcade games, which began with a 1992 version of Atari, Inc.'s Asteroids from 1979. The company also published utility software. Its products were distributed as shareware; demo versions could be downloaded and used for up to 30 days. Later the company released some products for iOS. Ambrosia's best-selling program was the utility Snapz Pro X, according to a 2002 interview with company president Andrew Welch.
Apple Productivity Experience Group is an operating unit of Microsoft that, as of 2009, is the largest software developer outside of Apple Inc. for the macOS and iOS operating systems. Formed as Macintosh Business Unit on January 7, 1997, it was initially composed of over 100 individuals from the existing cross platform Word, Excel, and PowerPoint teams in Microsoft's Office Division, and grew to 180 people the next year, with the addition of the Internet Explorer for Mac and Outlook Express for Mac teams. In 2000, it moved from the Office Division to the Specialized Devices and Applications Group inside the Entertainment and Devices Division, and is now back inside the Microsoft Office division.
Internet Explorer for Mac was a proprietary web browser developed by Microsoft for the Macintosh platform to browse web pages. Initial versions were developed from the same code base as Internet Explorer for Windows. Later versions diverged, particularly with the release of version 5, which included the cutting-edge, fault-tolerant and highly standards-compliant Tasman layout engine.
Apeiron is a Macintosh game developed and released as shareware by Ambrosia Software. An adaptation of the 1980 arcade game Centipede, it was first released on February 11, 1995. In November 2004, a Mac OS X port was made available.
Casady & Greene was a software publisher and developer active from 1988 to 2003. The company primarily released software for Macintosh, but also released software for Windows and Newton. Casady & Greene was formed in 1988 when Greene, Inc. acquired CasadyWare, a company owned by Robin Casady.
Canvas X is a drawing, imaging, and publishing computer program from Canvas GFX for personal computers.
Timbuktu is a discontinued remote control software product originally developed by WOS Datasystems. Remote control software allows a user to control another computer across the local network or the Internet, viewing its screen and using its keyboard and mouse as though sitting in front of it. Timbuktu is compatible with computers running both Mac OS X and Windows.
Bubble Trouble is a maze game originally released for Mac OS 7 by Ambrosia Software in 1996. It is an interpretation of Sega's Pengo from 1982 with the penguin recast as a goldfish and the setting moved underwater.
GooBall is a 2005 an arcade-style puzzle video game developed by Over The Edge Entertainment for Mac OS X and published by Ambrosia Software. It is Over The Edge's first game, and runs on an early beta version of the Unity engine, which it was meant to showcase. Though it was highly downloaded, the game was commercially unsuccessful, leading Over The Edge to change its focus from making games, to making the Unity engine.
Mac gaming refers to the use of video games on Macintosh personal computers. In the 1990s, Apple computers did not attract the same level of video game development as Microsoft Windows computers due to the high popularity of Microsoft Windows and, for 3D gaming, Microsoft's DirectX technology. In recent years, the introduction of Mac OS X and support for Intel processors has eased porting of many games, including 3D games through use of OpenGL and more recently Apple's own Metal API. Virtualization technology and Boot Camp also permit the use of Windows and its games on Macintosh computers. Today, a growing number of popular games run natively on macOS, though as of early 2019, a majority still require the use of Microsoft Windows.
Executor is a software application that allows Motorola 68000-based classic Mac OS programs to be run on various x86-based operating systems. Executor was created by ARDI. As of 2005, Executor development has been indefinitely postponed; as of 2008, it was made available as open source software.
VMware Fusion is a software hypervisor developed by VMware for Mac computers. VMware Fusion allows Macs with Intel or the Apple M series of chips to run virtual machines with guest operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, or macOS, within the host macOS operating system.
Beenox Inc. is a Canadian video game developer established in 2000 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The studio became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision on May 25, 2005.
Escape Velocity Override is a space trading simulator game written by Peter Cartwright, with the support of his school-friends, and developed by Ambrosia Software for the Apple Macintosh. It is the sequel to Escape Velocity with an extended version of the original game engine, but Override has an entirely new story line set in a different, larger universe.
Mono is a free and open-source .NET Framework-compatible software framework. Originally by Ximian, it was later acquired by Novell, and is now being led by Xamarin, a subsidiary of Microsoft and the .NET Foundation. Mono can be run on many software systems.
MonoGame is a free and open source C# framework used by game developers to make games for multiple platforms and other systems. It is also used to make Windows and Windows Phone games run on other systems. It supports iOS, Android, macOS, tvOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. It implements the Microsoft XNA 4 application programming interface (API). It has been used for several games, including Bastion and Fez.