Pillars of Garendall

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Pillars of Garendall
Pillars-of-Garendall-game-logo.png
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
  • NA: August 27, 2001 [3]
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]

Contents

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]

Description

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]

Engine

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]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Cook, Brad. "Like Manna: Games from Ambrosia Software on Mac OS X". Apple Inc. Archived from the original on 2008-03-24. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
  2. 1 2 "Will Pillars of Garendall run under OS X? | Ambrosia Software, Inc". Ambrosia Software. 2005-09-20. Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  3. 1 2 "When was Pillars of Garendall first released? | Ambrosia Software, Inc". Ambrosia Software. 2005-09-20. Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  4. 1 2 "Ambrosia releases Pillars of Garendall RPG". Macworld. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
  5. 1 2 Dunham, David (2005-08-01). "Black Screen Problems with PoG and Coldstone games..., Is it because of OSX???". Ambrosia Software . Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  6. "Ambrosia Software, Inc. -- Pillars of Garendall FAQs". Ambrosia Software. 2005-09-22. Archived from the original on 2008-11-29. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
  7. "Products | Ambrosia Software, Inc". Ambrosia Software. Archived from the original on 2008-12-18. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
  8. Dunham, David (2005-06-16). "PoG, ..." Ambrosia Software . Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  9. Welch, Andrew (2001-07-06). "[ANN] -- Pillars of Garendall Preambles". Ambrosia Software . Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  10. Barylick, Chris (2001-11-15). "Pillars of Garendall". Inside Mac Games . Retrieved 2014-03-24.
  11. Cohen, Peter (2002-07-01). "Game Room". Macworld . Retrieved 2014-04-07.
  12. "Will Coldstone ever be ported to Windows? | Ambrosia Software, Inc". Ambrosia Software. 2005-09-15. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  13. "Is Coldstone compatible with OS X 10.4 - Tiger? | Ambrosia Software, Inc". Ambrosia Software. 2005-09-15. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  14. 1 2 Cohen, Peter (2002-01-16). "Do it yourself with Ambrosia's Coldstone game engine". Macworld . Retrieved 2008-08-24.