![]() Each release's engine contains improvements on the previous version, although by far the most significant improvements were made in the third release. ![]() The three games are alike in gameplay only the universe and plot are completely separate and unrelated between the releases. They can choose to be a trader or a mercenary or an asteroid miner among a number of things or a combination of several. They can choose which missions to follow and which governments to form a good relationship with or to be entirely neutral. Many people consider this series unique in the way that it prescribes very little as to what the player can do. Plot-lines progressed through landing on planets and visiting certain places, like mission computers, or the spaceport bar. Many of these systems contain planets that can be landed on for various services like upgrading the ship with gadgets or even buying a new one. The player can make hyperspace jumps between many systems. There are various battles to be fought and places to go. Most of the game takes place in a spaceship shown from third-person. Since Windows does not support resource forks and it is therefore impossible to preserve them when transferring files to Windows-based computers, an alternate format and a conversion system were devised for the Windows version of the game. This technology is based on the Macintosh resource fork format, making it possible to develop plug-ins without using any purpose-designed editors (though several editors exist and are popular since they make the task much easier). This allows the scenarios to be completely rewritten or significantly added to by those in no way associated with Ambrosia in terms of graphics, plotline, ships, missions, etc. The entire series features what many people consider a very open-ended plug-in architecture. For obvious reasons, players are not permitted to share or redistribute their registration codes. Once the game has been registered, Cap'n Hector and all of the other restrictions disappear from the game. Additionally, in EV Nova the game's story lines cannot be completed, plug-ins cannot be used, and Cap'n Hector attacks the player after the thirty-day trial. There is also the character called 'Cap'n Hector' (after Ambrosia's office parrot who reminds the player to register. During that time, the player is simply reminded at startup that they have not registered, and told how many times they have played the game, and for how many hours. These copies will work without limitation for 30 days. Ambrosia's shareware system allows most distribution of unregistered games. This series follows the general licensing rule for Ambrosia Software. EV Nova has been ported to Windows, and adapted versions of the scenarios of the first games are available as free plug-ins. The first two are Classic-only, but EV Nova is a hybrid Carbon and Classic application (not solely Carbon as is often claimed), meaning it can run natively on both the original Mac OS and Mac OS X. The first two Escape Velocity games were only available for the Apple Macintosh. Similarly, the developers pay no heed to the near-constant requests for a multi-player version of the game besides the amount of work that would be required to produce one, they doubt that the end result would even be fun. ![]() ![]() This is often countered with the fact that for many years, the developers denied that a third release would be forthcoming, but the circumstances are rather different in this instance the development of EV Nova was far more complicated, and lasted several years longer than any of the developers anticipated. A plug-in of additional phrases was also created and later included as part of EV Override.Īlthough there has been much speculation, the developers make a specific point that there will be no fourth release of Escape Velocity. The fighter pilot voices in the original game were provided by Patrick Delahanty. Peter Cartwright wrote the scenario for Override and the Australian company ATMOS created the scenario of EV Nova both originated as plug-ins for the game before being picked up by Ambrosia as sequels. Early test versions of the game went by the name "Merc" (short for " mercenary"). Ambrosia Software, headed by Andrew Welch, managed marketing, registration, and distribution. He also devised the scenario for the first game. Matt Burch programmed it almost entirely, except for the registration system and various libraries. The series was created as a joint effort between several people and groups. Two other similarly-themed titles based on the same game engine, EV Override and EV Nova, followed in 19 respectively. The first game, Escape Velocity, was released in 1996. Escape Velocity is a single-player, role-playing, space computer game series. ![]()
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