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Early Drops of Nectar
Many people find their place in life when they least expect to. Andrew Welch was no different. He created his first game, the Asteroids-inspired arcade title Maelstrom, while he was in college. He says he did it “mostly to prove that my old Mac IIsi could do decent high-speed animation.” What he didn’t expect was the warm reception the game received. Macworld magazine bestowed a four-star rating. MacUser offered the 1993 award for Best Shareware Game. The 1994 Mac Home Journal Reader’s Choice Awards voted it first place. And Welch discovered that success has its advantages. “I took a trip to Iceland with my roommate,” he recalls, “and we ran into the manager of a bar there who somehow knew about Maelstrom. He even had my roommate doing some of the sound effects — which he did for the original game — in the bar for free drinks.” Sixteen games later, Ambrosia Software is a full-time job for him and his small staff, who work out of an office in Rochester, New York. 
Not Just Games In addition to games, Welch also offers a few utilities, such as the screenshot utility Snapz Pro. If you want to immortalize your high scores in Deimos Rising or send images of your homebrewed Coldstone games to your friends, Snapz Pro will come in handy. The latest version of Snapz Pro is native to Mac OS X, which Ambrosia announces on its main web page with a call to “Carpe Aqua.” And if you want to chat with other Ambrosia fans, check out the active online message boards. You’ll find discussion groups for almost every game (even Escape Velocity Nova), FAQs for every title, and the latest Ambrosia news. Intrepid web surfers might even want to try out the discussion areas set aside for general chat, pictures (of anything, not just games), and games other than Ambrosia’s offerings.
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 Maelstrom: A Mac classic.  Snapz Pro: Shoot your favorite games! |