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Escape Velocity: Override (Cosmic Frontier Kickstarter to re-do engine involving one of the original creators)

Avalon Aurora

Not quite mad?
I loved Escape Velocity: Override and Escape Velocity: NOVA back in the day (never got around to playing the original.

Ambrosia Software, the original publisher, is dead, so it's no longer possible to get new copies of the game or unlock through the old shareware system.

Now a kickstarter has started involving the original creator of the Override scenario:


Cosmic Frontier: Override is being made by a fan programmer, along with the creator of the original Override senario, Peter Cartwright.

There are only 5 days to go and they haven't quite hit the funding goals.

Threads are already up on Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity, and Steam's forum section for Endless Sky, but there doesn't seem to be one here, so I thought I'd share it in hopes of getting a few more people involved so it can hit the minimum funding goal before the deadline.



The Escape Velocity games were oldschool space games, with RPG elements. You pilot ships in a top-down environment, primarily using a system that follows rules of inertia, which is quite different from a lot of other space games where you only move when you are pressing the 'gas', and allows for some interesting maneuvers and techniques. You can trade various goods between systems, take various missions (both randomized and scenario ones for various storylines), ship cargo, ferry passengers, fight pirates, hunt bounties, turn pirate, fight in wars between factions, and more. You can purchase or earn through missions better ships as you progress through the game or in various factions, and upgrade and customize your ships with various 'outfits'. In many ways, it's the old-school 2D predecessor to games like Elite: Dangerous, EVE: Online, and Star Citizen. The original games were for Mac, but NOVA, the 3rd game in the series, also came out with a Windows version, and total conversion mods to allow one to play Override or Classic in it's engine even on Windows.

More recent attempts to make games like it by old fans include the Open Source NAEV and Endless Sky games, neither of which are finished, and both of which are part-time projects from the looks of it that are progressing relatively slowly, as well as having engine differences that mean they probably aren't going to enable proper conversions of the old games, while Cosmic Frontier: Override is planned to have the engine become open source once released, and be capable of using the old files from NOVA, Override, and Classic scenarios, and old plugins/mods, to allow people to play the old games on Mac, PC, and adding a Linux version.

The old game engine wasn't doing well even before Ambrosia went defunct, as it was using Quicktime, which is no longer supported or considered secure on Windows, and various other issues, like compatibility issues with recent versions of Mac OS, and is planned to have some updates and additions to Override, depending on goals met by the kickstarter, including possibly a graphics overhaul.
 
Huge fan of Endless Sky so I'm looking forward to this
 
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