Pangea Software is a video game developer based in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, owned and operated by Brian Greenstone. The company began with

Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II), the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family, is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. While featuring the Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST ...

games in 1987, then moved to

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

and later

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

. Pangea found its primary success with a series of 3D games, when 3D hardware accelerators first began to appear on the Macintosh, beginning with ''

Nanosaur ''Nanosaur'' is a science fiction third-person shooter video game developed by Pangea Software and published by Ideas From the Deep for Mac OS 9 and Microsoft Windows. The player takes on the form of a Nanosaur, a genetically engineered intell ...

'' in 1998 and extending into the early 2000s. ''

Bugdom ''Bugdom'' is a 1999 platform video game originally created by Pangea Software for Mac OS 9. It was included with the iMac DV 2000 and later iBook models. The Microsoft Windows version, released in 2000, was developed by Hoplite Research and pub ...

'' was included with new

iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In it ...

models. In addition to games, Pangea also provides

panoramic photography Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as ''wide format photography''. The term has also been applied to ...

services.

History

Pangea Software began as a developer of

games, with the first (and most notable) being ''Xenocide'', which was commercially published by Micro Revelations in 1989. In 1991, they switched to

development; notable titles included ''

Power Pete ''Power Pete'' is an overhead view 2D run and gun video game developed by Pangea Software and published by Interplay under the MacPlay brand name. It was released in 1995 and packaged with Mac OS 7 on new Macintosh Performa computers. The play ...

'', ''

'', '' Cro-Mag Rally'', and ''

Otto Matic ''Otto Matic'' is a 2001 action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by Pangea Software and published by Aspyr, Aspyr Media for Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 and OS X, Mac OS X. It came Product bundling, bundled with iMac G3 and iMac G4, G ...

''. In 1995, Pangea made a deal with Apple to bundle their games with Macintosh computers; this deal ended in 2006, when Apple transitioned to Intel CPUs and decided to stop bundling third-party software. Since 2008, the company has mostly ceased developing Mac games and instead chosen to focus on

games, due to the latter being a more lucrative market.

Games

Apple IIGS

*''

Xenocide ''Xenocide'' (1991) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, the third book in the Ender's Game series. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel in 1992. The title is a combination of ' xeno-', me ...

'' (1989) *''Grackle'' (1989) *''Copy Killers'' (1989) *''Quadronome'' (1989) *''Senseless Violence: Survival of the Fetus'' (1989) *''Orbizone'' (1989) *''Senseless Violence II: You Use, You Die'' (1990) *''Cosmocade'', with: ''Journey to Calibus'' and ''Naxos'' (1990)

Macintosh

*''Firefall Arcade'' (1993) *''Bloodsuckers'' (1993) * ''Power Pete'' / ''Mighty Mike'' (1995) *''Gerbils'' (1996) *''Weekend Warrior'' (1996) *''

'' (1998) *''

'' (1999) *'' Cro-Mag Rally'' (2000) *''

'' (2001) *'' Bugdom 2'' (2002) *''

Enigmo ''Enigmo'' and ''Enigmo 2'' are respectively 2.5D and 3D arcade-style computer games for Windows, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, iOS and PlayStation Minis developed by Pangea Software. They both involve moving certain substances into their proper containe ...

'' (2003) *''Billy Frontier'' (2003) *'' Nanosaur 2: Hatchling'' (2004) *'' Enigmo 2'' (2006) *''Pangea Arcade'', with: ''Firefall'', ''Warheads'', and ''Nucleus'' (2006) *''Leaf on the Wind'' (2014)

Published

*''Runic'' (Macintosh, 2007), developed by CodeTurbine

Other products

In 1990, ''Xenocide'' was ported to the IBM PC by

Manley & Associates Manley & Associates was an independent video game developer founded in 1982 in video gaming, 1982, which developed over 70 titles for video game publishers, including Electronic Arts, Activision, Disney, GameTek, Publishing International, and Spec ...

without the involvement of Pangea Software. In 1993, Brian Greenstone programmed and co-designed '' Harley's Humongous Adventure'' for the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...

. In 2004, Brian Greenstone wrote ''The Ultimate Game Programming Guide'', a book about programming a 3D

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...

for

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

. Since 2006, Pangea has also provided a

service, allowing customers to have a 360˚ view of an area that can be navigated and interacted with via a

cursor Cursor may refer to: * Cursor (user interface), an indicator used to show the current position for user interaction on a computer monitor or other display device * Cursor (databases), a control structure that enables traversal over the records in ...

References

External links

*
Brian Greenstone's website
{{Authority control Macintosh software companies Video game companies of the United States Apple Design Awards recipients