''Ares'' is a space

strategy video game Strategy is a major video game genre that emphasizes thinking and planning over direct instant action in order to achieve victory. Although many types of video games can contain strategic elements, as a genre, strategy games are most commonly def ...

created by Nathan Lamont of Bigger Planet Software, and first released by Changeling Software in 1998. In 1999 the game was re-released as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

Ambrosia Software Ambrosia Software was a predominantly Macintosh software company founded in 1993 and located in Rochester, New York, U.S. Ambrosia Software was best known for its Macintosh remakes of older arcade games, which began with a 1992 version of Atari, ...

and released as

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

and

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

in 2008. The key feature of the game was its ability to zoom in and out smoothly; this allowed the player to switch between a close-up view, which emphasized

space combat Space warfare is hypothetical combat in which one or more belligerents are situated in outer space. The scope of space warfare therefore includes ''ground-to-space warfare'', such as attacking satellites from the Earth; ''space-to-space warfare ...

skills, and a

strategic Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " ar ...

view of the entire map.

Story

The player is cast as the commander of the ''U.N.S. Apollo'', humankind's first interstellar vessel, dispatched at light speed to investigate the source of a signal broadcast at Earth from one hundred and fifty light years away. On reaching the source, the crew is told that, due to relativistic effects, Earth has by now been taken over by the religious Cantharan Order, and the signal was a ruse from the friendly Ishiman, who wished to maintain humanity as a free race; the Ishiman planned to find a new world for the crew of the Apollo. Although the advanced but peaceful Ishiman are unwilling to enter into direct war with the Cantharans, the ''Apollos crew is able to persuade them to supply a limited amount of their technology in an attempt to free Earth. Upon undertaking their new mission, the ship is renamed the ''Ares''.

Gameplay

''Ares'' offers combat situations and strategic planning combined by allowing the player to directly control a single spaceship, at the same time as building and commanding others. ''Ares'' is a saga between six main

alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...

species, with humans being one of the less advanced races in the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. A ...

: the Audemedons, the Salrilians, the Ishimans, the Cantharan, the Gaitori and the Humans. There are numerous smaller species which come up throughout the solo play levels, such as the Obish, the Elejeetians, and the Bazidanese. These species are not available for online play. The single player game consists of a story plot and 21 levels. When released as a

game, ''Ares'' came with limited functionality and was limited to the first six levels. In multiplayer, five different game modes are available. Each game has with it a set of absolute strategies to use. ''Ares'' had its own page on the Macintosh Gaming League, organized by ''Ares'' supporters. Clans were also found around ''Ares'' briefly. One of the oldest and highest ranking clan was called "TAG".

Development

''Ares'' was developed by Nathan Lamont for

Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. Th ...

. It also runs natively in

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 computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

Classic environment, available for non-Intel-based Macs. The game was published by Changeling Software and released in 1998. In 1997, during the game's

beta testing Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...

, Changeling president Jeanine DeSocio expressed apprehension about how well the game would sell, due to retailer reluctance to stock Macintosh-only games. Changeling became defunct in 1998. In 1999 the game was re-released as

.Ares
on amrosiasw.com Ambrosia allowed those who had purchased the original Changeling release to "upgrade" to their version by mailing in $10 and the original game disc. This revision of the game added a

level editor In video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual f ...

named "Hera", which allowed Ares levels to be edited and

plugins Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of software t ...

to be made, similar to the plugins available for Ambrosia software's hit game ''

Escape Velocity In celestial mechanics, escape velocity or escape speed is the minimum speed needed for a free, non- propelled object to escape from the gravitational influence of a primary body, thus reaching an infinite distance from it. It is typically ...

''.

Reception

Legacy

In 2008 the Ares

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

was released under the

GPLv2 The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both sour ...

and most assets under a

CC BY-NC A Creative Commons NonCommercial license (CC NC, CC BY-NC or NC license) is a Creative Commons license which a copyright holder can apply to their media to give public permission for anyone to reuse that media only for noncommercial activities. C ...

Creative commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

by Nathan Lamont.About
on biggerplanet.com ''In 2008, Nathan Lamont released the original source code to Ares under the GNU GPL 2.0, and most of the media under the CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. In 2011, he added the option of using the GNU LGPL 3.0 for the Ares source code.''About
on arescentral.com In 2011 a LGPLv3 license option was added. The availability of the source code and assets resulted in continued development by the game's community.

References

External links

Ares CentralAntares
- open source port for modern systems {{DEFAULTSORT:Ares (Video Game) 1998 video games Ambrosia Software games Classic Mac OS games Classic Mac OS-only games Video games developed in the United States Commercial video games with freely available source code Creative Commons-licensed video games