Pangea Software
Encyclopedia
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
that is owned and operated by Brian Greenstone. The company is a former developer of Macintosh and Apple IIGS
Apple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
games, the former of which they still currently sell, however have recently stated their intention to focus solely on iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
games. Formed in 1987, the company began by writing a number of shareware games for the Apple IIGS computer, with their first commercial game, Xenocide, being released in 1989.
Supported
Pangea is primarily a game company. All recent games have used 3D graphics3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
and many have been third person shooters. All recent titles have a shareware/demo version available for free download from the company's website. Serial numbers, unlocking the full game, can be purchased for $19.95 (or less, depending on the age and popularity of the title). Some Pangea games have been bundled with Macintosh computers; this is always the full version.
Pangea Arcade
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
s, enhanced with additional gameplay-related, graphical, and musical features. http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2006/11/pangeaarcade/ It was released in 2006. Firefall was partially based on a much older Pangea Software title of the same name, which in turn was derived from Centipede
Centipede (video game)
Centipede is a vertically-oriented shoot 'em up arcade game produced by Atari, Inc. in 1980. The game was designed by Ed Logg along with Dona Bailey, one of the few female game programmers in the industry at this time. It was also the first arcade coin-operated game to have a significant female...
. It involves shooting at "worms" and avoiding obstacles from a ship with limited maneuverability. Warheads evolved from Missile Command
Missile Command
Missile Command is a 1980 arcade game by Atari, Inc. that was also licensed to Sega for European release. It is considered one of the most notable games from the Golden Age of Video Arcade Games...
, and the player uses three ground batteries to destroy an onslaught of missiles from the sky. Unlike the original game, this version features four "sectors", each with their buildings to protect and missile launchers to destroy incoming fire (for a total of twelve, three per sector), so the game does not end until all four sectors are destroyed. In Nucleus, the player maneuvers his or her spaceship through a dense field of asteroid or other space debris. The gameplay is similar to Asteroids
Asteroids (computer game)
Asteroids is a video arcade game released in 1979 by Atari Inc. It was one of the most popular and influential games of the Golden Age of Arcade Games. Asteroids uses a vector display and a two-dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid...
, but with a twist. Instead of needing to destroy all asteroids on the screen, blowing up asteroids sometimes produces electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
s, shown to be balls of light that can be "picked up" and follow the ship. The player must take the electrons to the nucleus, a fixed feature located by a homing device. Once an atom is built, it (against all of the laws of physics) collapses into a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
. The game starts with hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
, which requires one electron, but as the player progresses through the periodic table
Periodic table
The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...
and the elements become heavier, it takes longer to complete each level.
Enigmo
Engimo was released in 2003; Enigmo 2 in 2006. Both are puzzle games where the player must guide substances into containers. When all the containers are full, the player wins the level. As a radical departure from the standard shoot 'em upShoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
games Pangea produces, the original game was the most successful game Pangea had ever made at the time.
Nanosaur
Nanosaur and Nanosaur 2: Hatchling are third person shooter type games where the player's avatar is a dinosaur from the future. The objective of both is to collect eggs and bring them to wormholes. Nanosaur was released in 1998; Nanosaur 2 in 2004. It is possible to buy a serial number for both games, but the complete games came bundled with the Macs of their time.Bugdom
Bugdom and Bugdom 2 were also in third person, but not shooters, this time from the view of an insect. The avatar and story lines were different in each game, but the gameplay was largely similar. The object of Bugdom is to free ladybugs trapped in spider webSpider web
A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web or cobweb is a device built by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets....
s; in Bugdom 2 the player searches for his stolen knapsack. Bugdom was released in 1999; Bugdom 2 in 2002. The original game was bundled with certain Macs when it was new.
Mighty Mike
Mighty Mike was released in 2001, but it was a repackaging of Pangea's 1995 Power Pete. Both games are identical, except the hero Power Pete was renamed Mighty Mike and an option for screen resolution was removed. It is similar to Bugdom in that the game world is a larger version of the world as a human sees it, uses gates and keys, and the fuzzy bunnies can be compared to ladybugs. There is a heavier emphasis on the use of projectiles, though.Otto Matic, Cro-Mag Rally, and Others
Otto Matic, released in 2001, involves the title character (a robot) destroying aliens and saving humans, and can be seen as a homage to corny science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
films. Cro-Mag Rally is a racing game
Racing game
A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...
with settings starting in prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
and working through time to more modern levels. The Pangea Super Pack, released in 2003, contains Cro-Mag Rally, Otto Matic, Bugdom 2, and the original Enigmo. Billy Frontier, released as shareware in 2003, has a "cowboys in space" theme.
Discontinued
In the fall of 2000, Brian Greenstone agreed to change the status all of Pangea's original games, for the Apple IIGSApple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
platform, to freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
. This included their commercial title Xenocide.
- Weekend Warrior (now freeware, 1996)
- Gerbils (a roller-coaster demo for Apple that came with QuickDraw 3DQuickDraw 3DQuickDraw 3D, or QD3D for short, is a 3D graphics API developed by Apple Inc. starting in 1995, originally for their Macintosh computers, but delivered as a cross-platform system....
, 1996) - Firefall Arcade (now freeware, 1993)
- Cosmocade, with: Journey to Calibus and Naxos (shareware, Apple IIGS, 1990)
- Senseless Violence II: You Use, You Die (shareware, Apple IIGS, 1990)
- Xenocide (now freeware, Apple IIGS, 1989)
- Senseless Violence: The Survival of the Fetus (shareware, Apple IIGS,1989)
- Orbizone (shareware, Apple IIGS, 1989)
- Copy Killers (shareware, Apple IIGS,1989)
- Quadronome (shareware, Apple IIGS,1989)
- Grackle (freeware, Apple IIGS, 1989)
- Bloodsuckers (freeware, Apple IIApple IIThe Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, 1986)
Other products
Brian Greenstone has also written The Ultimate Game Programming Guide ($39.99 USD), a book about making a 3D game engineGame engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
for Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, in 2004.
Pangea Software also provides a panoramic photography
Panoramic photography
Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio...
service, allowing customers to have a 360˚ view of an area that can be navigated and interacted with via a cursor
Cursor (computers)
In computing, a cursor is an indicator used to show the position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input from a text input or pointing device. The flashing text cursor may be referred to as a caret in some cases...
.