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This was first released as shareware in November 1992 for Mac OS. The game is an enhanced clone of Atari, Inc.'s 1979 Asteroids arcade game with a visual style similar to the Atari Games 1987 sequel, Blasteroids. Maelstrom was released when there were few action games for the high-resolution color displays of the Macintosh, so it garnered much interest, despite the dated concept, and led to the creation of Ambrosia Software. It's played in a 2D overview in a section of space. The object of the game is to reach the highest score possible by shooting asteroids with a plasma cannon from a spaceship. The ship can move in any direction across the screen and also has a limited amount of shield. The player may also pick up power-ups and encounter unusual objects and enemies throughout the game. Welch gave the source code to Sam Lantinga, who created a SDL port and released it in 1995. It included networked multiplayer. In 1999 Ambrosia Software released Latinga's version 3.0 as open-source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). In 2010, Andrew Welch and Ian Gilman released the game's contents under the free Creative Commons license Attribution, which makes Maelstrom completely free and open-source software. |
