Pangea Software

Pangea Software is a Macintosh game company based in Austin, Texas that is owned and operated by Brian Greenstone. 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. Their first published Macintosh game came in 1993.

Games

upported

Pangea is primarily a game company. All recent games have used 3D graphics 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 $29.99. Some Pangea games have been bundled with Macintosh computers; this is always the full version.

Pangea Arcade

The Pangea Arcade is comprised of three different games, each with inspired by old arcade games, 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. It involves shooting at "worms" and avoiding obstacles from a ship with limited maneuverability. Warheads evolved from Missile Command, 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, but with a twist. Instead of needing to destroy all asteroids on the screen, blowing up asteroids sometimes produces electrons, 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. The game starts with hydrogen, which requires one electron, but as the player progresses through the periodic table 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 up 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 webs; 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, released in 2001, is a remake of Power Pete, released in 1995. Both games took place in a toy shop, and followed an action figure (named Power Pete or Mighty Mike) rescuing fuzzy bunnies, while all the other toys attack him. 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 fiction films. Cro-Mag Rally is a racing game with settings starting in prehistory 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 IIGS platform, to freeware. This included their commercial title "Xenocide".

*"Weekend Warrior" (now freeware, 1996)
*"Gerbils" (a roller-coaster demo for Apple that came with QuickDraw 3D, 1996)
*"Firefall" (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 II, 1986)

Gallery

Other products

Brian Greenstone has also written "The Ultimate Game Programming Guide" ($39.99 USD), a book about making a 3D game engine for Mac OS X, in 2004.

Pangea Software also provides a panoramic photography service, allowing customers to have a 360˚ view of an area that can be navigated and interacted with via a cursor.

External links

* [http://www.pangeasoft.net Official website]
* [http://www.briangreenstone.com/ Brian Greenstone's website]
* [http://www.pangeasoft.net/pangeahistory.html Pangea Software Museum]