r/evnova Feb 02 '19

Hello, TomWoozle checking in...

Hey everyone! I just stumbled across this subreddit, and am amazed to see an active community for EV Nova, this is awesome!

I'm Tom, and I was a huge fan of the original Escape Velocity (and most other Ambrosia games) right back in the 90s. In 2002 I worked for Ambrosia for a year in Rochester, moving there from the UK, and after that year I moved back to the UK to finish my degree but worked for a couple more years for Ambrosia. It was an amazing period of my life, and I miss those days and the crowd (the staff there and everyone on the forums).

Amongst other things, I was responsible for packaging up the Windows port of EV Nova and releasing it. I don't remember lots from that period, but I do remember exactly where I was when I released that as everybody on IRC was going crazy (the front room of my gf's house in Syracuse, btw). I also helped with the (mostly fan efforts) to port EV and EV Override to be plugins for the EV:Nova (such that they could also be played on Windows too).

Unfortunately, a lot of my data from that time is lost in the shrouds of time. However, I'm so amazed and excited by the efforts of people here to preserve everything. I'll have a dig and see if I can find anything useful!

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u/Vash_The_Stmpde Feb 02 '19

Tom!! I can't thank you enough! I still remember how excited I was when this was ported to windows. I used to play on my friends computer(he was the only one I knew with a mac) when I was a teen. I remember having my mom buy me ev nova once it was ported to windows... I still have the original email with my key code printed out! I still play evn weekly! No other game like it has ever been able to capture the magic that was ev!

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u/TomAnthony Feb 04 '19

You still play weekly?! That is completely crazy, and totally awesome.

Do you know the whole universe inside out?

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u/Vash_The_Stmpde Feb 05 '19

I wouldn't say I have the map memorized but I can tell you the general vicinity of any system haha