Escape Velocity Nova is a computer game by Ambrosia Software, in collaboration with ATMOS. It is the third game in the Escape Velocity series. It was first released for the Macintosh in March 2002. Work on a Windows version began in June 2002, and it was released in July 2003.

The basic concept of the game is in many ways similar to Elite and Freelancer. The game is an RPG set in the future. The player pilots a spaceship, landing on planets, fighting pirates, completing missions, trading goods, and so on. However, unlike Elite and Freelancer, the actual gameplay takes place in a 2D (top down) view.

During the long development there was a picture of the day which showed a ship or planet picture from the game, partially obscured to avoid revealing too much (except in the case of the earliest pictures). The last and final picture was a quote by Hector the Ambrosian parrot.

The game has six story-lines that the player can participate in:

• Federation
• Rebellion
• Auroran
• Polaris
• Vell-os
• Pirate

Like the other games in the Escape Velocity series, it allows registered users to create their own plug-ins thus giving them the power to change or even completely replace the game-play. There is a large community at the official Ambrosia forums where players can trade tips, get help and swap favourite plugins and pilots.

There are also two official plug-ins available to registered users which replace EV Nova's scenario with those of the first two games, allowing them to be played natively on Mac OS X and Windows.

External links

• Official page
• EV-Nova.net
• EV Nova Add-ons Directory