Addix Software Development, Inc.

Addix Software Development, Inc. was a game development studio responsible for the DOS title Wrath of Earth (1995). According to Dave Faller, the seeds where planted in 1991 when he got together with Mark Spink to develop teaching software for a university.

Faller had created a small GUI application for the biochemistry department and they worked together on some simple molecular modelling software for student use - 3D spheres and lines that could be edited with some constraints. The apps could not be sold to third parties and to supplement their income they created custom controls for Visual Basic (the first version, on Windows 3.1).

Out of the sphere code, Faller created a small game titled The Cage - essentially a 3D version of Asteroids in a box with a 3D polygon ship. It turned out to be impossible to play. Faller also developed a Wolfenstein-style engine but with added dynamic lighting. They contacted a few software publishers with the demo looking for funding to make a full game. At that point they saw a very early demo of which gave them the idea of doing levels with both internal and external elements. Eventually they got in contact with a local company called Transend who sold shareware. They did many of the cover 3.5" disks that magazines had at the time. It was run by Andrew Amess and the agreement was made to develop what would eventually become WoE.

Towards the end of development, Addix was formed by the Transend owners to create and publish games and a second game, Merlin, a Gauntlet clone, was being developed alongside WoE. When WoE was released and was published, it did not do that well as DOOM had been released earlier. The rights were eventually sold to Softkey and according to Faller no one made any money off it. When the bottom fell out of the shareware business due to cover CDs and this thing called the internet, Transend and Addix closed down. The second game, Merlin, was never completed.

Dave Faller went on to do freelance work porting Transport Tycoon to the Mac and then worked for various game companies. Mark Spink left towards the end of the WoE project and returned to work at the university.

Source: largely paraphrased from Dave Faller's words