Mars Rising — Vac-Fighters over the Red Planet Runs here
1998 · Ambrosia Software · Mac OS 8 · SheepShaver (Power Macintosh 9500) · 800×600 at 8-bit colour
Guide updated September 2026
The year is 2084, Mars Colony has declared independence, and a general has cut the planet off from Earth. You fly out of Deimos in a prototype Vac-Fighter to hit the Martian bases below, alone or with a second player beside you.
Mars Rising is a vertically scrolling shooter by David Wareing, published by Ambrosia in 1998, with 28 levels. The read-me lists the Wave Motion Gun among the Vac-Fighter's weapons, and describes the mission with a straight face that does not last long.
Boots Mac OS 8.6 and opens Mars Rising by itself. Choose Don't Change when it offers to switch the screen, click Not Yet on the shareware notice, then 1 Player.
Controls
| Arrow keys | Fly |
| Fire key | Shoot; set it under Controls on the menu |
| D | Watch a demo from the menu |
| Mouse | Menus, and the menu bar at the top of the screen |
Mars Rising is Ambrosia Software shareware. Its licence permits non-profit distribution provided the software is unmodified and the complete works are included, and both are true here. The copy is unregistered, and the shareware notice it shows at startup is left in place. Full reasoning is in notices/mars-rising.md.
Archives
- Internet Archive: the Ambrosia installer this copy was produced from, via the Tucows Mac archive.
How it works & what to expect
| Machine | Power Macintosh, 800×600, 256 colours |
|---|---|
| System | Mac OS 8.6 |
| Emulator | SheepShaver, compiled to WebAssembly |
| Version | Mars Rising 1.0.2 |
| Saves | Inside the emulated Mac, in your browser |
The first start is the slow one: Mac OS 8.6 downloads once and every Mac OS 8 title after it starts much faster. It asks at first start whether to change the screen resolution. Don't Change is the safe answer here.
The mission
The read-me sets it up: Mars Colony, owned by a company called Terran Assets Corp, has declared independence, a general of the Martian Defence Force has taken control, and every Terran asset in Martian space has been lost except Deimos. You strike back from there, first at the Olympus Mons air base.
The Vac-Fighter carries bombs for ground targets and matter cannon for the air, and weapon upgrades turn up as you go. Two players can fly together and compete for the score, which is how the game was meant to be played in 1998, ideally with gamepads.
Ambrosia and David Wareing
David Wareing also wrote Swoop for Ambrosia three years earlier. Mars Rising is the Power Macintosh follow-up: it needs a PowerPC processor and 7.5 MB of free memory by its own requirements, which ruled out a lot of Macs still in use at the time.
Questions people ask
How do I start a game?
Choose Don't Change at the screen-resolution question, click Not Yet on the shareware notice, then click 1 Player on the menu.
Can two people play?
Yes. 2 Player on the menu puts two Vac-Fighters on the screen. The read-me recommends gamepads for that; on one keyboard it is cramped but works.
What are the controls?
Fly with the arrow keys. The fire key and everything else can be seen and changed under Controls on the menu.
How many levels are there?
28, according to the read-me.
Is it legal to play here?
Mars Rising is Ambrosia shareware, and its licence allows non-profit distribution as long as the software is unmodified and complete. This site is non-profit and carries no advertising.
Are high scores kept?
Inside the emulated Mac, in your own browser.
Put Mars Rising on your own site
Free, no permission needed and no account. Paste this where you want the machine to appear; it brings its own emulator and asks nothing of your page.
<iframe src="https://macemu.com/embed/mars-rising/"
width="800" height="600"
style="border:0;max-width:100%"
allowfullscreen
title="Mars Rising"></iframe>Sized to this title's real screen. How embedding works.
