The 2002 space classic, flying again on modern Apple devices.
EV Nova (Ambrosia Software, 2002) is one of the deepest space trading-and-combat games ever made —
but today it won't launch on a modern Mac and never came to mobile.
NOVA Swift is a fan rebuild of the whole game, written from scratch
in Swift. Point it at a copy of EV Nova you already own, and it runs natively — on your Mac, your
iPad and iPhone, and now your Apple TV too, controller in hand.
Runs on macOS, iPadOS, iOS & tvOSNative Swift + MetalClassic stays classic
What you can do today
It's 1177. You have a Shuttle and no plans.
The Federation holds the core worlds and is rotting from the inside, the Auroran Empire is
tearing itself apart over honor, and the Polaris won't say what they know. This is all of
EV Nova — point it at your own copy of the game data and go. The clock keeps ticking whether
you're paying attention or not, so the galaxy carries on without you.
Fly & fight
The drifting, momentum-heavy flight the original was built on — you don't turn, you swing the
nose around and keep going the way you were. Pirates jump in on top of you, bounty hunters come
looking, and warships weigh the odds before they commit. Lock a target, strip its shields, watch
the ion cannons leave it drifting.
Explore & trade
Hyperjump between hundreds of systems on real fuel, land, and work the spread: buy food where
it's cheap, sell it where the war made it dear. Then spend it all in the shipyard, trading the
Shuttle up through a Starbridge to something with real guns bolted on.
Play the story
Pick a starting scenario and take the missions people offer you. Fly for the Federation or defect
to the Rebellion, get pulled into the Auroran succession, find out what the Vell-os are. The
campaigns branch and the news reacts as days pass. Your pilot saves as you go, and you can keep
several running at once.
Fight dirty — and lose for real
Disable a freighter and board it to take its cargo, or put a prize crew aboard and fly the hull
home. Park over a planet, demand tribute, beat its defenses, and it pays you every day after.
Shoot the wrong ship and the government remembers — and when your own armor hits zero you punch
out in an escape pod, if you bought one.
Meet the locals
Named captains with their own lines and history turn up in the shipping lanes, escorts you hire
draw a daily wage whether they're useful or not, and there's always somewhere to throw credits
away on the holovid races.
Play together
The one thing the 2002 original never had. Your friend keeps their own galaxy and their own
pilot, but when you're both in the same system you fly it together — same NPCs, same fight, real
damage. Trade cargo and credits, chat from anywhere in the galaxy, and set the PvP stakes
yourself, from safe sparring to real death.
Couch play, on the big screen
Full gamepad support — twin-stick flight, every button remappable — works on Mac, iPad and iPhone,
and it's how you play at all on the new Apple TV build: pair a controller and fly EV Nova
from the couch, with a 10-foot UI built for the distance.
Running on iPhone
Not a screenshot of a Mac.
EV Nova never came to mobile. These are real captures from an iPhone — the whole game, in your
hands, with controls built for a screen you hold.
Touch controls and the classic status bar — with Earth waiting to be landed on.Plot a course from Sol — services, governments, hypergates and wormholes.Host or join a co-op lobby over local Wi-Fi or Game Center.Install community plug-ins and total conversions without leaving the game.
New on top of the old
Modern touches — classic at heart.
We've layered a lot of quality-of-life on top of the game. The rule we hold to: anything that
wasn't in the 2002 original can be switched off. Play it pure and it behaves like the game you
remember; flip the modern bits on whenever you want them.
Touch controls that feel right
Real iPhone and iPad builds with controls designed for a screen you hold — not a desktop UI
squeezed onto glass. Keyboard and mouse still work great on the Mac.
A live story map
A pannable, zoomable map of every campaign in your data, drawn against how far your pilot
has actually gotten.
Plug-ins without leaving the game
Browse and install community plug-ins and total conversions from inside the app. It's still a
work in progress, but most of it already works.
Classic / Enhanced toggles
Presentation and behaviour switches let you keep everything original, or opt into the modern
layer piece by piece. Nothing modern is ever forced on you.
Import once, play everywhere
Set up your EV Nova data on one device and it can sync through your own private iCloud, so your
other Macs, iPads, iPhones — and a freshly set-up Apple TV — pick it up automatically. Nothing
ever leaves your own account.
Where we're at — honestly
The game is here. Now we're sharpening it.
NOVA Swift is a near-complete, faithful port — you can play the whole of EV Nova today, start to
finish, on macOS, iPadOS and iOS. Flight and combat, the economy, the branching campaigns,
boarding and capture, planetary domination, real explosion sprites and particle effects — the
systems that make EV Nova EV Nova are all in and playable. Call it ~90% of a full port.
What's left is the last stretch:
Polish & fidelity
Fine-tuning the AI, flight feel, spawn cadence and the hundred small behaviors so a pure
Classic run feels exactly like 2002.
Bugs, crashes & performance
The usual hardening as more people play on more devices — squashing edge cases and keeping
frame rates smooth from iPhone to Mac.
Enhancements & new features
Things the 2002 original never had. Multiplayer, full controller support, a tvOS build and
iCloud game-data sync are all built and playable today (see below); optional HD art is still
ahead — all layered on top without ever replacing the classic experience.
Found something off, or missing a detail from the original? The
issue tracker
is the best place to tell us.
What's coming
Where we're taking it next.
Some of this is layering onto hooks the engine already has; multiplayer was genuinely new ground,
and it's now built. Either way, none of it disturbs a pure Classic run.
Multiplayer
Something the 2002 original never had, and it's real: shared-system co-op combat, presence on
the galaxy map, chat, trading, PvP stakes, and lobbies over local Wi-Fi or Game Center are all
built, tested, and wired into the app. What's left is polish — wider device testing, a couple
of finer PvP toggles, and smoother authority handoff.
Live
Game controller support
Full gamepad play, remappable button-for-button, with twin-stick flight — works on macOS, iPad
and iPhone today, and it's how you play on Apple TV.
Live
Apple TV
NOVA Swift is on the big screen: a real tvOS build with its own 10-foot UI, controller
required, and two ways to get your game data onto it with no Files app in sight — an iCloud
auto-restore, or a local web page you open on your Mac or PC to drop files straight onto the TV.
Live
iCloud syncing for game data
Import your EV Nova data once, and it can sync through your own private iCloud so your other
devices — including a freshly set-up Apple TV — restore it automatically.
Live
Smarter, opt-in AI
Better evasion, coordinated fleets and ammo discipline — sitting behind the same brain the
base AI uses, so you can leave it Classic or turn it up.
Planned
HD art & richer audio
Optional higher-resolution sprites and sound packs, layered over the originals rather than
replacing them.
Planned
Godot port for Linux & Windows
A second frontend on Godot 4, bridged to the very same Swift engine — no fork, no separate
logic. Flight, HUD and landing/launch already run on real game data; the galaxy map, spaceport
screens and story runtime are next.
In progress
Beta
Play it now on TestFlight.
Native builds for macOS, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV are live on TestFlight — no build step
required. One link covers all four. You'll just need to supply your own legally-owned EV Nova data.
You'll need a Mac with Xcode and its command-line tools installed.
Your EV Nova data stays on your machine — it's git-ignored and never uploaded anywhere.
Clone the repo
Grab the source from GitHub and open the folder in Terminal.
Fetch dependencies
Run scripts/setup.sh to pull the open-source libraries it builds on.
Add your own data
Copy your legally-owned EV Nova files into data/base/ — see docs/GET_THE_DATA.md.
Build & play
Open app/NovaSwift.xcodeproj in Xcode, pick a Mac, iPad or iPhone target, and hit Run.
# 1 · clonegit clone https://github.com/SirStig/\
MacOS-iOS-iPadOS-EV-Nova.git
cd MacOS-iOS-iPadOS-EV-Nova
# 2 · fetch open-source dependenciesscripts/setup.sh# 3 · add your EV Nova data into data/base/# (see docs/GET_THE_DATA.md)# 4 · optional: free community plug-insscripts/fetch-plugins.sh# 5 · quick check from the command lineswift build && swift test# …then open the app in Xcode to play:open app/NovaSwift.xcodeproj
We ship the code; you supply the data. EV Nova's content is still owned by ATMOS, so this project
contains zero copyrighted game data and never will. NOVA Swift
reads a copy you already own, at runtime — the same bring-your-own-data model as OpenMW and OpenRA.
