General Gaming Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (3/13)

[ShreddieMercury]

It's incredible to be getting this.  Jeff Minter is a legend.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

This looks so very, very cool!

[DPCyric]

I'm definitely getting this! Been a fan of Minter for a long time now (and a member of his forums as well). Easily one of my favorite developers. 

[stepee]

This is awesome! 

[XxEvil AshxX]

Shit I thought this was gonna be about Winamp.

[DPCyric]

 

This needs to be here one of my favorite music/video game crossovers.

[best3444]

2 hours ago, DPCyric said:

 

This needs to be here one of my favorite music/video game crossovers.

 

Never heard of this. I like it!

[ShreddieMercury]

On 2/26/2024 at 5:47 PM, DPCyric said:

I'm definitely getting this! Been a fan of Minter for a long time now (and a member of his forums as well). Easily one of my favorite developers. 

 

What's your favorite Jeff Minter game?  I was made aware of him when Space Giraffe came out, and since have played Tempest 4000 and Akka Arrh.  But I'm curious what people who really like his stuff gravitate toward the most.

[DPCyric]

4 hours ago, ShreddieMercury said:

 

What's your favorite Jeff Minter game?  I was made aware of him when Space Giraffe came out, and since have played Tempest 4000 and Akka Arrh.  But I'm curious what people who really like his stuff gravitate toward the most.

 

Gridrunner++ and Polybius

[stepee]

This came out and it’s a very well done package and it’s super super cool they are doing these and I hope they keep it up.

 

That said, I do want to express a little disappointment that besides a new remake of Gridrunner based off the original code - the collection cuts off at 1994 with Tempest 2000. 
 

For the most part, I suppose these older games are more important to have from a preservation standpoint especially since they adapt some pretty obscure controllers to play normally on gamepad here. And I get that in the British personal computer scene he was a legend based off of the output presented here. But for me, and I have a feeling a lot of people, it’s actually in 1994 when his games really started to become timeless classics that aren’t held back by the hardware he was working with. Tempest 2000 kind of established the look going forward as well as the quality, so it’s sad to see it end there. And this style is sort of what I wanted specifically to play on the deck oled.

 

I ended up fixing this by getting Akka Arrh, Polybius, Space Girrafe, Gridrunner Revolution, Tempest 4000, Moose Life, and Minotaur Arcade Volume 1 on Steam. This ended up pushing the price to about a full priced game to get what I wanted here. But more than the price, I would have been happier to pay a full price game that included these all in the same launcher which is what I was hoping for. And still also it’s missing some more lost to time stuff like Tempest 3000 would have been great to have. 

 

But it’s still about 50 games (and some of the older non Tempest 2000 ones are also fun!) for a bit under $70, and three of the games are VR, and of course the interactive documentary so it’s not a bad deal going this route. 
 

Also fyi Tempest 4000 is one of Amazon’s free games of the month. 

[stepee]

Some of those newer Llamasoft games took some work on deck (which is another reason it would be nice if the collection included them!), mostly just mapping controls, though Akka Arrh requires a command launch option to be set also. 

 

But man was I right about them being gorgeous to play on the oled deck. Got really high and played them all night and it just scorched my eyes it was fantastic. Also another good one this misses TxK which is lost to time on the Vita, thankfully plays perfectly on the deck on the vita emu!

[ShreddieMercury]

21 hours ago, stepee said:

This came out and it’s a very well done package and it’s super super cool they are doing these and I hope they keep it up.

 

That said, I do want to express a little disappointment that besides a new remake of Gridrunner based off the original code - the collection cuts off at 1994 with Tempest 2000. 
 

For the most part, I suppose these older games are more important to have from a preservation standpoint especially since they adapt some pretty obscure controllers to play normally on gamepad here. And I get that in the British personal computer scene he was a legend based off of the output presented here. But for me, and I have a feeling a lot of people, it’s actually in 1994 when his games really started to become timeless classics that aren’t held back by the hardware he was working with. Tempest 2000 kind of established the look going forward as well as the quality, so it’s sad to see it end there. And this style is sort of what I wanted specifically to play on the deck oled.

 

I ended up fixing this by getting Akka Arrh, Polybius, Space Girrafe, Gridrunner Revolution, Tempest 4000, Moose Life, and Minotaur Arcade Volume 1 on Steam. This ended up pushing the price to about a full priced game to get what I wanted here. But more than the price, I would have been happier to pay a full price game that included these all in the same launcher which is what I was hoping for. And still also it’s missing some more lost to time stuff like Tempest 3000 would have been great to have. 

 

But it’s still about 50 games (and some of the older non Tempest 2000 ones are also fun!) for a bit under $70, and three of the games are VR, and of course the interactive documentary so it’s not a bad deal going this route. 
 

Also fyi Tempest 4000 is one of Amazon’s free games of the month. 

 

Excellent summary of what's great and simultaneously disappointing about this.  Aside from 2-3 titles in this collection, the games do not hold up.  Still, as somebody who wasn't around for this era, and knows very little about the 80's UK computer industry in general, it's fascinating. 

 

The Jeff Minter games from the late 90's - today are evergreen, and are essentially updates/reworkings of his earliest ideas.  If anything, this collection does confirm to me that he's one of very, very few actual artists working in video games.  Meaning, his games are ultimately a form of pure artistic self-expression that were miraculously able to find an audience.

 

I will say, I think these Digital Eclipse people are a little high on their own supply.  I don't really understand what they mean by "interactive documentary", because this is literally a museum exhibit.  It's definitely a cool niche that they're carving out, but I think "museum" is a much better term than "documentary".  What's most disappointing about this is how limited it is.  It feels like the first part of a trilogy, but there's absolutely no way that such a niche figure is getting another treatment as handsome as this one in the near future as the industry continues to collapse.

[stepee]

3 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

 

Excellent summary of what's great and simultaneously disappointing about this.  Aside from 2-3 titles in this collection, the games do not hold up.  Still, as somebody who wasn't around for this era, and knows very little about the 80's UK computer industry in general, it's fascinating. 

 

The Jeff Minter games from the late 90's - today are evergreen, and are essentially updates/reworkings of his earliest ideas.  If anything, this collection does confirm to me that he's one of very, very few actual artists working in video games.  Meaning, his games are ultimately a form of pure artistic self-expression that were miraculously able to find an audience.

 

I will say, I think these Digital Eclipse people are a little high on their own supply.  I don't really understand what they mean by "interactive documentary", because this is literally a museum exhibit.  It's definitely a cool niche that they're carving out, but I think "museum" is a much better term than "documentary".  What's most disappointing about this is how limited it is.  It feels like the first part of a trilogy, but there's absolutely no way that such a niche figure is getting another treatment as handsome as this one in the near future as the industry continues to collapse.

 

Yeah it’s a shame because his later work is what will stand the test of time and I think it could really use a package collecting them, and maybe some insights on those would be nice, but like you said a sequel anthology seems very unlikely.

 

Still glad this exists, but yeah it kinda of feels like “here is all the early work that led to the great Llamasoft games of later years…now scramble to find versions of those games!” 

 

In the future if it takes doubling the price of these to be more complete, I’d much rather that.