What would Llamasoft be if not completely nuts? Well certainly not the developer of some of the quirkiest games to be found on the planet, that's for sure. So when they decided to show off part of their upcoming Title Grid Runner ++ do you think they could have put together a quick teaser and sent it off to IGN? OF COURSE NOT!!! Being some of the wackiest folks out of the UK, what they did was post of 10 minute clip of their plush Donkey. What some might miss at first glance of this clip
Gridrunner Video Emerges from Jeff Minter POSTED BY Devin "DaKing240" Kofsky on Feb 13 under Gridrunner, Jeff Minter, Llamasoft, XBLA Â Jeff Minter fans [and haters] can now enjoy a preview of Gridrunner for the Xbox Live Arcade. The video was uploaded by stinkyox himself. So sit back, and enjoy the game, but when it is released will you purchase it, or will we see another Jeff Minter rant?
Jeff Minter zupełnie bez rozgłosu wrzucił na youtuba filmik z Gridrunnera+++, którego przygotowuje dla Xbox LIVE Arcade. Mimo całej sympatii do Mintera, niestety nie wróże sukcesu grze. Jasne, jest mniej dziwna niż Space Giraffe, ale Centipede/Milipede już na XBLA jest dostępne. Więc, kto będzie chciał kupić drugi niemal identyczny tytuł? Chyba tylko wielki miłośnik lam. I nawet zawarcie emulowanych wersji gry z Vic-20 oraz Commodore64 zbytnio nie poszerza tego grona. Jak ktoś bardzo chce
That wacky fellow Jeff Minter has silently uploaded footage of his new Live Arcade game! While he had announced it on his blog back in October, we now have actual footage of Gridrunner+++! That's a whole plus more! It doesn't show off footage of the new version of the game - instead it shows off some of the additional features the game will have, notably - emulated versions of the original Gridrunner! Both VIC-20 (classic PC) and Commodore 64 versions are included from what we can tell, alon
April 22, 1962 (1962-04-22)(age 46) Reading, England, UK
Other names
Yak
Occupation
programmer, game designer
Employers
Llamasoft (founder)
Website http://www.yakyak.org/
Jeff 'Yak' Minter (born in Reading, April 22, 1962) is a British computer/video game designer and programmer. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and his recent works include the light synthesizer (called Neon) built into the Xbox 360 console and the Xbox Live Arcade video game Space Giraffe.
Many of his games include certain distinctive elements—they are often arcade style shoot-em-ups. His fondness of llamas, sheep, camels etc. often leads to them appearing in his games or the titles (Llamatron, Llamazap, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Sheep in Space, etc.). Also many feature something of a psychedelic element, as in some of the earliest 'light synthesizer' programs such as his Trip-a-Tron.
In online forums and informal game credits pages Minter usually signs as "Yak", which is, in his own words
"a pseudonym chosen a long time ago, back in the days when hi-score tables on coin-op machines only held three letters, and I settled on Yak because the yak is a scruffy hairy beast - a lot like me ;-)."
Jeff currently writes a monthly column for UK-based digital game magazine EDGE.
Early years
Jeff Minter became interested in computers while attending secondary school. He teamed up with Richard Jones, a fellow pupil, and together they started writing their own games on their school's Commodore PET. They soon parted ways. Jones went on to commercial projects, some of them in the software market (e.g., Interceptor Micros).
Games
In 1981 Jeff Minter started writing and selling Sinclair ZX80 video games. In 1982 he founded software house Llamasoft (a company that creates games rather than sells or distributes them is often called a house). His first game through Llamasoft was Andes Attack (US version: Aggressor): a Defender clone for the Commodore VIC-20, but with little llamas instead of spaceships (a fan of Defender, he would remake it again as Defender 2000). His second Llamasoft game, Gridrunner, was written in a week and was his first commercial success both in the UK and in the U.S..
Minter went on to develop a number of classic games, all written in assembly language, for the later home computers (such as the Commodore 64, Atari 400/800 and Atari ST) which were marketed mainly by word of mouth and by the odd magazine advertisement. These games included: Gridrunner, Matrix, Hellgate, Hover Bovver, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels 2, Laser Zone, Mama Llama, Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time, Sheep in Space, Void Runner, and Iridis Alpha.
After the collapse of the home computer market he worked for Atari and for (now-defunct) VM Labs. For Atari he produced Tempest 2000 (1994) on the Jaguar, a remake of Dave Theurer's classic Tempest of 1981. Minter also produced Defender 2000 (1995) on the Jaguar, a remake of Eugene Jarvis's classic Defender. Minter also produced the Virtual Light Machine (VLM) for the Jaguar CD-ROM add-on. For VM Labs, Minter designed software for the Nuon chip. Jeff Minter also created the VLM2 (Light Synth) & Tempest 3000 for the Nuon.
Later came a short spell writing games for the Pocket PC platform, some of which also had PC conversions (using a customized Pocket PC emulator). During this time, Minter released three games: Deflex, Hover Bovver (reworkings of his own early 80s games of the same name), and the PC/Macintosh game Gridrunner++.
In 2002, Jeff began work on a project for the Nintendo GameCube with the name of Unity — the combination of the two main threads of Jeff's work: light synthesis and classic arcade style shooting. Jeff was writing this game for Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios but the project was cancelled in December 2004.
The version of the VLM to be used within Unity has since been reprogrammed and significantly expanded. Now named Neon, it has been used in the Xbox 360 media visualisation.
His most recent release is Space Giraffe, an action arcade game with similarities to Tempest. Space Giraffe was released for Xbox 360 on 22 August 2007 through Xbox Live Arcade for 400 Microsoft Points, or 5 USD.
External links
Llamasoft official website, Llamasoft's history, and other resources
The Llamasoft Archive, contains Llamasoft's software (now freeware) & other resources
Jeff Minter's Google TechTalk, March 2007
"the history of llamasoft", by Jeff Minter
An interview with Jeff Minter from Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers
A netmeeting/interview with Jeff Minter, held by B3ta
