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Jeff Minter's 'Moose Life'

Started by Pinball, August 10, 2020, 06:34:42 PM

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Ooh, nice. Space Giraffe is my favourite game of his by miles and this looks a lot closer to that than the disappointing Tempest 4K.

Famous Mortimer

I was a fan of Minter way back in the Commodore 64 days, but haven't played much of his stuff in a long time. I was reading the Wikipedia page for Space Giraffe and noticed a few lovely details - one, that he puts obscenity in alpha versions of games, so websites can't just publish screenshots of pre-release stuff, and two -

Quoteveteran video game journalist Stuart Campbell described Space Giraffe as "one of the best games released this year at any price" but Campbell used the first letter of each paragraph to spell the phrase "MINTER IS A BIG TWATTY SPACKER TRUFAX".

I've never been much for the old hand-eye, which means I tend to suck at this sort of game, but I might give it a go. He's an interesting guy and I'm glad he's still making stuff.

Pinball

My fave was Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar. His Polybius and Space Giraffe are great, so is this. Basically versions of the same game from the old hippy, but who cares? :-) And he keeps sheep and llamas. An interesting cool hippie guy, and coding genius. VLM and all that too.

Cloud

Kinda know him from haunting his forum a lot.  He is rather cool.  And Polybius is great in VR!

Pinball

I always admired the type of coder who writes in machine code. As a result, back in the day he could get these amazing programs to run off really small file sizes.

And the music on these games is cool, well if you like techno rave :-)

Anyway, I shall be downloading this today on Steam. Don't know when PS4 release is planned?

Sonny_Jim

Just got released for PSVR today, it's cheap and all at 10 quid.  It's essentially an homage to Defender with a side serve of Robotron, only played about an hour but it's pleasing enough.  Not as polished as Polybius but it's got a lovely Vid Kidz vibe, along with a couple of nods to Eugene Jarvis.

Definitely not for everybody but if you like this sort of thing, it's just lovely.

Also, small nitpick on the title but it's fairer to say 'Llamasoft' than just Jeff Minter, his partner Giles does contribute a hell of a lot.  He does most of the engine work and also had to slog through several rounds of certification with Sony to get it onto PSVR.

Bazooka

Yeah saw this on the PS store, I'll grab it next time it's reduced.

St_Eddie

Has Jeff Minter just been remaking the same game over and over for 35 odd years now?  Seems that way.

Sonny_Jim

Pretty much, although to be fair to him he makes games he wants to play, if anyone else likes it then that's a bonus.

Visually they look the same as they use iterations of the same engine, but game play wise they are all different.  It's like saying GTAV is the same as Red Dead Redemption 2.  Sure th y look similar, have similar control schemes but in no way are they 'the same game'.

He kinda lost his shit a few years ago when a particular reviewer panned Space Giraffe, only for Jeff to find out through his Gamertag that said reviewer had played the game for less than 45 minutes.  He's chilled out a lot since then and is happy to just knock out fun little games.

madhair60

Quote from: St_Eddie on February 17, 2021, 11:12:34 PM
Has Jeff Minter just been remaking the same game over and over for 35 odd years now?  Seems that way.

Yeah but have you played Tempest? It fuckin rules!

St_Eddie

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on February 18, 2021, 02:11:11 AM
Pretty much, although to be fair to him he makes games he wants to play, if anyone else likes it then that's a bonus.

Indeed.  I don't begrudge Jeff Minter making the games he wants to make.  I'm glad that he does.  Long may he continue.

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on February 18, 2021, 02:11:11 AM
Visually they look the same as they use iterations of the same engine, but game play wise they are all different.  It's like saying GTAV is the same as Red Dead Redemption 2.  Sure th y look similar, have similar control schemes but in no way are they 'the same game'.

You're taking my words far too seriously, I fear.  I was just being silly and making an observation that most of his games are psychedelic shooters involving creatures from the animal kingdom with funny sounding names.  I wasn't seriously suggesting that Minter just makes the same game over and over again, without changing up the mechanics or anything.  In all honesty, it was just a low effort facetious drunken post, made in an attempt to be humorous.

Sonny_Jim

I do get a bit protective of Llamasoft, that's true.  It's like when someone says your favourite Indy band is a bit shit and you get all like 'you just don't understand them man!'. ;)

Rev+

Always appreciated the massively portentous and kind of funny text intro to 'Headbanger's Heaven'.  Loads of screens of text, then eventually the game starts and it's a barely-functional version of Space Invaders.

I don't know if it is alright to make the same game with slight variations for 40 years.  There's something not right about that, isn't there?  People forgetting that Llamasoft isn't just him is entirely down to him, too, as he's always plastered his own name over everything.  Loading screens with 2/3 of the screen being his signature, that sort of shit.  One of the great eccentrics of the 8 bit era like Mel Croucher, but now - everything from him is anger and bitterness because the world's moved on.  But bliss out because it's really chill man when I've got a game out.  HOW FUCKING DARE YOU 7/10 ME YOU no really, what you need to do is spend more time with animals.

I mean he's an interesting and singular presence, but don't go giving him money as it'll just encourage him.

Sonny_Jim

Quoteeverything from him is anger and bitterness because the world's moved on
Strongly disagree with this part.  Like I said above, maybe 10 years ago when Space Giraffe was taking a kicking.  Nowadays he's more likely to be talking about what the old bastards are doing on SW radio than obsessing over review scores.

Beagle 2

I get a notification most mornings to say he's about to live stream feeding his sheep. I've seen him moan about some of the difficulties in getting games on certain platforms and seeing a financial return as a small publisher, which seems fair enough really. Mostly I just think he's an incredibly cool bastard who has forged himself an enviable existence. I do wish he'd get his games on Switch somehow though!

Mr_Simnock

Quote from: madhair60 on February 18, 2021, 08:13:15 AM
Yeah but have you played Tempest? It fuckin rules!

I enjoyed playing Dave Theurer's original 1981 arcade in Bury arcade club last year and I can't wait to go back this year and play it again.