Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=342895

Apparently, MS have sat on the new Gridrunner for MONTHS as it's otherwise ready to go but they haven't approved it yet.

Depressingly, the comments have become a slagging fest starring he-who-shall-not-be-named.

Don't you just love it when the perfect reply to something only involves changing one word?

In any case, I agree $20 is rather laughably steep for SG, with the current exchange rate anyway that's nearly £15. Or to put it another way, pretty much the price of new released boxed PC games online now.

I think 400pts was the perfect price for Space Giraffe.

You can get LegoStarwars for the 360, all three of them for 20 quid.

EDIT: I lied, it is 14.99 from play.com.

that notwithstanding.

997 bananas.

I've just played it now and it's still great fun. I'd probably have not begrudged paying 800 points for it at the time.

I'm paying my $20, despite getting it free as beta crew. The Nuxx remixed levels are bloody lush, and well worth the cash. Same as I'll buy Chronicles of Riddick again and so on. This is one of the few opportunities in life to actually get some cash to the people whose games I merrily copied on the 8-bits back in the day. And it goes to them, not a publisher. I think if you look at how much attention the 1200 point games get compared to the 800 (and how little attention the 400 point games seem to get) the rationale is sound from LS's perspective. Being a marmite game, if you like that sort of thing, it is a definite purchase at that price with the remixed levels, while if it isn't your thing, enjoy the demo and move on. Plus it is a PC title so people can probably just pirate it if they want, though I'd discourage that because you are robbing me as much as the other guys. In this version they've grafted to address pretty much every reasonable criticism - the power zone now has an idiot meter and the backgrounds are not only less violently trippy, they are much, much nicer to look at.

SGPC's dev cycle has been a bit of a trek compared to writing for one standard platform, let's not forget T2k was written to use the Jag's custom chips BACKWARDS because that's how they appeared to work when Jeff got his devkit. Add Giles' hardcore maths brain into the mix and SGPC becomes a steep-learning-curve as LS's first title on the platform. GR+++++++ is the fucking tits though, and will not gestate for so long on the same platform. I reckon the 360 release should be in the summer games tranch of releases anyhow based on what I've played.

Do an old Goatboy a favour though, download and try the demo, pass it to a mate, get it about a bit.

For you I did. And gave the link to Myp.

BUT FOR YOUR 15 QUID YOU CAN GET, OH I DUNNO, CRACKDOWN OR SOMETHING..

Sorry to go on, BUT..

Computer games have about a 6 month lifespan, then they end up being cheapness.

Given the choice between, on the PC, Space giraffe for 20 dollar, or Far Cry, which one is acebestest?

20 dollar is, frankly an unrealistic pricepiont.

I wish Jeff the best no matter what he sharges. I enjoyed SG on the 360, and I'm sure others will on the PC. All power to them.,

Buy both you tightarse.

Well, I would, but I've had mirrors edge for a month and not really had the time to sit down and play it.

I suppose the point was, that, games coing out at a price point are going to be directly competitive with other games at that price. And, as much as it is heresy to say, who would, things being equal, get Space Giraffe for 20 dollars if they could get GTA IV?

Bah! I want to go home and play SG now... if only to try and finally get back to where I was before the infamous progress-erasing score-deleting patch of ANGER.

Mrs Metal is very fond of the title screen with the bobbing giraffe head.

Mirror's edge cost 40 quid. You bought that even though you could have bought burnout paradise for less? You fool!

I'm sure most people can appreciate the value of different game genres for different occasions. I think what you're actually saying is that you think SG is not as good as other games at that price point.
That being the case, that's just, like, your opinion, man

Mirrors edge was 29.97 less 10%, but yeah, I do see your point, but at the end of the day, it's a competitive market out there.

XBLA needs more games like Space Giraffe, particularly at the price it went for.

FTFY

You're not wrong there!

I do think it's a fairly reasonable price point though. The XBLA game was pitched at a giveaway price in an attempt to make it a mass-selling cult classic. In the "it would be rude not to" bracket. Unfortunately, for one reason and another, that just didn't happen and I guess they were left with a much smaller core of gamers who are fans of Tempest and/or are fans of Llamasoft. And I've no idea what the developer takings are per unit on a 400 credit game but it can't be much.

So I think it's sensible to scale back the anticipation a bit for this one, accept that they're selling to that smaller core market, who are also probably not going to be put off by the price unless it's totally silly.

edit..

Ner-ner *raspberry*

Space Giraffe's trial version, with the amusing comments beseeching you to buy it, brought back happy memories of the early 90s PC shareware scene.

Which received a HUGE shot-in-the-arm with Llamatron. Which I think, personally, is why most remember him. Have it free, cuck us a fiver if you like it - he did well off that and it proved (for the 16-bit era at least) what a smart decision it can be to respect the player.

Ubisoft think we are mostly thieves and say as much, so perhaps I'll just buy someone SGPC instead of whatever Ubi game I was going to buy next, which I can always just pirate.

I'll certainly be buying it. Going to play the XBLA version again until pay day, though.

I wish him the best certainly. But at $10, maybe even $15 I'd have wished him the best AND given him $10, maybe $15...

Depends on how much the games sell for. How much is a "credit"?

These X-Box download games sound much like the budget games of old. Therefore it's worthwhile remembering that although people like the Oliver Twins did very well indeed, other developers like the PIckfords were scraping a living on 6 or 7 grand a year . They probably sold as many games, but their circumstances were quite different (the Olivers were freelancers on a royalty, the Pickfords were not).

So it's down to how they are publishing the game and who gets a cut of what. Last thing I heard the Giraffe game was a huge flop and it was touch and go if Minter would do another game. Seems he's giving it another stab and good for him. He may like throwing his toys out the pram, but he can code a good game. Just a pity about his choice of 8 bit systems.

He probably got a touch over £1 a copy for XBLA SG.

The Oliver Twins got a deal of 10p a copy on Super Robin Hood (their first Codemasters game) and sold 100,000 copies. For their first games they were earning 10 grand a game for stuff that was knocked out in 3 or 4 weeks.

So it really depends on what numbers he's shifting. But given modern dev times he probably needs to shift 15,000 - 20,000 copies just to make it break even.

Methinks the Oliver Twins moved on at the right time and poor old Jeff is stuck in 1986 still a bedroom coder. He needs to be churning out the games, not spending ages developing a single game.

Well somehow it apparently took him and Giles two years so it's considerably more, especially as he appears to own a farm.

Either way you're probably right, the Oliver twins took the smart route and sold about 5 million copies of 3 quick games to Burger King.

Then the fuckers didn't release them here.

Jeff's working on a game at a time, current semi-pattern is the pair do a new title, then Jeff begins the 'ideas' phase for the next one while Giles ports the current release to PC. However this is always going on whilst Neon engine development is a daily developmental reality at Llamasoft Towers. And Neon is not a game nor a shareware release, it is a graphics platform, the best I can generalise it. It is structured in a way that I'm under NDA not to go into any detail about, but it is a big, versatile bastard with immense commercial potential. On the live performance stage, let alone on PCs. Don't forget Jeff's lightsynth tech has been demoed to Prince and others, and there was a 'well known' artiste lined up for Unity by Petey Moulinex. So games - their bread and butter but nowhere near their magnum opus. Also they had to initially develop a true sequel to VLM in Neon for the 360 dash (a brutally stripped-down thing by current Neon standards) then place a game inside it - and SG took a long time to become as akin to Tempest as it is in its finished form. Then they had to port this to an essentially infinitely problematic platform, a game which pwned more than one alpha devkit during incubation... QA tested for all major PC hardware possibilities by two blokes already working on another game and developing their lightsynth tech, plus about eight cunts off a forum. Takes fucking ages.

Could churn out games if there was a means of publishing Live Arcade style on DS. But GR+++ should, unless I've missed a meeting, be equivalent to Rare's Jet Pac in terms of quality of update. It is effectively GR++, only stupidly better. And you can see everything, just like in Space Giraffe PC.

goatboy, have you seen stu didn't get the demo running?
http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/world ... opic=10749
any help?

Goatboy, how do you know so much about Llamatron?

Yeah, don't buy a shit PC. There was a forum thread where he threw an "I'll never play PC games" strop. Strangely what he bought (which has a 6 year old graphics card) doesn't play new PC games.

Jonrob's "old" graphics card he mentions is 2 full generations newer.

Thanks to Jonarob himself for making my point nicer than I would have done over at WOS even if it does appear to have had no effect in a world where required processing power is determined apparently entire by what the non-technical user thinks it's doing

XACT is to do with the audio side of things (It's a cross platform audio creation tool). They may well be barking up the wrong tree by blaming the GFX card.

(I speak from experience. Used XACT, it seems quite prone to causing odd performance problems)

I remember that and strongly advising that a half decent graphics card would be advisable as emulators and all sorts of software can take advantage these days.

Sounds like Jeff needs to take a serious look at iPhone incomes from indies. Some devs doing 99-cent games have made in excess of $100,000 in a few months. Others have made even more, and one of the Mac indies is canning all its Mac games to concentrate solely on iPhone.

Given the nature of most of Jeff's games, I would have thought OS X an obvious platform, frankly.

Yeah it's been suggested numerous times on YakYak. And I think accepted, to be fair, but they can't change direction over night. There is a working GR++ port for example but there's an API problem holding that up.

Some of his old 8-bit games like sheep in space and ancipital could have been made for the "unusual" controls of the iPhone too.

From talking about it to people. Or did you mean Llamasoft? In which case, I test stuff.

That is indeed what I meant. Also, cool!

I used to have a band called Llamatron. We had one song.

Calm a llama down?

Yeah, Mark Llama was our lead singer.

I'd agree, only I'm under an NDA regarding whether it is cool or not

And to be fair my contribution to the SGPC test cycle was: Beta begins, my PC doesn't run it. Time passes, get new PC - testing ends, install final version on my PC, confirm it works. I think I'm in the credits for moral rather than technical contributions this time round. Also usually when I make it to the ranch they are in the process of trying new ideas for the next title on a 360 devkit. SG for example could not have been less like Tempest in the first few weeks.

Looking at his games, some of them could be done pretty nicely, I'd say:

Llamatron: could use the accelerometer for directional control, or have the llama shoot and move towards your finger. Same would work for Grid Runner/Matrix/Void Runner.

Hover Bovver: rip the Pac-Man controls, and offer 'swipe', on-screen joystick or accelerometer.

Metagalactic Llamas: accelerometer to go left/right. Left finger to move shield up/down. Right finger to fire.

It'll be interesting to see if any of the games do move to that platform. With the stuff I've downloaded, and the sales figures I've seen, it could be a highly lucrative market for Minter, especially given the current lack of decent arcade games. (There are some, but most of the good iPhone/OS X games are centred around puzzles.)

Well GR++ was a bit of a triumph on PocketPC, dragging the ship about with stylus.

A good couple of years ahead of the DS, that. iPhone wise, I can't say that'd be a bad plan at all.

Mark Llama, gerbil farmer? With a guest appearance from Jarvis Cockerel?

Which indie?

Your idea is a top one. Possibly too logical really, knowing Minter. The iPhone's a licence to print money at the moment.

Does annoy me when developers don't port to OS X for the sake of it. I've emailed the Pickford brothers several times, when is Naked War (etc) being converted to the Mac, and they don't seem to give a toss. Their problem if they are losing customers, I guess.

Note that I'm referring to OS X, not Mac OS X. OS X is the OS for iPhone/iPod touch. That said, I think with Macs being Intel-based and increasingly popular in the home market (Apple's share is skewed by big business—in the US home market, the share's been anything up to a fifth over the past year), devs are missing a trick.

As for the dev stuff, I can't recall the article I read the figures in, but there's stuff here, for one. The indie I was referring to is Pangea, who are pulling out of Mac games to concentrate on iPhone. The full quote from Newsweek is:



If I was Minter, I'd be tempted to say fuck Microsoft and just cane out a few $1.99 apps for iPhone over the course of a month or two—just ports of his 8-bit stuff with tarted up graphics and revised controls. It might make him the sum total of fuck-all, but highly optimised games for the platform (such as Topple) have sold like hot cakes. And, frankly, expectations aren't all that high. Cro-Mag Rally is a somewhat mediocre (and slow) kart racer by Pangea, yet that's selling absurdly well.