Be Excellent To Each Other

We've finally got it out the door!

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/01/ ... -and-more/

http://minotaurproject.co.uk/YakImages/noise_pulse.mp4

http://minotaurproject.co.uk/YakImages/txk60test.mp4


WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR-RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH!

Do you work for Llamasoft?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYXFHc8WAog

Isn't this just Space Giraffe/Tempest? (Assuming the video is correct)

(That's the only video I could find for 'TxK' when searching recent youtube uploads)

Given the cult of personality around him and his rather mediocre but pretty games, I'm surprised he hasn't done a Kickstarter.

I've contributed music to the soundtrack, yes.

Yes, it's 'just' Tempest. But given that Tempest 2000 was the standout game on the entire platform when he made it for Jaguar, I'm expecting this to be the standout twitch shooter for the Vita. Sony were VERY keen for it to be made, feedback from CES was very good, too.

Ooh, neat. Do you play an instrument or is it all digital?

I thought the videos looked ace. Do we know how much it's going to cost SO I CAN SMASH YOU ALL ON THE LEADERBOARDS?

The preference is for making games, not making pitches. I'm not sure it's fair to talk about a cult of personality. If you don't like Jeff's games as much as some people, that's fine, but intimating that he's using whatever means to elevate himself to some unfair or undue status is pretty insulting. If Jeff was any good at self-promotion, the iOS titles would have been more widely known about for a start.

About 7.99 if $=£ as these things tend to. There's not a lot of vector stuff on Vita, and it looks gorgeous in full resolution. The game's part of one of these promos though so if you get it and, say OlliOlli you get a discount. there's a couple more in there but not sure what they're about. Again, this is assuming the US details pan out over here, which apparently they will.

It's all digital and I wouldn't even say I play that! I've been learning digital music again after many years off from it and have been doing crap tunes in short order with a mate as part of the "1 game a month" challenge ( http://www.beercave.co.uk/games/one-game-month ) in order to learn skills and get shit finished to a deadline. I had the bones of a track for 'Rogueotron' but the game didn't need it. Jeff asked his mates to come up with suitably pumping house bangers, per the tracker mods of the original Tempest 2000 on Jaguar and I thought the tune'd be suitable for one of the bonus levels, being slower and odder. I can't do good house to save my life, anyway. It's written and mixed to be unsettling, both rhythmically and sonically, to put the player off their canter in the bonus rounds. Sounds included are a hard-pan astronaut breathing, (throughout because the bonus rounds are inspired by 2001's end trippiness) and some judiciously obscured recordings of sekrit instructional tapes of yesteryear from everyone's favourite nutter cult. Synth sounds are from Novation's nova legacy library, being from the time of T2K. It's not something I'd listen to for pleasure, but here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/governmentyard/w ... -the-halls

Which reminds me, I need to curate my Soundcloud a bit better.

I had a quick blast of this at an event and it was like getting skullfucked by god himself.

I have 3 of the iOS titles on my phone. Goat Up, Minos and Super Ox wars. Minos is a rip off of an old Atari game, Goat Up is faintly amusing and Super Ox Wars is a Tesco Value Xenon 2 with headache inducing graphics.

He just keeps turning out mediocre sheep/goat/llama obsessed games with graphics like you are on an acid trip and we all know he is capable of so much more.

Hovver Bover is great, Mutant Camels on the Atari is also great. Both standout titles.

The new game? No idea, don't have a PSP. If it's as good as Tempest 2000 it might finally be a return to form.

I really hope this makes it into the game description on PSN.

So I played Brown Christmas all the way to work. It's really hard!

I've managed five stockings, I think. Rogueotron is probably the best game of the lot though I've not tried it on a touchscreen. I think the plan is to take a few of them and improve them up this year, tighten up the graphics on level three and soforth. Webrunner's a handy basic Tempest mind you, and while it shows why I was reluctant to do some house music for TxK, I hope I've captured the spirit. To be honest, using synths to do the sound effects is as much fun as anything. I'm dead chuffed with how Beerman has progressed with his command of the art in the last 12 months, he's loads more confident and rightly so.

Horses (or Llamas) for courses then I guess, if you don't like psychadelia. Can't say any of it's like any acid trips I've enjoyed but there we go. The animal eccentricities of his games have been their trademark since Andes Attack, which was defender with Llamas in 1982.

I didn't like Goatup much, but it's the best of that ilk of game I've played, even if the sequel makes the original look like a simple proof-of-concept exercise. Caverns of Minos I loved, it's hardly fair to call it a rip-off. It's an obvious tribute, and a funny and playable one at that. Equally, Ox Wars is a huge hat-tip to Star Soldier, which brings in bullet hell and polarity based scoring, per Ikaruga. These are love letters to long-forgotten classics, not ripoffs.

I dunno, man - obsession, ripoffs, cult of personality... you seem pretty annoyed with him. He just likes doing retro stuff with animals in it, and always has. And remember Campbell's theorem - for every bad Llamasoft game there's an amazing one.


If anyone has an Android and would like to play the iOS gridrunner (which has the C64 and Vic-20 versions included) then it's donationware - download here then pay what you like... http://minotaurproject.co.uk/Minotaur/donate.php It will need side-loading and there's also the windows version of the PPC game Gridrunner++ on there, though I think it falls over a bit from Vista onwards.

A few years back I was reading his forum and he was moaning on about the lack of commercial success he was having. Nobody had the balls to say "the reason you don't have commercial success is because you make increasingly oddball games that only appeal to your hardcore fans". Or rather they might have said that if (a) they hadn't been fans and (b) his reaction to the slightest critisicm is usually to go into a massive sulk.

Unfair? The man is hippy ('Linda Barker' - Ed) with exactly the same qualities and traits.

Entirely to do with the major clinical depression he was experiencing at the time, but I can see how yo might come to some of the conclusions you have based on the little insight available to you.

A few fans on our forum aren't the full extent of the dialogue he has with people about his games. That's a community that happens to have risen out of people who grew up with the games, but it's not about Jeff. We have closed developer forums where more serious discussion takes place and believe me, there's none of us involved with testing, marketing or anything else unwilling to speak our minds. He could promote the games better, I'd certainly make different design decisions, but the performance of many of the outstanding titles of the last few years are still under-par in spite of that.

Gridrunner Revolution for example was a brilliant 360 game stifled to death by Microsoft after Allard left, which evolved into something quite different and perfectly decent on PC, where a lack of Steam indie at the time didn't help it get around. But I've played the original vision on 360 and it's everyone's loss that that never came along. This is why, despite being mates with plenty of game makers, I'll always speak up for Jeff's stuff and always put my hand in my pocket... Quite apart from being one of the few people who can really nail arcade game mechanics these days he doesn't deserve half the criticism he gets and the only things preventing much wider takeup of his better titles is a decent PR guy and some goodwill from people who seem to prefer being cynical to finding any goodwill for a lovely, eccentric, talented bloke.

That's he's been 'public' about his often poor state of mind is a positive thing. I've no time for people sniping at him for it.

Anyway, that said the point of this thread is that there's a really good tempest game coming out for iPad. Let's get back on that.

Every time there's an article about anything to do with Llamasoft someone brings up the post-Space Giraffe stuff in the comments. It gets quite tiresome and I'd rather not deal with it here as well, if that's possible.

Excellent game incoming. Free links for other excellent game above. More to follow...

I can respect your comments. Besides not everyone has to be "a great pal." He can be assured that there's still plenty of gamers that he's pleased over years and years (camels is probably my earliest C64 game that I loved) and look forward to his games. But similarly there's probably loads of people whose stuff I've enjoyed or loved but whose makers are probably real dicks in real life. Or they're awesome, who knows.

I didn't realise there was an arbitrary date where we could and couldn't discuss which games he's made.

What?

Of course there bloody isn't. Christ this forum is hard work.

TOP SECRET MESSAGE WAS HERE

Thanks, man. Feel free to nuke your post, I've passed the message along

I apologise for my error. Clearly only true fans are allowed to comment as they have "insight" and the access to the man himself required to pass comment.

Like his games its a closed shop. If you don't love them you can fuck off.

I think you are getting confused between a polite request and an edict.

There's no need for that mate, I've explained how the forum you read is far from the whole story. If you want to infer what you've replied here from that, I'm not going to waste my time. I think a lot of you both, and this is getting quite unpleasant. Your mind is obviously made up, I just thought you'd give my angle on things a bit more credit.

Can't expand on that; would probably have said the same, less eloquently. Apologies if I've come across very differently to how I intended on this stuff. Anyway, here's a big blog about the whole evolution from arcade to Vita... http://www.minotaurproject.co.uk/devblog/?p=74

Sorry if you took it the wrong way but I do think you are being over sensitive on this. Nobody batted an eyelid when I pointed out the Oliver Twins hadn't done anything decent in years and their Kickstarter was a cynical cash in and doomed to fail (and throughly deserved it).

I'll bow out on this now. I like some of his games and dislike others. The fact I went and paid for 3 of his iOS titles might at least suggest I was open to giving his new stuff a try. I only have 8 games on my phone and 3 of them are his.

I still wish Unity happened. That seemed to have a lot of potential.

Agreed. I bought a Gamecube specifically for that. Small consolation... If you've got an Xbox 360 then you've basically got Unity without any ships or enemies or bullets in it. Play something in the music player and hit yellow. With four controllers you get some idea of how that was headed.

While I've regrettably managed to delete all my iterations, the PC version of the Neon engine was a thing of much beauty. Once you have full control over every aspect of the synthesis, it was the difference between a child's Casio keyboard and something Rick Wakeman might play. I only recently shredded the manual, as it was taking up a ringbinder I needed.

One day, we may yet have a useable lightsynth again.

Well, the Merkins have got their review codes and the first feedback is trickling in. It is overhwelmingly gushing.

http://kaijupop.com/2014/02/txk-vita-review/

From the founder of Touch Arcade -


and this guy -


And some nepotism from a Sony employee -


...and my favourite, this guy covers loads of Vita stuff on YT iirc, and halfway through his review, he gets completely zoned in and forgets to talk anymore.



So things are looking good. The demand for a soundtrack album has been fairly strong too so we're in the process of getting it on Bandcamp as I type. Gonna be a long couple of days. European review codes are going out shortly so EG and that ought to have something for release.

How come you did 'merica first?

I hate Tempest, no matter how many trippy graphical effects and 'comedy' sound effects Minter throws at it.

Sony released the review codes for there first, as they get it a day earlier. When the UK codes are released for press I'll also magically have my own copy of t'game, so you'll know when our press do, too. Various souls with devkit Vitas are already having fun, but as yet no-one in our neck of the woods, Yak included, has a shop bought one with TxK on.

Just spent the evening remastering my track for the album. Considering it's 15 different artists and there was no collaboration, it's very cohesive. Currently nosing through the lot on a sekrit server and feel a bit embarrassed to be in the company of so many great 4-to-the-floor tunesmiths with my 'steppy ambient coda.

Well, I'm glad you're not a reviewer then.

Gngh, now I want a Vita.

I enjoyed Space Giraffe purely for the crazy visuals. I tried Tempest afterwards and it was just boring.

I quite liked Space Giraffe when I was quite good at it (Peaking at about 70th on the leaderboard, I think)

But then it was patched and made a bit shit, although I can't remember why I thought this and my thoughts have been lost to the mists of time, it had something too do with the spiked basts that charged towards you changing behaviour, I think.

It didn't really make me overly interested in getting the next thing either.

The scoreboards were reset too, where they not?

I remember because I was first on all of them

Yes, I remember why I stopped playing now. I had got reasonably good too.

iirc, some changes were made to certain mechanics in response to sustained personal abuse and widespread derision of said mechanics. Damned if you do, damned if you don't on that one. The update wiped the boards, not with intent, and I forget exactly why it was the case. It's a reason not to want to play XBox live games, not Llamasoft games. I'm not sure but I *think* the 'restart best' facility would have made getting your old score more or less back, or improving it.



Straits times like TxK - 9/10 http://stcommunities.straitstimes.com/t ... p-its-game

/edit EU codes are going out, so reviews to come from places you've heard of. I'm off to the toilet for several hours

I bloody love Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar. It was just the right amount of crazy but clear enough so you never died because not knowing what had hit you. I hope this new Tempest remains true to that tradition.

Also, it has the worse name of a Tempest game ever. At least stick the word 'Tempest' in there somewhere so I know what it is when I see it. If it wasn't for this thread I might not have even poked it with my finger.

Alas, laws and shit.

Everything is happening right now. I'm bouncing like a pornstar on a Sybian.

He can't use the word Tempest?

But it looks like Tempest, plays like Tempest and he'd probably have a tough time convincing a court that it's not Tempest.

So he can make a game that plays exactly like Tempest but can't stick Tempest in the title? (FYI: I know nothing about copywrites or nowt)

What about Temp3st?

7emptest?

7emp7es7?

Temptyest?

Testy?

Feel free to pass those on but if one is used I want my name in the credits. Above Mr Minters. In a bigger font.

As always, copyright and trademarks are two entirely unrelated things.