Jeff Minter, he of Mutant Camels and Space Giraffe fame, is back with another iPhone title. This one’s called Deflex, and it’s a remake of sorts of Superdeflex, which Minter made in 1982.
Hall of fame video game create Jeff Minter doesn’t make bland games. They’re a festival of old-school graphics and techno music. And he demonstrates his latest, Minotaur Rescue, while wearing a minotaur mask.
That’s because this is a music video as directed by Llamasoft, creators of tripped out, gamer-bewildering titles like Tempest 2000 and Space Giraffe. The song? Electronic musician Tiga’s “Mind Dimension.”
Jeff Minter’s Llamasoft is so very pleased with PC Gamer UK’s 92% review of the PC version of Space Giraffe that they’ve spilled the beans on the release date for their next title, Gridrunner+++.
When the pricing was announced (both times) for Xbox Live Arcade puzzle-platformer Braid, the vocally frugal gamer crowd bemoaned the higher than average cost. Too bad, really, as it’s one of the best XBLA titles I’ve ever played. Still, there are folks who can’t get past the 1200 MS Points pricing — that makes it one of the more expensive downloadable games, but still cheaper than Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.
I’ll be honest. I haven’t played Space Giraffe, because my Xbox 360 is still in the intensive care unit. (Have you? You like it?) Paper mag Official Xbox Magazine didn’t dig the game much at all, giving it a 2/10. Over at Something Awful, Space Giraffe creator and head yak Jeff Minter called the review “the most extraordinary example of egregious fuckwittery” he’s ever seen. Right or wrong, the magazine is certainly entitled to its opinion! Just as Minter is entitled to make t-shirts lampooning that review. They’re available for purchase, too. Buy one if you like. Wear it, too.
Fuckwittery. Gotta remember that one. Funny. Minter Makes Shirt [YakYak]
Jeff Minter and Llamasoft’s Space Giraffe is currently bugging out the brains of some ten thousand-plus Xbox Live Arcade gamers, beggaring comparisons that range from Joyce’s Ulysses to Minter’s own Tempest 2000. But in a LiveJournal appropriate lamentation on the need to get away from it all, Minter says his experience dealing with the XBLA re-approval process—Space Giraffe’s got some bugs, you see—is akin to a “massive, spirit-crushing inertia.”
Poor Jeff. Lay off him already, Giraffe haters! If you love Space Giraffe, though, show Minter some love. Maybe a nice fruit basket or hand knit yak hair sweater would cheer him up.
What’s going on here? Something, that’s what. You can find out for yourself on Wednesday, I guess.