Jeff Minter

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Jeff Minter

Jeff Minter speaking at the Game Developers Conference in 2007.
Born 22 April 1962 (1962-04-22) (age 49)
Reading, England, UK
Other names Yak
Occupation programmer, game designer
Employer Llamasoft (founder)
Website
http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/

Jeff 'Yak' Minter (born in Reading, 22 April 1962[citation needed]) is a British video game designer and programmer. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and his recent works include Neon (2004), a non-game music visualization program that has been built into the Xbox 360 console, and the video games Space Giraffe[1] (Xbox Live Arcade, 2007 and PC, 2008), and Space Invaders Extreme (Xbox Live Arcade, May 2009).

Fans of Minter's games have identified a number of distinctive elements common to his games.[citation needed] They are often arcade style shoot 'em ups. They often contain titular and/or in-game references demonstrating his fondness of ruminants (llamas, sheep, camels, etc.). Many of his programs also feature something of a psychedelic element, as in some of the earliest "light synthesizer" programs including 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 ;-)."

[2]

Contents

[edit] Programming career

[edit] Pre-commercial career (early years)

Jeff Minter had expressed an interest in programming computers from a young age, however it would not be until a long illness during secondary school that Minter's talents would develop in any meaningful way. Following a 3-month stint in which Minter was restricted to lying on his back and was confined to his bed between November and January, boredom led him to take up computer programming in earnest to pass the time.[3]

Upon recovery, Minter teamed up with Richard Jones, a fellow pupil, and together they started writing their own games on their school's Commodore PET.[citation needed] They soon parted ways. Jones went on to commercial projects, some of them in the software market (e.g., Interceptor Micros).

[edit] Commercial years

In 1981 Minter started independently writing and selling video games for the Sinclair ZX80. He formed a partnership with his mother, Hazel Minter. Together they developed and commercially produced 20 games for the Sinclair ZX81, Commodore VIC-20, Atari 2600, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. Jeff had been attending the University of East Anglia studying physics, however success in the video-game programming industry prompted him to drop his studies and take up video game development full time.[3]

In 1982 Jeff founded the software house[4] Llamasoft.[5] His first Llamasoft game was a Defender clone for the Commodore VIC-20 called Andes Attack (US version: Aggressor). In Andes Attack, little llamas advanced upon and attacked the player instead of the spaceships from Defender. As a fan of Defender, Minter would remake it again as Defender 2000. Using the name 'Salamander software', Minter released Gridrunner, published by Quicksilva Ltd. UK - this was written in a week and marked 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, Abductor, Matrix: Gridrunner 2, Hellgate, Hover Bovver, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Return of the Mutant Camels, Laser Zone, Mama Llama, Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time, Sheep in Space, Voidrunner, and Iridis Alpha.

In 1989, Minter helped in the production of the Konix Multisystem console.

Minter also worked for Atari and for (now-defunct) VM Labs. For Atari he produced Tempest 2000 (1994) on the Jaguar. It was a remake of Dave Theurer's 1981 classic, Tempest. Minter also produced Defender 2000 (1995) on the Jaguar, remaking Eugene Jarvis's 1980 classic, Defender. Minter also produced the Virtual Light Machine (VLM-1) for the Jaguar CD-ROM add-on. For VM Labs, Minter designed related software for the Nuon chip including the creation of the VLM-2 Light Synth and the video game, Tempest 3000.

Minter then wrote 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 2:Grand Theft Flymo (a reinterpretation of his own 1984 game, Hover Bovver), and the PC/Macintosh game Gridrunner++ (the third title in the Gridrunner series).

Jeff Minter at Assembly 2004

In 2002, Jeff began work on a music video game for the Nintendo GameCube to be called Unity. Utilizing the newest version of his VLM, the VLM-3 or Neon, Unity was to combine the two main threads of Minter's prior career: light synthesis and classic arcade style shooting. Minter was involved in writing this game for Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios throughout 2003, however the project was canceled in December 2004. Neon has since been reprogrammed and significantly expanded and is used in Xbox 360 media visualisation.[6]

In 2007 Minter released Space Giraffe, an action video game with similarities to Tempest. Space Giraffe was released for Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade for 400 Microsoft Points, or $5USD.

In 2008 it was announced at the Tokyo Game Show that designers at Llamasoft were working on the visualization aspects of the Xbox 360 version of Space Invaders, called Space Invaders Extreme.[7] The game was released in 2008. In December 2008 Space Giraffe was released for the PC.

In September 2009 he released Gridrunner Revolution for Windows-based PCs as a digital download.

On January 5, 2011 he released Minotaur Rescue for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), and iPad.[8] A PC version is to follow.

On March 2, 2011 Llamasoft released their second iOS game, Minotron: 2112.[9] Minotron: 2112 is the remake of the Atari ST / Amiga classic, Llamatron (which is, in fact, directly inspired by the coin-op video game Robotron: 2084).

[edit] Games

Second Generation games

  • Deflex (PC/VIC-20, 1981; iPod Touch/iPhone 3GS/iPad/iPhone 4, 2011) (A.K.A. Deflex V)
  • Centipede (ZX81, 1982)[10]
  • 3D Labyrinth (VIC-20, 1982)
  • Abductor (VIC-20, 1982)
  • Andes Attack (VIC-20, 1982) (A.K.A. Defenda)
  • Bomb Buenas Aires (VIC-20, 1982; Atari ST, 1988) (A.K.A. Aggressor, Bomber, Blitzkrieg)
  • City Bomb (ZX Spectrum, 1982)
  • Gridrunner (Atari 2600/VIC-20/ZX Spectrum, 1982; C64, 1983)
  • Matrix: Gridrunner 2 (VIC-20, 1982; Atari 2600/C64, 1983; C16, 1986)
  • Rat Man (VIC-20, 1982)
  • Rox III (VIC-20/ZX Spectrum, 1982)
  • Super Deflex (ZX Spectrum, 1982)
  • Attack of the Mutant Camels (Atari 2600/C64, 1983) (UK: Advance of the Megacamel)
    • Attack of the Mutant Camels - Matrix Version (C64, 1983)
  • Headbangers Heaven (ZX Spectrum, 1983)
  • Hover Bovver (C64, 1983; Atari 2600, 1984)
  • Laser Zone (VIC-20/C64, 1983; C16, 1986)
  • Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time (VIC-20, 1983; C64, 1984) (A.K.A. Meta-Llamas)
  • Revenge of the Mutant Camels (C64, 1983)
  • Rox 64 (C64, 1983)
  • Traxx (VIC-20/ZX Spectrum, 1983)
  • Ancipital (C64, 1984)
  • Hellgate (VIC-20/C64, 1984)
  • Psychedelia (VIC-20/ZX Spectrum/C64/MSX, 1984) – A light synthesizer.
  • Sheep in Space (C64, 1984)[11]
  • Batalyx (C64, 1985)[12]
  • Colourspace (Atari 2600, 1985) – A light synthesizer.
  • Mama Llama (C64, 1985)
  • Yak's Progress (C64, 1985)
  • Iridis Alpha (C64, 1986)
  • Made in France II (C64, 1987)
  • Return of the Mutant Camels (C64, 1987; Atari 2600, 1988) (A.K.A. Revenge of the Mutant Camels 2)
  • Voidrunner (C64, 1987)

Third Generation games

Fifth Generation games

Sixth Generation games

Seventh Generation games

Minotaur Project series: This series of iOS games pay homage to classic retro platforms. Each game is implemented as if running on a modernized version of the classic platform it represents.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Fulton, Jeff; Fulton, Steve (2010-03-19). The Essential Guide to Flash Games: Building Interactive Entertainment with ActionScript. Apress. p. 25. ISBN 9781430226147. http://books.google.com/books?id=VCR7XYUncEsC&pg=PR25. Retrieved 26 April 2011. 
  2. ^ Minter, Jeff. Llamasoft: Home of the Virtual Light Machine - An Introduction. 2005.
  3. ^ a b "Business Born in Bed". Home Computing Weekly Issue 4, 29 March - 4 April 1983 on page 11
  4. ^ A company that creates games rather than sells or distributes them is often called a house
  5. ^ Purchese, Robert (16 December 2008). "Llamasoft's Jeff Minter -Interview". Eurogamer. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/llamasofts-jeff-minter-interview. Retrieved 19 September 2010. 
  6. ^ http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/655/655146p3.html
  7. ^ http://www.gamerbytes.com/2008/10/tgs_08_space_invaders_extreme.php
  8. ^ a b http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minotaur-rescue/id408475782?mt=8
  9. ^ a b http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minotron-2112/id421377889?mt=8
  10. ^ http://zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/generated/tapeinfo/c/Centipede.html
  11. ^ Couper, Heather (December 20–27, 1984). "Wooly Logic". New Scientist: p. 73. http://books.google.com/books?id=oX8Wr-JBlK4C&pg=PA73&dq=%22Jeff+Minter%22+video+games#v=onepage&q=minter&f=false. Retrieved 26 April 2011. 
  12. ^ Newman, James; Simons, Iain (2007-06-04). 100 Videogames. BFI. p. 11. ISBN 9781844571611. http://books.google.com/books?id=SuInAQAAIAAJ. Retrieved 26 April 2011. 

[edit] External links

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