Digital Eclipse
reckon on what earned run average of play you spring up up in , the name Jeff Minter could intend everything or nothing to you .
The visionary developer behind Llamasoft , one of the industry ’s most eclectic studios , was much gaming royal family from the eighties to the mid-90s . He made a name for himself with title likeGridrunnerandRevenge of the Mutant Camelsbefore creating a true magnum opus in 1994’sTempest 2000 . While he has n’t cease making games since then ( he even released a new one last week ) , Minter is n’t exactly a house name outside of game account raw sienna these days . That ’s not because he ’s no longer give rise not bad work ; it ’s the rough reality of a commercialized industry he ’s always disgust against .
Digital Eclipse
Now , Minter is getting his due inLlamasoft : The Jeff Minter Story , the latest interactional infotainment from Digital Eclipse ’s Gold Master Series . Like last year’sThe fashioning of Karateka , the unique project preserves Minter ’s classic games and contextualizes them with loads of archival fabric . The result is , unsurprisingly , another must - own packet for anyone interested in video game history .
What ’s more vital , though , is the eerily relevant account that ’s thread between biz . The Llamasoft appeal spotlight an almost prophetic Minter who accurately predicted the terminus of the secret plan diligence ’s quest for commercialisation . It ’s a sobering snapshot of how we get to where we are today , even if its Atari - washed well-chosen end obscures the truth a spot .
What a trip!
Llamasoft : The Jeff Minter Storyserves two clear-cut social function . On its most introductory level , it ’s a fantastic retro biz collection that pulls together 42 Llamasoft games released between 1981 and 1994 ( plus Digital Eclipse ’s own advanced remake ofGridrunner ) . These are n’t the kinds of games that you could buy in a XII retro secret plan collections presently float around digital marketplaces . It ’s a exhaustively curated assembling of Minter oddities grade from life history - defining smash likeIridis Alphato his stretch of former XC shareware releases .
Even if you skip all of the documentary film features include here , there ’s a lot to harvest from simply play the fantastic suite of title chronologically . They offer a windowpane into Minter ’s psyche , depict his creative evolution in real time . The timeline start with crude recreation of classic likeCentipede(a undertaking Minter made without really having play the original ) , but each game slowly takes on a distinct shape as the artist finds his voice . Riff on established game of the time mix with Minter ’s love of Monty Python - animate absurdity , psychedelic art , and animal with fabled resolution .
A undertaking revolutionize by the picture game version ofStar war : The Empire Strikes Backand its AT - AT fights morphs into a wild colonnade plot about shooting an tremendous camel . That later on turns intoRevenge of the Mutant Camels , which inverts the Star Wars pattern by letting players master the giant beastie or else of attacking it . Each time Minter build on an estimate , it get wackier , from the bafflingly bizarreMama Llamato the fantasticLlamatron : 2112 . LikeThe Making of Karateka , Digital Eclipse pluck together a pivotal historical text file that emphasizes the importance of invention and iteration .
That ’s best exemplify in the software ’s journey to its jacket gem , Tempest 2000 . The Atari Jaguar hit still feels tonic by today ’s standard , delivering a wholly unique space shooter that try out with space . you’re able to palpate that by play it , but its impingement is secure when placed in the context of use of the games that come before it . I begin to link up the Elvis between former Minter works likeGridrunnerandLaser Zone , both of which challenged design estimation of the time to reimagine how histrion move in a secret plan . Through that lens , it ’s no surprisal when those mind culminate in a system - defining classic likeTempest 2000 . It ’s a plot design seminar tucked into a retro game compendium .
Rise of the megagame
There ’s a running game root word that comes up throughout the writing sport in the collection . Minter repose out a low-spirited vision of the 1980s video game industry , one that he palpate is slowly careening towards a harmful form of commercialisation . His writing at the fourth dimension explain how gaming ’s growing popularity had claimed a victim in specialized tech shop that looked for high - quality game . As the industry grew more profitable , chain stores consume over and began pushing whatever was pop . That force studios to create more safe gang - pleasers that would get into store rather than initiation - focalise gambles that small shops would need to sell .
If you read that quote without any context , you might cerebrate it was written today . Everything Minter discusses is applicable to the lucrative game industry in 2024 ; he may as well have been save aboutSuicide Squad : wipe out the Justice LeagueorSkull and Bones . Through his writing , Minter predicts an industry where excogitation innovation is doomed to lessen to the side as studio apartment seek to recreate tried - and - true successes . That ’s not how you get to Tempest 2000 .
Atari-washing history
Digital Eclipse follow that yarn throughout Minter ’s career , slow paint a flick of a genuine genius who is pushed out of an industry that ’s no longer friendly to developers who desire to make a biz about stealing your neighbour ’s lawn mower . Though strangely , Digital Eclipse does n’t carry that tale to its finis . The collection more or less ends by celebratingTempest 2000 ’s succeeder , quickly explain that Llamasoft is still thriving today and leaving actor with a dawdler for a right pic documentary about Minter ’s work . It ’s all a bit strange , almost like the studio is too cheeseparing to its case to recognise his waning principal power .
The more likely account for the end might just be line , though . In October 2023 , Atari announced that itplanned to acquire Digital Eclipse — a sensitive move study that the studio apartment had previously made acritically acclaim collectionfor the company ’s 50th anniversary . As I scratch my heading over the anticlimactical endpoint of the Llamasoft solicitation , that business batch sticks in my nous .
Rather than building up to Minter ’s magnum opus , the last chapter reads more like a solemnization of Atari history . The orgasm is less aboutTempest 2000and more about the Atari Jaguar . A great good deal of space goes into an aside about the Konix , a failed British video recording plot system that would pave the way for the Jaguar . There ’s only one quick cite that the system was a commercial failure ; otherwise , the storey would have you thinking that the Jaguar was a massive moment for the diligence that gave Minter his career . The package even stop with a pair of archival quotes from the developer circa 1995 , where he praises the ship’s company for bringing him back to mainstream biz creation . That ’s the note everything ends on , almost feel like an advertizing for another unannouncedAtari console table breeding .
Context is everything inLlamasoft : The Jeff Minter Story , so here ’s some to consider : Atari has a vested stake in preserving Minter ’s bequest . After all , the companionship published Llamasoft ’s belated discharge , bothAkka Arrhand its newly released VR version . Though Atari did n’t issue this task , and its $ 20 million learning of Digital Eclipse still looks like pending , I ca n’t help but wonder if the finalized good deal could make a conflict of pursuit for the studio ’s journalistic crusade down the railway line . I feel like I ’m already seeing a tease of that hypothesis here in what ’s an otherwise vital preservation exertion .
Admittedly , all of this is the kind of tin foil hat literary criticism that Minter himself despises , as demonstrate by the well - documented spat with Zzap ! magazine over a spoiled recap ofMama Llamaincluded here . Perhaps the simple answer is that Digital Eclipse has told the exact level it need to face here — something that would mirror its content ’s own uncompromising attitude . If that ’s the case , I can appreciateLlamasoft : The Jeff Minter Storyas an optimistic portraiture of a sick scientist who stay to make his left - field art in rebelliousness of a commercialise machine . possibly we could all use some Leslie Townes Hope that the video plot industry has n’t squeezed the life out of itself yet .
Llamasoft : The Jeff Minter Storyis out now on PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X / S , Nintendo Switch , and microcomputer .
