5 ms·

Jeff Minter, The wizard of gaming psychedelia

140 points by adrian_mrd 4y ago

iwanttocomment 4y ago
I just love that, in these days of bloated AAA titles, there are these two guys in Wales who are totally committed to psychedelic experiences in gaming, who somehow function just past the public eye but manage to get their games released with all the big players, these PG-rated riots of light and sound that on any given day a curious gamer could stumble upon and become captivated with. You have my deepest respects, Mr. Minter and Giles.
- tapoxi 4y ago
  Minter had a cameo as the author in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which is an incredible touch.
  - Rodeoclash 4y ago
    That is neat. I can see how it'd happen though, as I'm surely Charlie Brooker would have reviewed a bunch of his games if not met him back in the days he was reviewing computer games.
paulette449 4y ago
Great to see some love for Jeff and Llamasoft. That takes me back. For some great photos of Jeff and Ivan rather than the games, check out: https://broadbentius.com/2015/01/23/jeff-minter-and-ivan-zorzin-from-llamasoft-photographed-for-wired-italia/ https://broadbentius.com/2015/01/23/jeff-minter-and-ivan-zor...
peepee1982 4y ago
I hope this will help me finally remember Jeff Minter's name. Because every three years or so I feel like looking up some gameplay videos of his games and can't for the life of me recall it.
- dcminter 4y ago
  Some of us find it easier than others ;) I'm no relation, but it made a nice change to come across "Attack of the Mutant Camels" in the mid 80s as a home computer nerd when the only other Minter anyone had heard of was a boxer.
yieldcrv 4y ago
oOOOoOoOO, its like a bullet hell and tower defense, thats my kind of way to blow off steam
toasteros 4y ago
Jeff is a gem. His twitter (now Mastodon, I suppose) was one of the main reasons I stayed on the platform for so long. He has daily livestreams where he goes out and hangs out with his sheep, donkeys, and llamas.
evaneykelen 4y ago
There is a great essay (8 installments) describing his youth, education, and work leading to the creation of Lllamasoft. Highly recommended if you want to relive the 8-bit computer era documented by someone who was a well-known figure at that time. [1] http://minotaurproject.co.uk/lshistory1.php http://minotaurproject.co.uk/lshistory1.php
sombragris 4y ago
It's great to see him kicking around and making games. I have fond memories of playing his "Matrix" game on my C64. Great mechanics, nice graphics, great sound, llamas and camels (of course), all of it in ~35Kb, much lesss than most C64 games even back then. A true wizard.
jeleh 4y ago
I'd love to know what really went on between Jeff Minter and Atari back in 2015 over Tempest 4k. It was an unbelievable mud fight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9227514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9227514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9226275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9226275
musha68k 4y ago
To this old Llamatron fan Akka Arrh is now the definitive killer app for the (OLED) Switch. Disclaimer: must still have high brain plasticity / good hand-eye coordination to cope with it. I'm also really looking forward to PSVR2 updates / versions of some of Llamasoft's earlier games.
dmbaggett 4y ago
At age 15 I wrote a pacman clone for the Atari ST and was both impressed by and jealous of Minter's Llamatron for the same platform. My game was 30Hz only rarely, usually degrading to 15Hz, and you could really feel it in the gameplay. Llamatron was always fast (always 60hz?) -- because that's just how Jeff rolls. Respect. On the plus side, my crappy pacman clone was good enough to convince Andy Gavin to (years later) bring me on as the first developer hire at Naughty Dog. The system works! (I guess?)
Razengan 4y ago
Also see the story of Matthew Smith and Manic Miner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GjTJt40VRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GjTJt40VRY An iconic part of gaming history.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
Jeff Minter's name evokes ideas of super slick gameplay, putting all his earlier work high up on the Olympus occupied by the BitMap Bros, Konami and Atari. This fellow continues to be a true inspiration to somewhat vintage gamers like myself who can remember the hype that went with a Llamasoft release back in the day - incidentally it's interesting reading Jeff saying he hates marketing, I never would have guessed with all his previous releases in the 90's.
eep_social 4y ago
For anyone else who read “llamasoft” and was a huge Winamp fan.. yes, apparently Jeff Minter is that llama.

140 points by adrian_mrd 4y ago

I just love that, in these days of bloated AAA titles, there are these two guys in Wales who are totally committed to psychedelic experiences in gaming, who somehow function just past the public eye but manage to get their games released with all the big players, these PG-rated riots of light and sound that on any given day a curious gamer could stumble upon and become captivated with. You have my deepest respects, Mr. Minter and Giles.

tapoxi 4y ago
Minter had a cameo as the author in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which is an incredible touch.
- Rodeoclash 4y ago
  That is neat. I can see how it'd happen though, as I'm surely Charlie Brooker would have reviewed a bunch of his games if not met him back in the days he was reviewing computer games.

paulette449 4y ago

Great to see some love for Jeff and Llamasoft. That takes me back. For some great photos of Jeff and Ivan rather than the games, check out: https://broadbentius.com/2015/01/23/jeff-minter-and-ivan-zorzin-from-llamasoft-photographed-for-wired-italia/ https://broadbentius.com/2015/01/23/jeff-minter-and-ivan-zor...

peepee1982 4y ago

I hope this will help me finally remember Jeff Minter's name. Because every three years or so I feel like looking up some gameplay videos of his games and can't for the life of me recall it.

dcminter 4y ago
Some of us find it easier than others ;) I'm no relation, but it made a nice change to come across "Attack of the Mutant Camels" in the mid 80s as a home computer nerd when the only other Minter anyone had heard of was a boxer.

yieldcrv 4y ago

oOOOoOoOO, its like a bullet hell and tower defense, thats my kind of way to blow off steam

toasteros 4y ago

Jeff is a gem. His twitter (now Mastodon, I suppose) was one of the main reasons I stayed on the platform for so long. He has daily livestreams where he goes out and hangs out with his sheep, donkeys, and llamas.

evaneykelen 4y ago

There is a great essay (8 installments) describing his youth, education, and work leading to the creation of Lllamasoft. Highly recommended if you want to relive the 8-bit computer era documented by someone who was a well-known figure at that time. [1] http://minotaurproject.co.uk/lshistory1.php http://minotaurproject.co.uk/lshistory1.php

sombragris 4y ago

It's great to see him kicking around and making games. I have fond memories of playing his "Matrix" game on my C64. Great mechanics, nice graphics, great sound, llamas and camels (of course), all of it in ~35Kb, much lesss than most C64 games even back then. A true wizard.

jeleh 4y ago

I'd love to know what really went on between Jeff Minter and Atari back in 2015 over Tempest 4k. It was an unbelievable mud fight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9227514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9227514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9226275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9226275

musha68k 4y ago

To this old Llamatron fan Akka Arrh is now the definitive killer app for the (OLED) Switch. Disclaimer: must still have high brain plasticity / good hand-eye coordination to cope with it. I'm also really looking forward to PSVR2 updates / versions of some of Llamasoft's earlier games.

dmbaggett 4y ago

At age 15 I wrote a pacman clone for the Atari ST and was both impressed by and jealous of Minter's Llamatron for the same platform. My game was 30Hz only rarely, usually degrading to 15Hz, and you could really feel it in the gameplay. Llamatron was always fast (always 60hz?) -- because that's just how Jeff rolls. Respect. On the plus side, my crappy pacman clone was good enough to convince Andy Gavin to (years later) bring me on as the first developer hire at Naughty Dog. The system works! (I guess?)

Razengan 4y ago

Also see the story of Matthew Smith and Manic Miner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GjTJt40VRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GjTJt40VRY An iconic part of gaming history.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

Jeff Minter's name evokes ideas of super slick gameplay, putting all his earlier work high up on the Olympus occupied by the BitMap Bros, Konami and Atari. This fellow continues to be a true inspiration to somewhat vintage gamers like myself who can remember the hype that went with a Llamasoft release back in the day - incidentally it's interesting reading Jeff saying he hates marketing, I never would have guessed with all his previous releases in the 90's.

eep_social 4y ago

For anyone else who read “llamasoft” and was a huge Winamp fan.. yes, apparently Jeff Minter is that llama.