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jp's Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (PC)
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| [November 3, 2024 12:23:23 PM]
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I'm really loving what Digital Eclipse is doing. Karateka, Llamasoft, etc.
This one's a strange collection for me - unlike, I'm guessing, most non-UK game players, I am quite familiar with Jeff Minter. Not through his games, but sort of one step removed. I've been reading Edge magazine for almost a quarter century at this point and he's someone who is often brought up, interviewed a few times, and so on. So, he's a name that was familiar to me, I know of his reputation within the UK scene. But, I had never played any of his games. So, it was nice to finally get that chance. More fairly, I'm thankful that I was able to create the circumstances that resulted in my playing his games and having a closer-to-first-hand experience of what he's done. At least the old stuff (up until Tempest 2000 pretty much, but if I recall Minter then went heavily into light synths and stuff like that...returning later to videogames).
Actually, to be fair, I had played some of his games - but his much more recent games on iOS app store. Sort of early ipad days. I don't remember the names of any of them. But I think I played two games?
Anyways, back to the old retro original Minter stuff...
If I was mean I'd describe his early games as "clones" with zany characters thrown on top. They play well, are really hard, but it's super clear that he's working on top of other ideas, trying to find new spaces within those. And, this work continued even across ports from one computer to another. A mean person would say that he's just re-hashing his stuff all the time, few big new ideas, and blablabla. And, that might be fair to an extent. Minter isn't the kind of developer/designer who seems to always be looking for another crazy idea, to really push game designs into uncharted territory and so on. That's not a bad thing. Or a good thing either. It's just who he is. He's stuck to his guns doing what he likes and refining and working on that. He's sort of like a carpenter who only makes chairs - and iterates, refines, etc. But his chairs are still chairs - and they're interesting. He's the super specialized craftsman. Other carpenters migth make tables, and then try chairs, and then decide to make a closet, and then a table chair combo, and so on. So, broad in their skills and interests.
And so Digital Eclipse's work really does a great job of laying all his stuff out in front of you so you can see it, in context, and with great additional documentary details. I loved it.
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jp's Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Monday 21 October, 2024
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