Space Giraffe

I bought this when I got my xbox because of a rave review I read. I am definitely still in that "I don't get it" place. I WILL eventually make myself get it, though. But Geo Wars keeps nabbing my high-scoring attention...

ha, have been reading yak yak and minter's blog for a while now, hearing all the growing pains (llamasoft is exactly 2 people, yak and giles). all pretty pointless because i don't have and won't buy an xbox (and suck at tempest) but the stills look wonderful.

10,000 or so downloads in the first two weeks. and this despite a 2/10 from OXM reviewer.

space giraffe forum
http://www.yakyak.org/viewforum.php?f=34

good review here.
http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/giraffe/giraffe3.htm

even better if you only read the first letter of each paragraph 8)

Thanks - that's a great review. It was really nice to read something so long and so thought out. The one point in the review that has been different in my experience - he says 90% of the time he dies he doesn't know why... this was close to true for me when I was starting out on the game, but at this point, it's maybe more like 10 or 20% - most of the time now, I know what I did wrong (even if I only have 1/10th of a second to realize my mistake). Luckily you can earn up to nine lives - which you'll need to protect yourself from those annoying deaths.

The other thing to mention is that the game has an amazing sense of humor. Not just the sound effects and between level comments and achievements - but sometimes you get to a level that is just so fucking crazy that you just have to laugh.

woohoo - finished level 100 & am currently sitting at 64 on the leader boards. the later levels get REALLY tough - but there was just enough variety and challenge to keep the game interesting to the end.

Does the developer's face appear in the visuals on the full version? That kind of creeped me out.

Yes. And yes it is still creepy.

There's an interview with Jeff Minter on Major Nelson's "Blogcast" (I guess MS doesn't want to say "pod") and he's distinctly less crazy sounding than I expected.

> Does the developer's face appear in the visuals on the full version?

in the first few levels? that might be j allard.

wikipedia:
J Allard can also be seen in the XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) game Space Giraffe (developed by Jeff Minter of Llamasoft) in the first level called "The Eyes of Allard."

actually, Allard looks like the anti-yak. in the hair department anyway.

Here's some footage of the next one, the Gridrunner++ redo. Looks about as crazy as SG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwwiDEG2Wko

(ok, slightly confused, gr++ already exists as a pc game, the xbox version will be gr+++ or something and jeff had posted some videos* of that already but only of the Vic20 and CM64 versions that will be packaged with it. that video does appear to be the new version though)

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg0d3S_z0zQ&feature=related

yes - it is slightly confusing!

can you imagine something minter-related being confusing and obtuse? boggles the mind ;P

there are videos on youtube of gridrunner++ (old version) running on an ipod touch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XA-PFfndh0

which, if nothing else, shows you how glarey the ipod screen is and how stupid an idea touch screens are for things that you need to see (your hand, by definition, is in the way)

(btw, Jeff, are you the JLeV of 'the days go by like broken records'?)

yeah koogs, that's the one I am

(cool. picked up an issue of No Hope almost by accident at a comic fair and ended up buying the other 8. ditto Destroy All Comics. ditto Lust For Life. thought the name was familiar but only put two and two together yesterday)

Space Giraffe finally clicked for me tonight, after two weeks of not really knowing what was going on or why I kept dying. Thing is, I only had one go tonight, and only got to level 14 with about 18,000,000 points. Which really shouldn't have been that impressive (I've not even started taking advantage of my previously saved scores, or anything like that), but it's already enough to get me in the top 1000 on the leaderboards. I guess not many other people are trying very hard?

The bonus level was lovely though, so I'm glad I stuck with it if only for that.

When the game updated a while back they erased the leaderboards. Since the game was already at least a few months old at the point, I know a lot of people probably had their fill of the game already and didn't go back to it - only the hardcore. Though not too many people bought the game or played it much to begin with (just over 10,000, I thought - maybe a few more now?).

Jim - you inspired me to load up the game again, and I had a nice hardcore run up to level 56 - so exhausting.

ha, show off.

Leaderboard deletion is a pretty major balls up, isn't it? Not surprised there aren't so many people playing now, it doesn't inspire much confidence.

If you want to have a successful hardcore run, the main thing I would advise is getting good at collecting those pods - I just try to catch every one - as they are what give you extra lives. I'm not sure exactly what the formula is, but it seems like if you get eight or so (ten? six?) in a row you get an extra life (up to nine lives). So on pretty much every level you can collect an extra life if you are diligent enough. You're going to die sometimes, so it's important to carry as many extra lives as you can.

It's worth pushing on to see some of the different enemies (and jokes) and just how crazy some of the levels get. Once you're beating the higher levels, those first levels are going to start seeming so absurdly easy...

> Leaderboard deletion is a pretty major balls up, isn't it?

there was a bug that meant people could rack up huge scores with little effort.

PC version out now

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=74589

never played the 360 version and am not sure my laptop is up to running the pc version without melting but, hey...

new llamasoft offering released tonight, Gridrunner Revolution

(nee GR+++. microsoft didn't seem keen on an xbox release so they rewrote it for pcs)

screenshots:
http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=76733

and a great thread charting the progress:
http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=77278

never really played the original and this is lightyears distant from that by all accounts. laptop wasn't up to playing Space Giraffe and i doubt it'll be up to this. the new one will be though...

it's up now

...downloading the demo

here http://llamasoft.co.uk/frontpage.php

Woah - Gridrunner Revolution - I'm glad I tried out the demo as the game is fucking terrible. I can't believe they're asking $20 US for this! In a world where your arena shooter competition is against beautiful games like Geometry Wars and Everyday Shooter, this just feels tremendously flat. Your ship and the enemies seem huge compared to the limited screen real estate. Your shot is loose and apparently more about creating "attractive" patterns than accurately taking down enemies. Everything just feels plopped down on the screen, like a board game one has yet to set up. The demo is just the first four levels, so I don't know how accurate of a reflection it is of the entire game, but really, I'm not interested in seeing more anyway.

reminds me of a guy who once said "When I first tried this game a couple of weeks ago, I thought it was garbage"...

I know what you're saying, but a lot has changed in two years! It's a really different feeling - though admittedly a part of that may be the difference between five dollars and twenty dollars. Space Giraffe was befuddling, while Gridrunner Revolution just feels flat and lifeless. I didn't understand Space Giraffe at first, but I feel like I understand Gridrunner Rev far too well.

have played the demo now. it is rather short and it seems impossible to lose a life on the easy levels. the two later, harder levels that are supplied show promise.

it's all a bit cramped though, yes, and the gravity wells mean that you don't really have a lot of control over where you're firing.

the bits i do like - the backgrounds in general, is like playing within a phosphene kaleidoscope and the generative enemies (the centipede things were all done algorithmically)

i missed these at the time, but jeff's moved into ios games:

Minotaur Rescue (Space Duel meets Asteroids)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LjGmNzvv1s

Minotron (Llamatron remake)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj6Q2AqNqoE

Yeah those games are fucking insane.

loved the old ST version of llamatron and would play it all the way through (100 levels) with the helper droid (i absolutely sucked solo though).

Yeah those games are fucking insane.

ha that didn't work