Tempest 2000 creator Jeff Minter has gone a bit mental on his blog, after the disappointing sales of Space Giraffe on Xbox Live Arcade.
The psychedelic shooter was released on the service in August, and apparently, much to Mr. Minter's frustration, it's even being outsold by Frogger.
"Not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than ten to one, in one week," writes Minter on his blog.
To be fair though, in Frogger you can work out what's going on fairly quickly and you can't win by taping the 'A' and analogue stick into the down position.
"OK, we get the message. All you want on that channel is remakes of old, shite arcade games and crap you vaguely remember playing on your Amiga. We'll shut up trying to do anything new then. Sorry for even trying", Minter added.
No one can argue that Space Giraffe is creative, sure, but when you go out to deliberately shape an off-the-wall underground shooter and then moan when the mainstream don't pick it up, you're not going to get much sympathy.
That is absolutely ridiculous. Who the hell does he think he is? As a regular buyer of XBLA games, I was looking forward to this release, and having played it prior to reading any reviews on its day of release, after an hour my reaction was simple, this is complete wank.
I wonder how many of those hours were put down into thinking "Lets make an active effort to not include so much on the screen that it'll induce violent seizures from the player..."
Christs sake, if you can't take criticism, you don't deserve to be an artist.
No one can argue that Space Giraffe is creative, sure, but when you go out to deliberately shape an off-the-wall underground shooter and then moan when the mainstream don't pick it up, you're not going to get much sympathy.
That's exactly what I was about to say...
Personally, I tried the Space Giraffe demo, couldn't work out what the hell was going on, or where giraffes came into it, and very quickly thought 'bugger this for a game of soldiers'.
Firstly, calling a game Space Giraffe is shooting yourself in the foot. Tempest 2000 is a cool name for a game, Space Giraffe is not. It sounds like a dodgy kids game where you play a superhero animal who flies around the universe rescuing fluffy bunnies or some b******s.
Frogger is selling purely on the merit of it was an absolute classic back in the day and people want to walk down memory lane. I bet a remake of Tempest would've sold the same way if it had been marketed like that.
Think of who your market is before you release your product. The majority of Xbox gamers are late teens to late 20s and by default will ignore a game called Space Giraffe, irrelevant of how good it is.
Or failing that, stop trying to be retro and come up with something original.
An honest reaction, at least. Revenge of the Mutant Camels was a great game but what has Jeff done for us lately?
Still, he's entitled to speak his brain. That's what blogs are for.
Personally, I'd never even noticed Space Giraffe but now it's been brought to my attention, I may give it a look. No publicity is bad publicity, eh Jeff?
I wonder what the ratio is of people who downloaded the trial to people who downloaded the full game. I downloaded the trial after reading his various columns about it and on past heritage and after 30 or 40 huge brain melting seizures within the first 20 minutes of play I concluded the game wasn't for me. If there was no trial available and people had to buy it blind I think he'd have a lot of angry punters cursing his name rather than a flop of a game.
There's a fine line between genius and messed up, barely playable, psychedelic nonsense Jeff and after skirting the border for many a year you finally crossed over into nonsenseville I'm sorry to say.
Fac it Jeff...You cant mae games...well...no decent ones anyway. No matter what anyone say all your previous attempts at makin games as sucked. Stick to lightsynths. te 360 'Neon' is great.
No one can argue that Space Giraffe is creative, sure, but when you go out to deliberately shape an off-the-wall underground shooter and then moan when the mainstream don't pick it up, you're not going to get much sympathy.
That's exactly what I was about to say...
Personally, I tried the Space Giraffe demo, couldn't work out what the hell was going on, or where giraffes came into it, and very quickly thought 'bugger this for a game of soldiers'.
Exactly. I was really looking forward to it too but I just couldnt 'get it' when I played the trial. Also you cant even see the bullets coming towards you causing infuriating deaths that are unforgivable when trying to top a high score. You shouldnt have tripped the graphics out so much. Or at least make bullets visable.
i used to have a lot of respect for minter being one of the last one man band operations and an obsession for llamas. Now I dont. Fact is its a free download-if someones curious theyll download it and give it a go- if they like it theyll buy it- simple as. Grow up and learn to take criticism.
I do get annoyed with this kind of artistic attitude. You're either making art to please yourself, in which case who cares what the plebs think, or you're looking to make a game that people enjoy. If you do the latter and they don't like it, it's your fault, not theirs.
Geez that guy needs to chill out a bit! Surely as a game creator he'd learn to take the good with the bad. Should have done more market research to check if there would actually be any interest in the game.
I'm certainly not feeling obliged to go any buy it now anyway!
"OK, we get the message. All you want on that channel is remakes of old, s**te arcade games and crap you vaguely remember playing on your Amiga. We'll shut up trying to do anything new then. Sorry for even trying",
what dose he expect it might of been good in the 60's when he was a lad but its 2007 for feck sake right hold on for a sec n i think of what to play space graffie or cod4 online ill have to get back to yis on this one it a tough one. only joking i downloaded the trial i thought it was mentel couldnt get into it at all.he's probley just going mad coz he tought he'd make loads of money for bird seed or some other blankets n rugs
He'll probably find the people who bought his game were people from that amiga era. Also how can you vaguely remember SWOS; the greatest football game ever made.
New gamers i doubt would even give it a try because it looks like it makes no sense.
I was bored a couple of weekends ago so i decided to download a bunch of demos off XBLA.
I tried Frogger, Space Giraffe, Missile Command, PacMan championship edition and a few others i cant remember. I was looking forward to space giraffe coz i liked tempest2000 back in the old days and it sounded similar... i was very dissapointed to find out that Space Girraffe was actually, in my opinion not fun to play at all, not even a little bit, and i love retro and retro-style games.
Frogger has something that SpaceGiraffe doesnt have... frogger is fun to play! It absolutely kicks space giraffes ass and deserves to outsell it! If i hadnt run out of ms points id probably have bought it (frogger) but i spent my last on Pacman champ edition, its really very good indeed and i highly recommend it
it would be sad if mr Minter stopped making games for XBLA though. Keep making games, just dont make another space giraffe!!
i met minter at an old Atari show many years ago in London. he was smoking a roll up and looked like a tramp. i told him then and i think the same now. his games are s**te. remember all that crap llama stuff trying to copy defender. tempest 2000 on the jaguar was abysmal and he should never had been allowed by Atari to blemish one of the best games in history. TEMPEST. i even had the old arcade machine at one point in my life. all he did was copy the format and put a load of psychedelic twirls in place of the black background. why oh why does he have this fetish of animal names in his crap games?
Well, I'M going to mention Tempest, accusations of lazyitus be damned.
Space Giraffe is a way less user friendly version of Tempest. Why else is one of the first things you see in the instructions is a big disclaimer stating 'THIS IS NOT TEMPEST!'
SG just isn't fun to play. And to quote ROTMC (for his hissy fit) 'may the fleas of a 1000 camels infest your armpits'...
Space Giraffe is one of the best games on the 360, if you can be bothered to learn how to play it, massively addictive and the trance inducing visuals and music just add to the experience
crap and Amiga in the same sentence!! How dare he!!!
That does it! Where do I find this tosser?
*rents white Ford Transit*
I'll find him! Who's coming with?
I'm there, pick me up from Asda.
I get this warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach and a huge grin on my face when you guys post pretty much what i wanted to say, by that does he mean Speedball2? because if he does, then that is just complete and utter sour grapes on his part - i used to have some sort of respect for this guy as he was 'there from the beginning' but now....go f**k ureself dude, your game is pap (from what i've heard) and you don't have a leg to stand on!
Most people (including a lot of reviewers) did not play the game for any length of time and even try to understand it or how to play it. They presume it is a tempest like game and although the visual aspect may lead people that way the gameplay is quite far removed once you understand it.
Problem is these days if it isn't instant action that is obvious and easy to grasp the majority will switch off and not bother. It is a disease killing the PC games market and will eventually 'catch up' on consoles to by the sounds of it.
It seems people do not want to think or have to work at a game anymore, they just want to pick it up and whistle through it and say 'yay I reached the end' or 'I completed xyz in 4 hours'
Give the guy a break, he is a one man band (well actually there is two now in llamasoft I beleive) trying to make games to not only make a living, but truly provide something different, something to be worked at and challenging. He does not have the millions of pounds behind him that most development studios have and he also doesn't have a team of 50 other people doing art, sound, coding and marketing etc.
His games have always been different, he has always been trying new approaches, most people never give them the time because they can't be bothered to un-learn what they normally 'do' for a game.
Just because he amde a godo game 20 years ago doesn't eman he can cut the mustard now. gaming has changed so very very very much in the past couple of decades that it's unrecognisable from what it used to be.
I suppose it must be frustrating for the poor guy, what with everyone saying his latest is just a Tempest remake hidden beneath mind-blowingly gameplay-destroying graphics.
C'mon, let's be fair. It's a Tempest remake hidden beneath mind-blowingly gameplay-destroying graphics with an added jump feature and a slightly different scoring mechanic....
As an act of self-indulgence, though, it is very respectable.
People comparing Space Giraffe to COD 4 have lost it a bit. Live Arcade is supposed to be an addition to the regular line-up and not a digital distribution channel for regular games.
I am a fan of Tempest 2000 btw and not of Space Giraffe
Minter probably didn’t notice some of the more exciting games on Xbox Live Arcade, such as Switchball, Puzzle Quest, Undertow, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Super Puzzle Fighter - none of which are arcade ports of old arcade games. What was the last arcade port on XBLA? Centipede/Millipede?
Sorry, Jeff - they didn’t like your game. Stop throwing a tantrum. PS. Some of us love Frogger.
Space Giraffe is one of the best games on the 360, if you can be bothered to learn how to play it, massively addictive and the trance inducing visuals and music just add to the experience
I havent played the game, but most people dont seem to be getting into it. To be fair that can only be the fault of the developer not the users.
Perhaps it will be a sleeper, then explode into a hit..I always enjoyed reading his notes in edge.
Most people (including a lot of reviewers) did not play the game for any length of time and even try to understand it or how to play it. They presume it is a tempest like game and although the visual aspect may lead people that way the gameplay is quite far removed once you understand it.
Problem is these days if it isn't instant action that is obvious and easy to grasp the majority will switch off and not bother. It is a disease killing the PC games market and will eventually 'catch up' on consoles to by the sounds of it.
It seems people do not want to think or have to work at a game anymore, they just want to pick it up and whistle through it and say 'yay I reached the end' or 'I completed xyz in 4 hours'
It's a good point, but don't think it applies to everyone. In my own case, I will happily put the effort in to learn a complex game - I'm currently playing Civilisation 4 on my laptop every evening for instance, and back in the day I used to spend hours on flight sims like Janes F15, Longbow 2 and EF2000. Difference is, they were good games. I couldn't see anything of any merit in Space Giraffe to make it worth persevering, and the enforced wackiness for the sake of it really grates as well...
When I heard about the problem I downloaded a few videos of space giraffe, to understand the problem better. And after watching about 5 minutes of gameplay an constantly asking myself "wtf is going on there? What is the point of the game?!?" I found myself an answer.
I've personally wavered on and off about buying this game since I first downloaded the trial.
In fact when I first played it I deleted the trial in anger and frustration. But something called me back to it. So I downloaded it again. Then I "got" the way the game worked and started to enjoy it. But still, there's this part of me which reminds me that I already own Geometry Wars and Mutant Storm Empire, and they're much better games. Simple as that.
Also, the idea that people don't like creativity based solely on the poor sales of his game is rather short-sighted. Undertow is a great little game as is Exit, and they're creative. When you can download trials of games for free, reviews are largely inconsequential. The public has voted with it's MS Points dude, get over it!
There is nothing more sad than a tired, bitter, twisted old hippy. Raging against the rest of the world for not being just like them. Lay off the toke, Jeff. Get a haircut and grow up.
PS Look at Bangai Oh (and the forthcoming DS sequel hopefully) to see how psychadelia, surrealism, humour and frentic gameplay really CAN be done.
Well i went and downloaded the trail of SpaceGiraffe AGAIN in case i was being stupid or something, maybe i was too harsh before, maybe i was playing it wrong the first time and i was missing the point of it.... i wasnt. I like it even less now
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