Q&As// Space Giraffe Creator: Jeff Minter - Part 2

SPOnG: Looking back at your career, what have been the highlights, in terms of events and favourite projects? We get the feeling you really like Gridrunner++.

Jeff Minter: Yeah, GR++ is a nice design and probably what I will bring to XBLA next. I also like Llamatron and T2K, obviously - both games that were based on very simple originals and which went on to become very much their own entities rather than "just remakes". And I've really enjoyed the light-synth work, seeing that develop from a little 1K program on the Commodore 64 to the likes of Neon has been quite a journey. Even the other little Pocket PC games I made were pure fun - I love the comedy aspects of the Hover Bovver games, and a lot of the stuff in both those games was devised between me and my dad.

In terms of events, taking the winner of the Revenge of the Mutant Camels hi-score competition to Egypt on Concorde for a day trip to ride a camel round the Pyramids was pretty damn cool. And having a lightsynth launch party at the London Planetarium was pretty ace too. The old computer shows were a lot of fun too.

These days there's not so much of that kind of fun associated directly with the biz unless you count getting pissed with the other Brits in the evenings at E3. But some of the old Llamasoft spirit remains in the occasional meet-ups that Llamasofties have in the UK, which generally involve pleasing amounts of drinking, gaming and curry.


SPOnG: Finally, what have been your favourite and worst moments during the process of development for Space Giraffe, and what might you have done differently?

Jeff Minter: Worst was probably having some US ex-gaming-journo sneeringly deride early work in progress (WIP) shots as "certain to be vapourware" for no good reason at all. Best was probably when I'd got a few levels done and we made a few tweaks and came up with a build that was just super smooth, sweet 60Hz all the way, and just felt fantastic to play. I know at that point that SG would be ace, and that's always a great point to get to when you're making a game.

SPOnG: We really want this game now! Thanks to Jeff Minter for his time, and keep a beady eye on Xbox Live Marketplace for Space Giraffe, it’s just been completed and should be online in a matter of weeks.

You can read the first part of this interview right here.