Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:34 pm

From his blog...

Jeff Minter wrote:After Unity and that not making it out this feels a bit hard and scary.. I know that was circumstance and probably overambition in the end, but nonetheless it's been a bit scary trusting that it'll all come back online properly when needed and that my instinct for creating a shooter remains good. When it comes down to it it's all feel with this stuff.

At the moment it feels like it's starting to shake down well, the initial ideas resolving into things you can actually bolt game mechanic on, really nice bits like today with the p-system work just being lovely... it's good that it feels like it's starting to slot together well.

[...]

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/trad3.jpg

Don't worry that you can't really see what's going on with the game there - you aren't meant to, really, it's just a particle test.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:27 pm

Aw, I was hoping it'd be a 2.5D Attack of the Mutant Camels update.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:05 am

Development on the Jeff Minter shooter, now under the working title "Space Giraffe", is progressing steadily.

From the latest screenshots and descriptions, it appears to be sort of a next-gen Tempest, done in the graphical style of his cancelled Gamecube shooter Unity...

Jeff Minter wrote:Here is a quieter moment on one of the simpler surfaces - you *can* see it...

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/sg8.jpg

the thing is that elements of the game (including on some levels the "filling" of the surfaces) are all hooked up to lightsynth trigger events and so things are only truly "clear" when everything is moving. Motion and dynamics define the surface you see. Seeing it frozen in time gives an incomplete impression because the definition of the surface is smeared out over time, so to speak.

Of course there need to be enough hard reference points that one can see in order to see clearly how to play and where the threats are, and these also appear dynamically according to the situation (note the dots and lines delimiting the lane ends; these appear when there is something in that lane which needs dealing with). The thing is to balance basically out-and-out lightsynth effects with reliable, necessary cues to allow coherent gameplay. We want yummy visual overload *but* we still want to be able to play coherently throughout, and this is the major challenge in designing this game.

The result when it works well is that lovely "oh-my-GOD-the-Universe-is-exploding" feeling coupled with the feeling that one is in control and, indeed, kicking serious bad guy booty, whilst being suspended in a world of light. Which is a set of feelings I like .

Couple more shots from the same level:

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/sg6.jpg

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/sg7.jpg

[...]

Here the space giraffe has completed a web and flies through space to the portal.

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/gt1.jpg

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/gt2.jpg

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/gt3.jpg

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~stinkyox/pix/gt4.jpg

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 7:41 am

Looks shiny, but where's the giraffe?

Gungriffon Geona · Post by **Gungriffon Geona** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:50 am

this looks like drivel. I'm sorry, but what exactly is this ugly drug-induced thing, aside from a Tempest ripoff?

Never_Scurred · Post by **Never_Scurred** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:11 am

damn, I was looking forward to some good shmup news. Should have known to be disappointed by something with giraffe in the name.....this game has "don't bother" written all over it...

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 2:22 am

Am I the only one who's somehow reminded of Night Raid by some of those screenshots?

CodeMonkey · Post by **CodeMonkey** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:13 am

Can't say I'm too excited about this yet either, but I hope that he puts out some video of the gameplay. If he says we can't get a good feel for the game from screenshots then show us some video please.

LSU · Post by **LSU** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:05 pm

Well I have to say I think it looks promising, graphically speaking, from the screenshots, although obviously we can't see too much yet of what the actual game is.

I have a lot of faith in Mr Minter and I'm sure this'll turn out to be great.

I assume this'll be 360, not 'regular' Xbox? (I don't have a 360 yet.)

And what's wrong with the idea of playing a Rez/Tempest-like shooter as a giraffe? I've *always* wanted to do that...

thesuperkillerxxx · Post by **thesuperkillerxxx** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:01 pm

Am I the only one that never really liked Tempest anyway, and could give two shits if ANOTHER Tempest clone appears?

bVork · Post by **bVork** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:53 pm

thesuperkillerxxx wrote:Am I the only one that never really liked Tempest anyway, and could give two shits if ANOTHER Tempest clone appears?

Yes. Yes you are.

Personally, I love Tempest. I even like Tempest 3000, which crossed the line between 'eye candy' and 'I can't see what's going on.' This game looks an awful lot like T3K, down to the pseudo-vector graphical elements and particle-heavy background.

So, I'll definitely be getting this game when it comes out, but I do hope that Tempest 3000's mistakes (the sometimes godawful framerate and the aforementioned too-much-distracting-crap-onscreen issue) aren't repeated.

Post by **Ghegs** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:03 pm

thesuperkillerxxx wrote:Am I the only one that never really liked Tempest anyway, and could give two shits if ANOTHER Tempest clone appears?

No. No you're not.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:39 pm

Tempest was nothing special, agreed. Tempest 2000 was an amazing game. Reinventing and making the idea it's own.

Post by **system11** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:05 pm

thesuperkillerxxx wrote:Am I the only one that never really liked Tempest anyway, and could give two shits if ANOTHER Tempest clone appears?

Horrible, bad, wrong, drug induced crazytalk.

Tempest is an important game - one of the earliest twitchy manic games, it's probably the first tube shooter, and to top it off - it's awesome.

jp · Post by jp » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:49 pm

I think it looks cool... *shrugs*

highlandcattle · Post by **highlandcattle** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 4:43 pm

It looks aces to me, and for the price of five dollars you can't go wrong can you. The only problem is the price of the actual XBOX360 of course

thrall · Post by **thrall** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:27 pm

Jeff Minter is da mang.......Yakity YAK....

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 2:18 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W33tEAOUwBo&eurl=

Looks like a tempest clone to me.. SPACEGIRAFFE ?

What the hell is he listening to?

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:24 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W33tEAOUwBo&eurl=

Wow, nice. Minter's style is still very personal. Looks like this could be a worth successor to Tempest 2K...

rib · Post by **rib** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 4:18 pm

i hope its the low you tube video resolution that keeps me from understanding the meaning of one single pixel in this thing.

eight · Post by **eight** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 5:50 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote:What the hell is he listening to?

Aphex Twin - Milkman

Pirate1019 · Post by **Pirate1019** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:49 pm

thesuperkillerxxx wrote:Am I the only one that never really liked Tempest anyway, and could give two shits if ANOTHER Tempest clone appears?

I was never too fond of tempest either.

JJG · Post by **JJG** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:33 pm

Movement looks limited, can you even move forward??

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:01 am

Amazing. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but the idea of the 'lone coder' (or what folk in Europe refer to as the 'bedroom coder') is one to be championed. In this age of cretinous sequels, distinct reverse-imagination and profit-chasing genres, surely this type of output should be praised, and not frowned upon for being idiosyncratic or 'not obvious' upon first venture?

Give it a chance for God's sake. Or do you all want to be playing tedius Cave sequels for the rest of your lives?

Post by **Icarus** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:05 am

bcass wrote:Or do you all want to be playing Raizing games for the rest of your lives?

One can only hope.
Tempest 2000 was the pinnacle of the series. The rest is LSD-induced drivel.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:04 am

it's kind of hard to see what's going on in that video

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:31 am

I love jeff minter's stuff *and* cave sequels.

those space giraffe screencaps looked very much like work-in-progress, and I'm sure that if he manages to leave his llamas alone for a while, he might even get it done and make it impressive..

anything that's different from the licensed garbage that's being sold as 'games' these days is worth a try, in my opinion.

Post by **system11** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:45 pm

Looked horribly confusing in the video - hopefully the visual effects will be toned down in favour of clarity.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:21 am

I'm sure alot of you know how tempest plays.

From my perspective, it looks and plays just like any tempest i've ever seen, its just tarted up.

jp · Post by jp » Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:00 am

bcass wrote:
Give it a chance for God's sake. Or do you all want to be playing tedius Cave sequels for the rest of your lives?

Uh, what website did you think you were on?

At any rate, I'd like to see Tempest 2000 on XBLA. That would be fun as hell. Vs. matches online? Gah, it would be so cool.

shmups.system11.org

Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe

Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe

COOL!