Jeff Minter

Jeff 'Yak' Minter (born in Reading, April 22 1962) is one of the most innovative and distinctive modern British computer/video game designers and programmers. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft.

Games

In 1981 Jeff Minter started writing and selling Sinclair ZX80 video games. In 1982 he founded software house Llamasoft (a company that creates games rather than sells or distributes them is often called a house). His first game through Llamasoft was Andes Attack (US version: Aggressor): a Defender clone for the Commodore VIC-20, but with little llamas instead of spaceships (a great fan of Defender he would remake it again, and better, as Defender 2000). His second Llamasoft game, Gridrunner, was written in a week and was his first real success both in the UK and in the USA.

Related Topics:
1981 - Sinclair ZX80 - 1982 - House - Andes Attack - Aggressor - Defender - Commodore VIC-20 - Defender 2000 - Gridrunner - UK - USA

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Minter went on to develop a number of classic games, all written in assembler, for the later home computers (such as the Commodore 64, Atari 400/800 and Atari ST) which were marketed mainly by word of mouth and by the odd magazine advertisement. After the collapse of the home computer market he worked for (now-defunct) Atari and for (now-defunct) VM Labs. For Atari he produced Tempest 2000 (1994) on the Jaguar, a remake of Dave Theurer's classic Tempest of 1981; for VM Labs, he designed software for the Nuon chip. Jeff Minter also created the VLM_(Game) & Tempest 3000 for the Nuon.

Related Topics:
Commodore 64 - Atari 400/800 - Atari ST - Magazine - Atari - VM Labs - Tempest 2000 - 1994 - Jaguar - Dave Theurer - Tempest - Nuon - VLM_(Game) - Tempest 3000

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later came a short spell writing games for the Pocket PC platform, some of which also had PC conversions (using a customized Pocket PC emulator). During this time, Minter released three games: Deflex, Hover Bovver (ports/remakes of his own early 80s games of the same name), and the PC/Macintosh game Gridrunner++, an upgrade of his breakthrough game and by far the most popular of the three.

Related Topics:
Pocket PC - Deflex - Hover Bovver - Gridrunner++

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 2002, Jeff began work on a project for the Nintendo GameCube with the name of Unity — the combination of the two main threads of Jeff's work: light synthesis and classic arcade style shooting. Jeff was writing this game for Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios but the project was canceled in December 2004.

Related Topics:
GameCube - Unity - Peter Molyneux - Lionhead Studios

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The version of the VLM to be used within Unity has since been reprogrammed and significantly expanded. Now named Neon, it will be used in the Xbox 360 media visualization. http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/655/655146p3.html

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~