A history of Llamasoft

Empa Kendo · Post by **Empa Kendo** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 4:27 am

Recently I stumbled across Jeff Minter's twitter feed @llamasoft_ox, which is full of links to ads and reviews for his games from the 80ies. It seems as if Jeff is currently digitizing piles of old computer magazines, mostly centered around own stuff.

One of the links is to his 210 page autobiography "A history of Llamasoft":

http://minotaurproject.co.uk/YakImages/ ... masoft.pdf

This is a fun quick read for all Commodore 8bit programmers who learnt the ropes similarly in the days - toying around with BASIC, PEEKing and POKEing and later moving on to 6502 machine code.

His early tape games were much better than the rest (I still remember the jaw-drop on seeing Gridrunner for the first time) and to hear the story behind this and other games straight from the Ox's mouth is great.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Witzo · Post by **Witzo** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:12 am

I read the first parts of it when he published it as columns on http://wayoftherodent.com/ . Very good read. Inspiring me to approach the VIC like he did all those years ago.

Empa Kendo · Post by **Empa Kendo** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 3:00 am

After browsing through more of twitter feed from Jeff I cam across this little gem, which has all the chunky Vic20 graphics and sounds mashed into an iPad game:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gridrunner/id502840657

CBR125R · Post by **CBR125R** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 7:21 am

I still think his best work was Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar. Absolutely brilliant!

MicroPet · Post by **MicroPet** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:40 pm

I wish he would pop back on over to the Vic and pull out a shiny new game. I'd love to see what he'd do these days.

Lozza · Post by **Lozza** » Tue May 15, 2012 6:23 pm

Empa Kendo wrote:After browsing through more of twitter feed from Jeff I cam across this little gem, which has all the chunky Vic20 graphics and sounds mashed into an iPad game:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gridrunner/id502840657

if you turn the ipad (or iphone) on to its side - it reverts from the new version (which is great) to the commodore 64 one... (which is also great)

goatup by llamasoft is fun.. deflex however is *excellent* - typical minter madness and one of my faves for the ios platform.. cheap cheap too

FD22 · Post by **FD22** » Wed May 16, 2012 6:20 pm

And if you turn it the other way, you get the VIC-20 version. Which is much better.

Witzo · Post by **Witzo** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 4:39 am

Jeff Minter is putting up quite a lot of reviews and youtube recordings of old VIC games:

"I’ve Turned Into a Green Thing: Terrible Vic-20 Games"
http://s349909351.websitehome.co.uk/blog/?p=287

"Skeletons in the Closet: my own early Vic 20 efforts"
http://s349909351.websitehome.co.uk/blog/?p=302

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 12:19 am

I feel oddly star-struck to hear Jeff's voice. Gridrunner was my first game, and Minter was a hero to me. I wonder if he is aware of Denial. I would love to meet this guy someday.

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 7:47 am

Jeff-20 wrote:.... I wonder if he is aware of Denial.

I believe he is.
He has a MegaCart.

Witzo · Post by **Witzo** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 8:07 am

Jeff-20 wrote:I feel oddly star-struck to hear Jeff's voice. Gridrunner was my first game, and Minter was a hero to me. I wonder if he is aware of Denial. I would love to meet this guy someday.

You can connect to him on Google+, that's where I read about his reviews and work:
https://plus.google.com/107147409638689182397/about

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 12:00 pm

And it's Gamebase20 that Jeff is using for his blog posts heh.

Witzo · Post by **Witzo** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 1:41 pm

Mayhem wrote:And it's Gamebase20 that Jeff is using for his blog posts heh.

Ooooo downloaded that, thanks Robert & Mayhem!
Ha, I found even a Dutch language maze game in there.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 5:38 pm

I think both Gamebase20 and Megacart are a little better known than Denial.