Coming off Atari 50 and The Making of Karateka, Digital Eclipse have struck gold in finding a way to presenting not only classic games of the past but also the people behind them in a documentary format. Their latest title, Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, is an inspired choice highlighting a developer who has been there right from the very beginning of the video games industry and is still making games his way.

It’s rare to find a developer now who was there in the early days of computer games (the original “bedroom coders”) still making games in much the same way and has seen such an expansive number of generations of platforms, consoles and technologies. And this makes playing all the games here such an interesting (and useful) experience because you can see every advance an innovation over time – not just in the technology but in Jeff’s skills in making them. The story isn’t just about Jeff though and time is also given to covering the work of his parents, especially his mother who worked the business side of early Llamasoft. They also chat with Jeff’s partner Ivan “Giles” Zorzin who has helped turn Llamasoft into a tag team of psychedelic gaming goodness that continues to push new games into the world.

The games on offer (43 of them) and that number includes versions across a number of different formats which in the context of the industry at the time is useful in understanding how games often needed tweaks to make the best use of the platforms they are running on. Playing Gridrunner, a sci-fi twist on Centipede, it’s impressive how much the game got right on the original Vic-20 version with later versions such as the C64 and Atari 8bit bringing visual enhancements but not making big changes to the core gameplay which was incredibly solid. A good example of a substantial upgrade between versions appears to be Attack of the Mutant Camels where the C64 version visually pales against the later Atari 8bit version with its expanded colour palette. You can also see/play post Psychedelia (his first light synth), where the presentation of his games would go to the next level. Play Gridrunner and then check out Voidrunner (aka Gridrunner 3) and if you didn’t know better you’d think they were made by different people… it’s quite a leap in terms of production quality.

Tempest 2000 is here too and is that game that has defined the modern Llamasoft style and is much the same version as the one that comes with Atari 50. It’s also the most recent Llamasoft title that’s playable in the collection – many of the newer titles including Polybius, Tempest 4000 and his latest Akka Arrh, are available on Steam or other marketplaces so for those curious gamers there’s more to find and play.

There is one remastered game included and it is of course Gridrunner which adds an impressive facelift to the C64 version of the game that you can even switch to while you play. The enhancements actually do a lot to make the game easier to grasp and respond to with nice touches like the laser at the bottom of the screen having a visual “warm up” before it fires. I’d describe it as a thoughtful upgrade in that it only polishes what’s already there and makes the experience much easier to take in. I remember playing Gridrunner as a child and getting smashed because it is an intimidating game, but this might be my preferred way to play it now. This is a really awesome and thoughtful addition to the collection.

If I have any negatives, it might be that the playable ST games (Super Gridrunner, Llamatron 2112, and Revenge of the Mutant Camels) are not actually the ST versions but homebrew Jaguar ports released a few years ago. While I understand the team has a Jaguar emulator on hand from the earlier Atari 50 collection, but I wonder if we’re missing the “best” (IMHO) versions of them. Jeff had released plenty of games on the ST including a port of his early Defender clone Andes Attack as well as Photon Storm which has strong Sinistar/Bosconian vibes, and these would have been huge additions to the collection. Still… I’ve loved playing Llamatron since I first played it on an ST Format cover disk and now can play it on console and that’s a huge win.

Trying to encapsulate the work of a single developer (who is still making games) into an accessible package is a hell of a challenge and the team have done an impressive job by leveraging a number of sources including Jeff himself and the upcoming Heart of Neon documentary from Paul Docherty. It’s not as tightly focused as The Making of Karateka which means you don’t get too deep a dive into any of the games, but you do get some interesting side notes like a game for the unreleased Konix Multisystem and a breakdown of all the various versions of Llamasoft’s VLM (Virtual Light Machine). What we have here is the history of a single developer expressed through the games he made over the years which is awesome to see packaged up as well as it is and the mind boggles at what else Digital Eclipse could do if they take this approach again with other developers. 🙂

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story is out now on all platforms.