I bought a copy of Space Giraffe last Friday (4th July), after playing through the tutorial and trial version. It's an Xbox Live Arcade game, that costs 400 points (about £3.40), and is the newest game from Jeff "Yak" Minter of Llamasoft. It came out last year, but this is my first chance to actually try a copy. Now, I've been a fan of Jeff Minter's games since I was very very young, playing games on the Commodore 64. My favourites are probably Batalyx, Anticipal, and Revenge of the Mutant Camels. I also remember things like Attack Of The Mutant Camels, Gridrunner, Hellgate, Laser Zone, Sheep In Space, Hovver Bovver, Psychedelia, Return of the Mutant Camels... fond memories. He excelled in shoot-em-ups, really playable games - especially when you consider what else was available at the time. He's also got a common "beastie" theme running through his works, and references to drugs and Pink Floyd...
...but enough of the past.
Space Giraffe is Llamasoft's new game, and I bought it and it's a lot of fun. I got a lot more mileage out of it than the 2 Katamari levels I bought for the same price. The first thing to note is it's not Tempest, though it looks a lot like his versions of that game. It seems to be what he's been famous for the last few years, but I never played a copy, so I have no problem with that concept. The next thing to note is that the best way to clear a level isn't to shoot at the things coming towards you, but to let them come, and then ram into them, when it's safe to. You get more points and a better ranking, that way. It's only safe to ram into things when they've come to the same edge of the grid you're on, your "power zone" is extended, and you're not running into bullets or other invincible things.
It's difficult to explain in a few words, even though the game is fairly simple. There are other elements of gameplay too, and each one is like a new gameplay mechanic as it's introduced, forcing you to re-evaluate your strategies when each new one comes in. There are 100 levels, and I believe that each one has been lovingly crafted, since it seems like there's a best strategy to playing every single level to be discovered - I think each one has been played to death before deciding it's good enough.
Space Giraffe does something that I think Rez was trying to do, but failed to. It blends visuals and audio flawlessly. The music does not change according to the action in the game like in Rez, it's not the same in that way. Space Giraffe is built on a media visualisation engine, and plays like that. It's like playing a game on a winamp plugin with the music still running. This means that the visuals and audio are linked completely. The things you shoot at make noise and there's an effect on what you see. Sometimes you can't see what's going on in the level, and so you are listening to audio clues to guide you as you play the level. "I can't see that part of the grid, but I heard that some bullets were fired, so I had better not stand there just now" is how you play the game. It feels quite rewarding, playing a shoot-em-up by ear. ^_^
At the moment, I have unlocked 4 achievements, and my highest score is 29,454,079 and the furthest I've got is level 19. On the world leaderboards, that makes me the 733rd best player in the world, of all time! And you know what? I think that's terrible! There should be plenty of people better than me at this game by now, I only just started playing! XD
I'm also 15th best in the weekly rankings. More people should be playing this game!
BTW I found a talk given by Jeff Minter for a google thing on youtube. It's quite long - about an hour long, but I found it quite interesting and entertaining and nostalgic. Follow the link below:
Video
I wish he was better at working in teams, to deadlines... so that it would be more likely to see new games from him more than once every few years! But, if it's the only way he can make good quality games... well, I can't complain about getting good quality games, can I?
