Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story review

Boasting skilled curation, Digital Eclipse delivers a mixed-medium digital museum dedicated to the life of Jeff Minter. With each image, video interview, and playable game, it builds a strong argument that the developer commonly known as “Yak” is more of the medium’s rare auteurs.

Long before the corporate publishers seized control, the game industry was drastically different. A plucky upstart named Electronic Arts ran ads showcasing their ‘software artists’, asking if a computer could make you cry. It was a landscape where the dull multi-million dollar blockbusters were thankfully scarce. And while there are still a handful of indie success stories today, during the 1980s, teenaged programmers routinely created hits from their bedrooms.

Delve into Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, the second encyclopedic entry in Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series, and you’ll be whisked back to that golden era. Much like the inaugural installment, The Making of Karateka, the package offers a rich experience that puts most retro compilations to shame. Beyond documentary-style interviews with Minter, his colleagues, and journalists, there’s also a compendium of many of Yak’s works, save for some omissions that remain clutched by callous corporations.

Curation is Key

Yes, it’s basically the same interactive timeline that the developer used for Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection. But the approach remains the benchmark for chronicling game history. As you scroll past interviews and digitized documents, a button press can transport you right into one of Minter’s games. But rather than a meager accumulation of ROM files, it’s attentive curation that gets into the mind and motives of their creator.

It starts with Minter’s early efforts for the Commodore PET, Sinclair ZX80, and the VIC-20 home computers. Some of these emerged from a medical diagnosis that required his body to be immobilized, allowing Minter’s mind to soak up the principles of programming. Notably, these early efforts reveal a gradual shift from creating simple clones of popular arcade games into the formation of Yak’s own idiosyncratic approach. For retro enthusiasts, witnessing the steady incorporation of what would become Minter’s signature elements will justify the price of admission.

“Got You, Scumbag”

With all the sophistication of a world-class museum, Digital Eclipse details Minter’s milestones. We witness his love for pixelated psychedelia and the inclusion of curious phrases in each game, as if Jeff is speaking with his audience. And of course, there’s the inclusion of llamas, sheep, and camel sprite that function like an artist’s signature. Most interesting is Minter’s decision to not follow industry trends and linger on the periphery, stubbornly doing his own thing. If anything, this cements his status as a true auteur.

But here’s the one caveat about the collection: it’s not for everyone. Minter’s games favor fast-reflex play that challenge your ability to make sense of all the wild shit happening on-screen. There’s no story or character development- it’s just you trying to survive as long as possible against an unstoppable onslaught of foes. A significant share of the 42 games found here are curios, included to show a Minter’s trajectory rather than offer recreational enjoyment.

An Emphasis on the Early Years

But some of the seminal games included are still engrossing. Although each version of Gridrunner tends to add new mechanics, the underlying foundations of Centipede remain evergreen. While Tempest 2000 would spawn spiritual successors, an argument could be made that the 1994 Atari Jaguar game is Minter’s strongest effort. Pleasingly, the emulation is solid, offering the ability to revisit the Jaguar or Atari ST’s efforts without any perceptible hiccups.

But two issues might peeve players. The first is that only Gridrunner gets a contemporary update. It would have been great to see Minter help provide a contemporary revision of a game like Attack of the Mutant Camels. But the most troubling loss is the absence of playable games released after Tempest 2K, which includes titles like Space Giraffe, Space Invaders Extreme, and The Minotaur Project. Yes, untangling licensing issues requires time, money, and patience. But Minter’s most notable works are confined to a five-minute video and a preview for an upcoming documentary, which feels like a load of camel dung. The collection feels like the first part of a two-part anthology, and I sincerely hope we get a follow-up.

Conclusion

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story does an excellent job of detailing fifteen years of the developer’s life. Unlike the deep dive into a single title that The Making of Karateka took, this offers a protracted perspective where we observe Minter grow as an artist.

From fiddly early efforts, a rare moment of social commentary, to a captivation with psychedelia, Minter Story charts all the early biographical rudiments. The only disappointment is the lack of insight after the mid-90s. Yak has stated that his iOS games weren’t profitable- suggesting it was becoming harder for indie developers to survive. But for an all too fleeting moment, Llamasoft lets us revisit that halcyon era when wunderkind ruled.

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.