Q&As// Space Giraffe Creator: Jeff Minter - Part 1

SPOnG: The inclusion of random phrases surely adds to the psychedelic nature of the game. Will these phrases serve a purpose – to cheer the player on, perhaps – or will they just be randomly generated for the heck of it?

Jeff Minter: The random level names occur in Super Ox Mode, and I put them in partly to reprise a level name generator I did for T3K that was kinda fun, and also because it fits what happens in Super Ox Mode. In that mode you play the level geometries in random order, and since the given names of the level geometries sometimes refer to a specific order it was better to use random level names in that mode. I just enjoy playing with silly phrase generators, they make me snigger when I'm playing a game and arrive on a level called Vapid Vicar Vortex or something equally stupid. And given that SG is so abstract then any silly phrase can fit a random level.

There are other phrases that randomly appear and again they are there just for fun. Hell, everything that's in there is for fun and to hopefully get a smile out of the player. SG isn't a game that takes itself terribly seriously.


SPOnG: Will there be any multiplayer modes in the game, or will it be purely focused on the single player experience? What other modes, if any, are planned for Space Giraffe as well?

Jeff Minter: SG is just a single-player thing. It was a single-player design to start with, and I didn't want to get sidetracked trying to shoehorn multiplayer onto it if it really wasn't suited. Now we're up and running with Live Arcade though multiplayer is something that we'll certainly be looking at in future designs.

SG is more of a pure, single player oldskool arcade style game. Although it's single player, that doesn't mean it's not competitive, in fact SG is very much a score attack game, and so having the online leaderboards and being able to see when you beat your mates' scores and send them a nice taunt is ideal for it really.


SPOnG: What do you think of the XBOX Live Arcade business model? Does it compare somewhat to indie development in the 1980s?

Jeff Minter: Well, this is our first outing with it and we've yet to see how well it actually works. But if it works out as well as we hope it might, then it'll actually be better than it was back in the day, because you'll avoid the curse of having to achieve physical distribution, which was basically what killed the smaller software houses as the biz grew.

When distributors started refusing to distribute games unless x-thousand quid per month was spent on advertising, that was pretty much game over for the old style of development and the beginning of the current, super-conservative and super-expensive development model.

If Live Arcade works out, and provides excellent distribution with very low overheads, then it'll be great, allowing smaller teams to do less constrained work and to sell it really cheap. In fact that is exactly what we are hoping to prove with SG which will in fact be the cheapest game I have sold in 25 years!

To be continued right here.