Overview
Formed in 1982 by eccentric programmer Jeff Minter, Llamasoft is known for its bright psychedelic visual style, funky music, abstract gameplay, and the frequent inclusion of sheep, camels, and other ungulates in their games. The studio continues to work as an independent game developer to this day, sitting in the middle of the Welsh countryside with an employee count of two humans (Minter and Ivan "Giles" Zorvin), an unspecified number of sheep, and at least one llama.
Llamasoft are best known for their microcomputer adventures like Gridrunner and the Mutant Camel Series, and their Atari Jaguar classic Tempest 2000. More recent releases include the PC and XBLA game Space Giraffe, Gridrunner Revolution, the "Minotaur Project" series of iPhone games, the Vita hit TxK (later revived for other platforms as Tempest 4000) and the VR arcade sensation Polybius (which was immortalised further by a music video for industrial act Nine Inch Nails).
Outside of Gaming
Outside of the realm of traditional videogames, Llamasoft has experimented with "light synthesizers", initially devised as graphical tools for computers designed to be played like an instrument alongside a live musical performance (or, as Minter would cheerfully admit, while listening to Pink Floyd and engaging in recreational substances) and eventually evolving into full-on advanced interactive audio visualisers.
The latest version of Llamasoft's light-synthesizer technology, dubbed Neon, is the default music visualiser on the Xbox 360. It serves additional duty providing background visuals for Space Giraffe, Gridrunner Revolution, the XBLA version of Space Invaders Extreme, and presumably other Minter works in one way or another.
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