Llamasoft's 'GoatUp' is out. It is, as Minter says on his always-excellent and very detailed release/influence blogs (http://minotaurproject.co.uk/blog/?p=140), an 'endless climber' as opposed to an 'endless runner'.
You are a female goat, springing up a series of rotatable platforms chomping the grass there (which throws up hidden items and points) and avoiding baddies. You also have to kiss the boy goats and then eat more grass to have babies, who follow you in a cascading rainbow trail. And you can use the babies to swipe baddies off the platforms for more points. But if Mummy gets hit then a baby dies. It's pretty heavy. As you go up, you encounter areas themed to different classic platformers. The Manic Miner one, for example, has lots of Miner Willys out to get you and some collapsible floors.
In terms of Minter's output, it's remarkable in two ways: 1. it's his first 'platformer' (has previously evinced a hatred of the genre); 2. it's unashamedly his most obvious pitch for the casual crowd. One life, start over, how high can you try.
It doesn't have the brilliant consistent/cumulative-level-hi-score-auto-save-feature (don't know what else to call it) of recent games like Minotron 2012 and Space Giraffe, I guess because there are no levels. You just keep going, and start again if you die.
Graphically and aurally it's what you'd expect. Stolen (unashamedly stolen, see his Twitter feed) retro-sprites and synthesized and sampled grunts, farts, munches and burps. No music. Graphics and fonts are nicely themed to the Spectrum 48 in this case, as opposed (respectively) to the Intellivision and Atari 2600 aesthetics of the Minotron 2012 and Minotaur Rescue games from earlier this year. Front-end looks as rough as a badger's arse, but Minter seems oddly proud that Llamasoft don't have an artist (see blog). Wouldn't harm to put a bit more care into the presentation aspect, in my opinion, especially if they want to seduce the App crowd.
I love it but I'm a fanboy (I cherish an autograph I got from the grumpy bastard on an Iridis Alpha flyer from Olympia when I was a revolting spotty neo-teen with a mullet).
Ultimately the main thing to recommend it to the non-fanboy/fangirl - here as in most of Minter's games - are the tighness of the controls and the fairness of gameplay. (Not much psychedelic visual stuff going on here to get in the way). As usual it's pitch-perfect. Left-right to control the goat, which 'handles' with just the right amount of inertia (it feels like, anyway, not sure what the inertia is like for a real goat). Jump is jump. Hold down as long or short as you want for different length jumps - again with a beautiful inertia and curve. No one has grasped touch screen controls as well as Llamasoft.
It's lovely. Minter is great. and so is his co-programmer Giles Goat. Really hope Apple do the decent thing and set it up as Game 'App of the Week', instead of the usual slickly polished but vapid nonsense they champion. It's about time these boys got a break.
?1.49.
Two thumbs fresh
You are a female goat, springing up a series of rotatable platforms chomping the grass there (which throws up hidden items and points) and avoiding baddies. You also have to kiss the boy goats and then eat more grass to have babies, who follow you in a cascading rainbow trail. And you can use the babies to swipe baddies off the platforms for more points. But if Mummy gets hit then a baby dies. It's pretty heavy. As you go up, you encounter areas themed to different classic platformers. The Manic Miner one, for example, has lots of Miner Willys out to get you and some collapsible floors.
In terms of Minter's output, it's remarkable in two ways: 1. it's his first 'platformer' (has previously evinced a hatred of the genre); 2. it's unashamedly his most obvious pitch for the casual crowd. One life, start over, how high can you try.
It doesn't have the brilliant consistent/cumulative-level-hi-score-auto-save-feature (don't know what else to call it) of recent games like Minotron 2012 and Space Giraffe, I guess because there are no levels. You just keep going, and start again if you die.
Graphically and aurally it's what you'd expect. Stolen (unashamedly stolen, see his Twitter feed) retro-sprites and synthesized and sampled grunts, farts, munches and burps. No music. Graphics and fonts are nicely themed to the Spectrum 48 in this case, as opposed (respectively) to the Intellivision and Atari 2600 aesthetics of the Minotron 2012 and Minotaur Rescue games from earlier this year. Front-end looks as rough as a badger's arse, but Minter seems oddly proud that Llamasoft don't have an artist (see blog). Wouldn't harm to put a bit more care into the presentation aspect, in my opinion, especially if they want to seduce the App crowd.
I love it but I'm a fanboy (I cherish an autograph I got from the grumpy bastard on an Iridis Alpha flyer from Olympia when I was a revolting spotty neo-teen with a mullet).
Ultimately the main thing to recommend it to the non-fanboy/fangirl - here as in most of Minter's games - are the tighness of the controls and the fairness of gameplay. (Not much psychedelic visual stuff going on here to get in the way). As usual it's pitch-perfect. Left-right to control the goat, which 'handles' with just the right amount of inertia (it feels like, anyway, not sure what the inertia is like for a real goat). Jump is jump. Hold down as long or short as you want for different length jumps - again with a beautiful inertia and curve. No one has grasped touch screen controls as well as Llamasoft.
It's lovely. Minter is great. and so is his co-programmer Giles Goat. Really hope Apple do the decent thing and set it up as Game 'App of the Week', instead of the usual slickly polished but vapid nonsense they champion. It's about time these boys got a break.
?1.49.
Two thumbs fresh
So I reckon it's going to get a lot more publicity than the other games Minter's made.
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