Minter: "Still a taste for old-style games"

By Robert Purchese Published 16 December, 2008

Films didn't banish books, argues dev.

Space Giraffe developer Jeff Minter believes old-school game design should be able to coexist with modern blockbusters.

Speaking to Eurogamer after the launch of Space Giraffe on PC yesterday, Minter speculated that XNA Community Games and similar initiatives may even spark a resurgence.

"There is still a taste for old-style games," he told us. "If you look at stuff like LittleBigPlanet, which I was just playing the other day, it's basically a 2D platform game with physics. If you did that as an entirely 2D game it would still be enjoyable.

"Perhaps things like XNA will allow smaller projects to still survive and perhaps thrive. It would be a shame to lose them entirely. The older game forms are still valid game forms, in the same way that when film came along it didn't banish books, I don't see why 3D should banish 2D.

"It would be nice to keep them all alive and keep them all relevant," he added.

Minter went on to say that one thing "missing from the modern user experience" was the ability to program for the hardware, which results in us taking "what's dolled out".

The 3D graphics arms race is also to blame, and to the detriment of gameplay, said Minter, although he foresees a less dramatic shift in graphics from this generation to the next.

And he had lots more to say to us about his farm, his next XBLA game Gridrunner+++, his favourite console, and turning sheep into reindeer in our full interview published today.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • secombe #1 3 years ago

    Maybe Minter could somehow get on the board at Sega, then force them to return to 2D Sonic games.

    I've always thought that there must be a market for more traditional games, hopefully the various download services can supply plenty of that kind of content.
    Edited by 1 at 16/12/08 @ 07:56

  • paul_haine #2 3 years ago

    "Maybe Minter could somehow get on the board at Sega, then force them to return to 2D Sonic games."

    Nah, he'd just remake Tempest again but with Sonic running around the edges of the thing.

  • Michael1406 #3 3 years ago

    The first thing that comes to mind is "Duh".

  • kangarootoo #4 3 years ago

    "There is still a taste for cheese flavoured trifle"... says man with nothing but cheese flavoured trifle to sell.

    There is probably also still a taste for games that are actually fun to play. How about you focus on those too, eh?

    /troll for a day

  • kangarootoo #5 3 years ago

    From the main interview.

    "Plus, I have taken steps address the issues some people had. I haven't just sat there and said, "That's the way it is, smeg off." I have taken constructive criticism onboard where it has been offered, and I think we've ended up with a better game because of it."

    I feel bad now, because taking on feedback is the best thing anyone can do. Good to see Jeff is not operating in a bubble.

  • lasersrule #6 3 years ago

    He's a cranky old mad hippie who makes truly sickening colour schemes, but I love him and never want him to change.

  • thisisatempaccount #7 3 years ago

    Didn't he make the Revenge of the Mutant Camels? That was on one of the first compilations of freeware DOS games I ever played. The man himself, from his output, appears to be coding from inside an asylum somewhere. Long may it continue.

  • Redeye #8 3 years ago

    Couldn't agree more with the sentiment, Jeff, but trying to get publishers to listen is like pulling teeth... :\

  • MGG #9 3 years ago

    Who needs pubishers for games like this? Steam, XNA, etc are the places for innovation, lets not taint it with mention of publishers.....

  • Redeye #10 3 years ago

    Couldn't agree more, MGG, but unless devs have the readies to finance such titles themselves, the buggers have to be brought into it somewhere... :(

  • kangarootoo #11 3 years ago

    Did Mutant Giraffe game thing actually make any money? Its kind of crucial when talk of "getting publishers to listen" hoves into view, as we can't really ask them to just chuck money away. Can we?

  • paulf #12 3 years ago

    i wonder whether the remix of space giraffe will make it onto xbox live?