Space Giraffe Now for PC

Quick! Everybody buy it, or we’ll get yelled at for only spending our money on games we like!

I dunno about you guys but from what I played of the demo this game seems to be really basic and boring. Is the hook supposed to be that there’s “trippy” graphics?

Man, I tried to like this one. Got the demo on the Xbawx a while back. I can SEE that there’s some nice, healthy complexity to the game, the aforementioned “trippy” graphics make it impossible for me to concentrate on anything and play for more than a few minutes.

It needs CLARITY. Or else it won’t work. No offense to Minter’s hard work, but I can see why Frogger outsold it.

Pretentious though?

*Really?*

http://www.dwahan.net/Marsbound/cloudphobia/index_e.html

Yeah, but the whole listening thing is to compensate for its excessive visual mess covering up the action on screen.

To draw a rough analogy, Devil May Cry 3 has some gameplay-unfriendly camera angles. To compensate for this, many enemies have distinct battle-cries to clue the player in on when a quick attack is about to come from offscreen. The “genius” of minter applied to that scenario is to make the camera angles even WORSE, then replace all the battle cries with farm animal noises.

Ain’t this a big ol’ discussion! I understood the whole Audio Cue thing, but for me, the visuals still went and killed it. Though I don’t mean to belittle what you’re saying, Atomic, it does strike me as… messy. I’m just not cut out for that level of chaos. I’ll check out that NUXX mode, though!

Also, thank you for the Cloudphobia muchly, Derek! Maybe a frontpage is in order for it, too?

Level 64 is the greatest level to appear in a game ever.

That is all.

Yep, this is the game that had people baying for Minters blood. Never seen a game genuniely piss so many people off before.

But yeah, when you boil it all down it’s Tempest again, but with some interestingly reversed play mechanics (it’s all about safely gathering enemies at the top of the grid, rather than preventing them ever getting up there) and a focus on filtering out order from chaos.

I liked it, though. Genius? Probably not, but it is quite clever, in a bizarre, eye-smashing way. The Feedback Monsters are probably the biggest statement of intent there.

Bobbers, I think The Shalebridge Cradle would disagree with you. :)

Can’t stand the perspective on the very first level :/ I can barely tell what’s going on. No wonder it didn’t sell!

Cas :)

I fucking love Space Giraffe.

It’s seriously dick awesome. It’s totally tits.

The people who get frustrated by the visuals.. well, I guess it’s fair enough, but if they then start whining about it they can, simply put, cunt off. The whole point of it is that you have to use senses other than just sight to interpret the game. I guess some people can’t handle that, or find it somehow offensive, but the people that think it’s a mistake or ask, for example, LOL HOW MENY DRUGS WER EE DOIN WEN EE DID THIS?! need to get a grip, settle down and go home.

The problem is not that the game is flawed, though it does have flaws, as do all Works of Man. No, the problem is that it’s TOO INDIE FOR YOU.

Buy it.

cuntfaces.

@Dominic:
The reason this game had people pissed at Mintner was because he threw a hissy fit when people didn’t buy it, and got angry that other games sold better than it.

That, and not every appreciates psychodelic furry humo(u)r.

The definition of “furry” (in the internet trendy hate target sense) is not “involving furry animals,” Mark.

It should also be pointed out that the pyschedelia and the humour are separate components of the game. The humour itself is not psychedelic.

I think I understand what you were trying to say, and underneath all of the inane internet humour there is some truth. Psychedelia is not for everyone, and the same goes for Minter’s at times questionable (and absurd, I guess) sense of humour and his fondness of all things four-legged and cuddly.

The “hissy fit,” as you describe it, was definitely cringeworthy, but it was completely blown out of proportion and the rage it seems to have inspired is completely ridiculous (not to mention slightly embarrassing for everyone who felt it, or claimed to feel it). As clever as they might like to think they are, most people seem to suffer from a rapid loss of critical thinking ability as soon as they come into contact with the internet, putting them on approximately the same intellectual level as the average Daily Star reader and rendering them equally susceptible to hype and ignorant (and/or badly-informed) outrage, moral or otherwise.

I’m surprised that he thinks that it will sell well at all.

After smoking a hefty bud from a llama-shaped bong:
“Hmm, it didn’t sell well at $5 on Xbox Live. I should go ahead and make a PC version of it, and charge double! ‘Neigh’, what the heck, let’s quadruple the price. Baa!”

I’m guessing that the increased price is traceable to the extra levels. I don’t know, I think it’s totally fair to charge more when the length of the game is doubled, though it does mean that it’s a little too dear for me to get right now. The new year will see it purchased, though.

It all goes back to Tempest and Tempest 2000. From Atari 2600 to Xbox, they have become more complex/crazy each time. I can see how going straight to this is like “what is this f’ing mess?” but with a foundation of the previous games I was happy to see and play it on the Xbox.

I have to say that while I dug the visuals they were a little much, like humorously crazy on purpose, so I’m very glad to see this slimmed version.

Wish the music was a bit less ho-hum dance, though. Tempest 2000 music was great at the time.

Lyx, I’m pretty sure that had been established before your comment.

Agreed. Tempest was fun as hell, and didn’t rely on meme-filled text.

Dominic, what gets under people’s skins was his attitude regarding the sales of the game. It was whiny and probably not a terrific idea for a game designer to do, publicly.

What is pretentious is his idea that buying Frogger is somehow a worse choice than buying Space Giraffe. If Frogger is more fun, I’ll buy it.

On top of that, it’s his choice to make a new and unappealing shooter. If he wanted to make money he should’ve just made a ‘old, shite arcade game.’

Gooooorrrrinnnng!

It can disagree all it likes, it’s still wrong :p

What are you going to do for the other 80 though?

SG is not Tempest in the same way that Quake is not Doom. Sure, you’re still walking around corridors shooting monsters, but a lot of the underlying gameplay mechanics have changed, and unless you adapt, you’ll be pretty terrible at it.

Oh, and – don’t forget bullet juggling as well as bull attacks. Nice difficulty adjusting mechanic and a good way to score high ;)

It is curious to me why this game should bring on quite so much hate? It’s clear that a lot of thought, effort and love has gone into it, and the result is pure Minter madness. Now, this obviously isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but so many of the comments levelled at it are simply unfair, regardless of whether it clicks with you or not.

Anyone who has played Tempest 2000 will recognise very quickly that this does not *feel* like the same game at all. Maybe to those who played T2K or the original Tempest a bit, and who then have a quick go at the demo of SG might think it’s the same thing, but it really isn’t.

As for describing the visual effects as ‘Windows Media Player’, well that’s just fucking rude, and by making such a comment, you do nothing more than reveal your ignorance.

Trying to argue that it’s a crap game is pretty pointless, too. There are too many gamers out there stating how much they love it for this to be true. An acquired taste it may well be – and for many it may be a taste that they never acquire. This is fine – many people never learn to acquire a taste for olives, but it would be stupid to argue that they are unfit for human consumption.

Now I’ve only played SG PC for a day or two, and I haven’t got very far with it yet, but I already love it. I think that the core of the gameplay seems to be down to establishing a rhythmic flow in managing the chaos. When it clicks, it becomes like a dance, and in typical Minter fashion, each level requires you to dance a little differently. Those who can’t dance, need not apply.