Psychedelia, by Jeff Minter of Llamasoft, is not a game but a “light synthesizer” – a program that turns input (either from a person via a joystick or keyboard, or from a sound input) into graphical on-screen patterns. Psychedelia was first released in 1984 and was one of the first “light synthesizers” ever made; certainly ever to be made available commercially; and it was the seed that led to the Winamp visualisation plugin craze of the late 90s/early 2000s, and to the evolution of light synthesizers or “sound-to-light” technology in general.
Tag Archives: Cult Game
Metagalactic Llamas: Battle at the Edge of Time, ZX Spectrum
Ported by Chris Clark of Salamander Software and first published in 1984, Metagalactic Llamas: Battle at the Edge of Time is a straightforward conversion of the VIC-20 original, but with a couple of tweaks here and there.
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Metagalactic Llamas: Battle at the Edge of Time, Commodore 64
The 1984 Commodore 64 version of Metagalactic Llamas: Battle at the Edge of Time was converted by Aaron Liddiment for Llamasoft and is pretty much the same as the classic VIC-20 original, except with better graphics and arguably better sound.
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Hellgate, Commodore 64
I would say that Hellgate is one of my least favourite Jeff Minter/Llamasoft games. While it is competently-programmed and nicely-presented, Hellgate is also a very difficult game to play effectively as a single-player.
Metagalactic Llamas: Battle at the Edge of Time, VIC-20
The original Metagalactic Llamas: Battle at the Edge of Time first came out for the VIC-20 in 1983. The Commodore 64 version was a later port, in 1984.
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Matrix: Gridrunner 2, Atari 8-bit
Jeff Minter‘s Matrix: Gridrunner 2 was unfortunately re-titled and marketed as “Attack of the Mutant Camels” for the Atari 8-bit North American market, which causes considerable confusion about this game even now. I’m sticking with the original titles, to avoid confusion, for the HESWare re-titled versions of Matrix.
Matrix: Gridrunner 2, ZX Spectrum
Published by Salamander Software in 1984 the Spectrum conversion of Jeff Minter‘s Matrix: Gridrunner 2 is a decent enough game, with non-flickery graphics and responsive controls. The conversion was coded by Shaukat Ali Tenquist, who kindly commented below to let us know.
Matrix: Gridrunner 2, Commodore 64
The sequel to Gridrunner, Matrix: Gridrunner 2, is a more refined, varied and engaging incarnation of Gridrunner than was seen previously. It was written by Jeff Minter and first published by Llamasoft in 1983.
Hover Bovver, Atari 8-bit
Jeff Minter‘s early grass-cutting maze game, Hover Bovver, was first released by Llamasoft in 1983 for both Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit systems. Both versions are fairly pointless points-scoring exercises with gameplay and maze layouts that don’t really make much sense.
Hover Bovver, Commodore 64
The original Commodore 64 version of Jeff Minter‘s Hover Bovver is just as niggly and annoying as the Atari 8-bit version, which was released as the game’s “evil twin” in 1983.
The King of Grabs 