Matrix: Gridrunner 2 was confusingly re-titled as “Attack of the Mutant Camels” on the VIC-20 in North America. The suits in charge of this re-naming fiasco insisted that the title from one of Llamasoft‘s older games be used, instead of “Matrix“.
Well: f*ck them, I’m calling it “Matrix: Gridrunner 2” in light of a lack of some common sense here…
The Atari 8-bit version of Attack of the Mutant Camels came out simultaneously with the Commodore 64 version, in 1983, and is pretty much the same game, but with a few graphical tweaks.
Attack of the Mutant Camels is Jeff Minter‘s 1983 tribute to the then popular The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600.
Abductor is an early shoot ’em up from Jeff Minter and Llamasoft; releasing exclusively for the VIC-20 in 1983. The game is a sort of a cross between Galaxian and Defender, except that the aliens swoop down to try to take six arbitrary ‘men’ that you’re protecting. The unfortunate thing is that this idea doesn’t work that well in practise…
Jeff Minter‘s 1982 Atari 8-bit game, Turboflex, is an interesting but frustrating bouncing ball game where the aim is for you to deliberately bounce a ball into a target inside a box by dropping flippers onto it – diagonal posts that spin the ball in different directions, depending on its position when hit by the ball. The target, depending on your game settings, moves, reverses or does other tricks, so as not to get hit/caught by you.
Described on the title screen as a “freaked-out game from Llamasoft“, Rat Man is a simple hammer-bashing game from the early days of the Commodore VIC-20 and Jeff Minter. Frankly, though, it hasn’t stood the test of time very well…
Headbanger’s Heaven was apparently written for the ZX Spectrum first and later ported to the VIC-20. The Spectrum version first came out in 1982 and is a pretty poor game, but with interesting character graphics and somewhat professional presentation.
First released in 1982 through Llamasoft, Headbanger’s Heaven is arguably Jeff Minter‘s worst game, although that said: it’s still reasonable fun to play. I did read that the game originated on the ZX Spectrum and was converted to the VIC-20. Whatever possessed them to convert it is not clear, though…
Jeff Minter‘s original 1982 VIC-20 version of Gridrunner is not a bad game overall. It’s a simple Centipede variant fought on a basic grid background, with sprites zipping all over the place and insects trying to get the better of you by destroying you before you can destroy them.
City Bomb is a conversion of the super-simple Llamasoft VIC-20 bomber game, Blitzkrieg, to the ZX Spectrum. It was first released in 1982.
The King of Grabs 