Something I Am Very Excited About
It’s Minotron 2012
I’m sure there’s a few people looking at this going “Whu?” but for people of a certain age, well my age and therabouts, this is a very exciting thing. It’s the 21st century re-appearance on IoS of a game called Llamatron released by Jeff Minter 20 years ago.
Llamatron encapsulated a number of important gaming firsts for me.
First game I enjoyed on the ST
The 16 bit ST / Amiga era pretty much passed me by. While mates were espousing the excellence of Stunt Car Race or Turrican I’d gone down the console rabbit hole of NES / SNES / Megadrive. Despite doing some coding work on the Amiga nothing I’d played really clicked with me. Until Llamatron. And I think in part that was because of an obsession with a game I’d never played that Llamatron owed a huge debt to.
First twin stick shooter I’d played
I’d loved both Defender and Stargate, two of Williams Electronics and Eugene Jarvis’s masterpiece. I’d also been more than aware of the existence of Robotron, the same team’s twin stick shooter and it’s reputation as the best game those guys had ever made. Unfortunately despite being aware of its existence I’d never played the game. In those where Mame didn’t exist and you couldn’t jump on YouTube to see a play through which meant I didn’t know all that much about Robotron except it was the best thing ever made. That paucity of information was the seed for a huge burgeoning mystique about the game being constructed in my head. So when the Robotron inspired Llamatron became easily accessible I was all over it 
A lovely twist was that Llamatron allowed you plug two joysticks into your ST and play it like a PROPER REAL ARCADE GAME. This is what I did though it wasn’t all I did; having found a fairly rough plank of wood that fit across my lap I also gaffa taped two Kempston Competition Pros on top. Amazing stuff, my very own MacGyver arcade machine and I loved it and have loved twin stick shooters ever since thanks to the accesibility of Llamatron.
And the way that Llamatron was accessible to a lot of people was new to me as well
First encounter with the idea of shareware
Shop bought and piracy were the only two distribution methods I’d encountered previously but Llamatron was shareware. Now I know this wasn’t the first title to do so but it was the first that entered my orbit. The game was easily available for free but you were asked to voluntarily send a cheque for a fiver to Llamasoft if you thought it was worth it.
This really struck a chord with the young and idealistic and particularly so as author Jeff Minter communicated the concept brilliantly through the game’s readme file. If there was a chart for great READMEs from the world of computer games this would be in the top 3. You can read it here:
http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/MISC/LLAMA.HTM
And that’s why I’m excited
Often reminiscences of games past are viewed through rose tinted glasses and revisits can often disappoint. A few years back me and some friends were lucky enough to be allowed to house sit Jeff Minter’s farm over Christmas while he went on holiday and in his house he had a twin sticked Mame cab with a copy of Llamatron on it.
It didn’t disappoint, in the slightest. In fact it was better than I’d ever experienced it, running on a beefier emulated ST than the one I’d spent so much time on. It’s still a great game and I have every digit possible crossed that this IoS revisit will be to.
And on top of that Minter has proved he’s still got the chops to make a fantastic game with his recent (and excellent) Minotaur Space Rescue. All the signs are pointing in the right direction. Day one purchase.
More details here:
http://toucharcade.com/2011/02/11/a-preview-of-jeff-minters-minotron-2112-llamatron-redux/