Space Giraffe

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Space Giraffe
Developer(s)	Llamasoft
Publisher(s)	Llamasoft
Designer(s)	Jeff Minter, Ivan Zorzin
Platform(s)	Xbox 360 (XBLA) PC (in beta testing)
Release date	Xbox 360: August 22, 2007 [1] PC: TBA
Genre(s)	Arcade
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E)
Media	Download
Input methods	Gamepad

Space Giraffe is a fast-paced action arcade video game by Jeff Minter and Ivan Zorzin of Llamasoft. Space Giraffe visually resembles the arcade classic Tempest, though Minter claims that it is not a clone of this game. The game was released on August 22, 2007 for Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade for 400 Microsoft Points ($5 USD).^[1] The main graphics engine is based on the Neon Xbox 360 light synthesizer visualisation software built into the console.

[edit] Gameplay

The player controls "Space Giraffe" as it moves above the outside of the playing field, shooting at enemies moving from the center towards the rim.

Although the game is aesthetically similar to the arcade game Tempest, Minter has strongly denied that Space Giraffe is an update to Tempest, as it introduces significant gameplay changes.^[2]

The player controls the Space Giraffe as it moves around the outer rim of a 3-dimensional extruded surface. Enemies appear in notably greater quantities than in Tempest, beginning at the opposite end of the third dimension and approaching the player, firing bullets. The Giraffe can destroy these enemies by firing at them.

A line on the surface behaves as a VU meter, indicating the "power zone". Damaging or destroying enemies extends the Power Zone, and at all other times it slowly contracts, contracting more quickly when the giraffe is stationary. While the power zone is not at zero:

• The Giraffe can safely collide with enemies on the rim, knocking them off in the process (referred to as "bulling"). This attracts higher scores, especially if a large chain of enemies are bulled off the rim at one time. It can also increase the global bonus multiplier.
• Enemy shots are slowed down when travelling within the power zone;
• The Giraffe fires an additional two shots, which can be steered with the right analog stick;
• Enemies which spawn multiple other enemies will do so when shot.

The player can collect power-up "pods" which allow the Giraffe to jump; jumping also fills the entire power zone. The Giraffe can store up to five pods, and one is lost each time it jumps. Collecting extra pods when the giraffe already has five provides extra benefits: the first extra pod grants an extra life, the second grants Fast Bullets, and the third awards a token which counts towards accessing the bonus round, but only if no other pods were missed during the stage. Further pods collected provide bonus points.

Enemy shots can be targeted by the Giraffe's own shots, which has the effect of pushing them back. Although they can be pushed back beyond the far edge of the surface, they are never destroyed, and will resume moving forward again when able, possibly returning onto the surface and even destroying the Giraffe.

When a stage is completed, the Giraffe flies along the surface to the far end. During this period, all enemy shots remaining on the surface are harmless to the player, and the player scores a bonus for each one the Giraffe passes, based on the length of time that has passed since it was fired. If the player happens to collect a Pod while the Giraffe is leaving the surface, they are awarded Fast Bullets on the following round.

The player can use a Smart Bomb once per life, which automatically attacks the enemies nearest them.

[edit] Enemies

• Grunts: Simple enemies which travel up the surface, and on reaching the edge, move around it. If a Grunt touches the Giraffe's hoof, it will attempt to drag the Giraffe down the surface; if not stopped from doing so, the Giraffe will be killed on reaching the far edge. If a Grunt touches the giraffe's head, a life is lost immediately. However, at any time when the Power Zone is active, Grunts are harmless and can be bulled; their role in the game is thus mostly to provide bulling targets.
• Flowers: Flowers begin at the far edge and move up the surface, leaving a "stalk" behind them. Shooting the Flower will shorten the stalk; shortening it to zero destroys the Flower. When a certain stalk length is reached, the head of the Flower detaches from the stalk and continues moving upwards; it is fatal to the Giraffe and cannot be shot or bulled. On certain levels, the stalk length limit may be high enough to allow the stalk to reach or cross the edge of the surface, in which case the stalk is also fatal to the Giraffe. Since shooting a Flower's stalk down counts as shooting an enemy and thus increases the Power Zone, it can be beneficial not to entirely destroy a Flower.
• Boffins: Boffins alternate between moving up the surface and across the surface. While moving across the surface, they can be killed in one shot. While moving up, they can only be pushed back by the Giraffe's shots, and also each shot will cause the Boffin to move upwards more quickly, potentially cancelling out the backward push. When a boffin reaches the near edge, it moves towards the Giraffe and cannot be bulled. Certain Boffins are "aggressive" and fire diagonally at the Giraffe while moving across the surface.
• Feedback Monsters: Feedback Monsters simply travel up the surface and then move beyond it. They can be shot or bulled; however killing a Feedback Monsters causes strong visual display effects for a few moments. Certain Feedback Monsters are "aggressive" and will, after moving beyond the near edge of the surface, fire back at the Giraffe.
• Rotors: Rotors float up and down the surface. While on the surface, Rotors cause the surface to rotate, disorienting the player. Certain rotors are "aggressive" and will, upon reaching the near edge of the surface, fire bullets in both directions along it, certainly killing the Giraffe in the absence of a jump or smart bomb.
• Containers: These move harmlessly up and down the surface. A certain number of shots will kill them, but every shot releases either a Grunt or a Flower, depending on the type of container. These enemies are released at the current border of the Power Zone.
• Zappers: These consist of two parts, one beyond the far edge of the rim and the other beyond the near edge. From time to time, they will charge up and fire a laser beam along the entire length of the surface which is fatal to the Giraffe if touched. Zappers continue to track and fire even while the Giraffe is exiting the surface at the end of the level, and they can kill the Giraffe at this time.

[edit] Development

The name "Space Giraffe" originated from Minter's posts on the Jeff Minter fan forum YakYak and on his blog in which he semi-seriously referred to the player's character in the game as resembling a giraffe.^[3][4] This immediately attracted calls from readers and forum posters that the entire game should be named Space Giraffe, and this was used as the working title for the game, and then adopted for the final release because by that time it had already been the subject of widespread publicity. Minter in an interview related:

The game includes humor and references that are common to Minter's games, including allusions to Super Mario Bros., The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Commodore 64, and even to Microsoft's J Allard. Some of the early screenshots of the game include obscenity, though such obscenity does not appear in the release version. The inclusion of obscenity is Minter's known way of preventing mainstream gaming media from reproducing early work-in-progress screenshots, by rendering them unprintable.^[6]

[edit] Reception

Reviews for Space Giraffe from both game critics and game players have been polarized. Jeff Minter has stated of the game, "It’s like Marmite. You won’t know unless you try."^[20]

The first published professional review of Space Giraffe came in Official Xbox Magazine's September 2007 issue. Dan Amrich ("OXM Dan") gave Space Giraffe a 2/10 rating, stating "You'll frequently die because you couldn't pick out the pulsating assassin from the warped playfield floating over the throbbing LSD nightmare that is the background, which makes this game uniquely aggravating." ^[18] OXM named Space Giraffe the "Worst Game of the Year" for 2007 in March 2008.^[19]

Space Giraffe has received a more positive review from Angry Gamer, scoring an unusual "Holy crap this is awesome hell yes / 10 "^[7]. The reviewer Flamey praised the addictive mood of the game, although on the Angry Gamer podcast, Space Giraffe was called "annoying and pointless", with a reviewer commenting of the creator of the game; "Jeff, we love you, we just don't love Space Giraffe."

[edit] Sales

Space Giraffe sold almost 10,000 copies in its first two weeks of release.^[21] Minter himself has expressed disappointment at the low sales of Space Giraffe, especially in being outsold 10-to-1 by a remake of Frogger. ^[22][23]

[edit] Sound

[edit] Music

Flossie's Frolic was created using Fruityloops by Jeff Minter[2]. The song was later lost by Jeff, but recovered[3] by a member of YakYak.org, eventually finding its way into Space Giraffe. The sheep vocals for the song were done by Flossie, Jeff's pet sheep, who has since passed away. The song also went by the name of "Silly.mp3."

Welsh Numbers Station uses a sequence of specially recorded Welsh numbers in the style of numbers stations. [4] The bonus level music, Gardening By Numbers, also has similar numbers spoken in the background.

Before release, there was interest in licensing music used in Tempest 2000 (also used in Tempest 3000) from Atari, but no deal ever went through. Per Ivan Zorzin, one of the developers who worked on the game:

Now to make a bad story really short let's say so "forget to talk about anything with 'Atari' unless you have a really big wallet and you want to be raped".[5]

[edit] Sound effects

Some of the sound effects that appear in the game also appeared previously in Gridrunner++, another game by Llamasoft released in 2002. The "mu-mu" noise that is heard when the player collects a power pod is a KLF sample.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Llamasoft official website
• Jeff Minter's blog
• 1UP.com - Interview with Minter
• Hidden Music - home of Redpoint
• Llamasoft Archive - Contains back history of Llamasoft games and more