Isn't this just Unity on the Gamecube that got canned due to "there being no actual game behind the pretty graphics, after year( of dev time). If so I dont have to much faith in this title...

Not really, this is a different game to Unity.

Jeff Minter wanted more time to develop Unity, and Lionhead decided by the time it was ready the GameCube market would be drying up, so it was canned.

Some of the effects work done for Unity was the foundation for Neon on the 360, and Neon is the effects engine for Space Giraffe. So visually some of the effects would be related, but thats about it.

From the clips released Unity looked more like N2O, from this video of Space Giraffe it looks a lot closer to Tempest. Given the lineage, it is probably going to be great.

Well Neon is a fucking marvel, probably my second most played game (if you can call it that) on the 360 behind Geometry Wars. Not really, but it's a really good visualisation suite, with some really spiffy analogue control.

Tempest 2k and 3k are both excellent, so more of the same is welcome. And this will be in HG I assume, for maximum immersion.

__

Is the standalone video more legiable than the googlesplurge?

The 675MB is very high quality 720x480.

It has some nasty blended de-interlacing though (unless thats my media player).

torrent is dead anyways. at least the host of that file is.

parle vous francais?

Still works for me...

675MB too, thats crazy. You could probably compress that to less than 100MB with no noticable loss, cuh. I blame Mac users.

I can't resolve that domain. Curious. Going to spank the Internet Gerbils into working, one moment.

looks the ferjeffing nuts.

don't see any sign of tunnel warping...

but its basically tempest 2000 isn't it?

there an eta?

Jeff Minter addresses the Tempest similarity on yakyak.org:

It's worth reading though what he has to say there, and on his blog:

http://stinkygoat.livejournal.com/

I get the impression that as the game develops it will move further and further away from the original Tempest.

There isn't a date yet. There is also a 90MB mp4 floating about too, so I was a little harsh complaining about the 675MB one.

I like the smell, be nice to know when it might appear.

Doesn't appear to be WIIIIIDDDDEEEE screen.... or is that just the cap?

One HOUR of Jeff Minter talking about game development and Space Giraffe:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4394997538725969856

Can you vouch for its tedium?

Even Minter must be bored of VLMs and games that look like them.. can't he invest his time on a Football game or generic FPS?

If you watch the vid, he explains exactly why he wouldn't do that.

Its worth a seeing yeah, from about 25 mins in when he starts discussing Tempest 2000 and Space Giraffe.

He seems to have found the equivalent of Psyvy's Buzz for Tempest.

Video was worth watching.

Space Giraffe looks ace bags.

And it sounds like it might be Vista Live Arcade bound.

Seems like the Leaderboards might be worth doing too...

I guess it appears when it appears.

He mentions that it is in testing, and they'll have to submit it in a month or two in order to actually make money on it.

So it should be soon!

It's actually quite interesting if you're a bit of a nerd.
Minter goes through some of his early games (all emulated) and then, about half an hour in, gives a really trippy demonstration of Space Giraffe.
He's a really affectionately eccentric nerdy British developer. Definitely a breath of fresh air.

I am and it was

Seems like a top bloke and Space Giraffe is looking absolutely phenominal. We have to crash Paper's house when it's released and rinse it on his projector.

I didn't quite get the "Power Bar" thing... I liked "POD GET!"... The score multipliers with use of Pods and making them wind up to the, what was it called? curb? Also, auto fire!

Very much Giraffian game model.

As a wannabe game developer nerd, that video was great. I hadn't seen some of his earlier games before, and I had no idea that he self-funded Space Giraffe

The Space Giraffe clips look amazing although I don't get how it you could die without intentionally playing badly. I'm sure it'll make sense once we see some of the later levels.

Meant to be out wednesday... not sure if that is world wide.

This and Pac Man CE... does it need a CD tray?

It went up this morning, game guide here:

http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/blog/?p=10

Damn, race to get home and dl this then. Have to get this Pac Man and the Stranglehold Demo. Will have to delete some trash from the HDD to fit in all the goodness.

I'm enjoying it so far, can rock through the first 10 levels, but haven't quite sussed how to deal with the flowers yet.

#192 in the world for about 30 seconds.

What's the framerate like?

nice.

92nd right now.

I'm bitter.

This is going into town and buying a PAL 360 land at the moment.

Fortunately I am too busy at the moment to manage it.

This is really lovely. I only managed to play the tutorial and the first four levels then had to turn it off

Couple of quick questions.

1. What are the cues to indicate you are in the powerzone? or powerzone is about to end?

2. What's the strategy for cultivating flowers? keep chipping away at them to stay in the zone, but don't kill them off? I keep getting killed by running into flowers that have grown to the rim (or at least that is what I think is happening).

3. How does this look on your projector Mr P? I bet you get sucked into your livingroom wall in an epileptic orgy of psychedilia.

What I can tell so far...

1 - Power Zone goes as far as the horizontal border partway down the web - the Tutorial makes it really clear where this is by having 'Power Zone' written above that border, moving along with it. You keep it going by shooting things or picking up pods, once it has collapsed the corridor dividers are no longer illuminated, and you lose your hoof shots.

2 - Flower strategy, that seems to be basically it. On the early levels they don't grow outside the rim, but the bulb can launch and the stem then dies - when this happens the bulb is indestructible and can easily kill you. The cautious approach is to let them grow, mature, launch, and die, while you sit with at least one pod out the way. Then, once your web has it's full compliment of enemies, excluding flowers, hop off the rim then bull run them.

3 - It looks good. The J Allard 3D face scares the living shit out of me though. I have a feeling it is holding back on some of the effects to begin with.

OK OK that makes more sense now. I was a bit lost when the PowerZone text was missing >_<

I guess in your strat you pod jump just before bulling to give yourself a quick shot of powerzone? Am I right?

Mechanically this is completely different to Tempest. Something which wasn't clear to me even from watching videos. Yes the core is the same, but you have to unlearn everything you do in Tempest to play this properly. The hoof shot is inspired, because it opens up a whole new style of play.

I'm sure my thoughts on this will mature with extended play, but I'm liking what I've seen so far. It will all depend on where he takes it from the start with the level geometry and the enemy characteristics.

Well done Yak.

Yeah. The Google Video/seminar Jeff Minter did was reasonably good at demonstrating the power zone usage.

Oops:

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?t=67019

Oh crap, that's not good.

Things like this I imagine can get missed if you're too close to something. The exploit must involve just parking the giraffe somewhere and letting the score rack up. It doesn't sound like the guy who posted it was in control of the game the whole time. I guess the trick is to find the exact position, level and situation to get the game in a never-ending sequence.

It will be straddling some flowers with the perfect shot rate/position I imagine. If it is, a simple fix - make flowers very slightly weaker or stronger over time. Getting that fix available would probably be a nightmare though.

Nice review here:

http://www.angry-gamer.net/ag/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=595&Itemid=29

Some good blog stuff:

http://llamasoft.co.uk/blog/

http://stinkygoat.livejournal.com/

Live certification sounds like no fun.

OXM gave this 2/10

Are they playing the same game as us?

I would have been sucked in big time yesterday, but I had to go out so my playtime was very limited. Like Tempest it will take a little while for my brain to adjust to the visual onslaught. After a while you sort of tune out the effects and see through it. Just like Neo in the Matrix .

I can tune everything out except the eyes of Allard. They haunt my dreams.

#81 out of 4747

Each time I post a position my score has pretty much doubled. Just under 50 million now, level 25, beginning to get comfortable with it and meet some new enemies. Space Giraffe is definitely a kinder game than Tempest 3000.

Soundtrack:

http://www.empire-of-the-claw.com/files/mp3s.htm

http://www.medwaypvb.com/downloads/llamasoft/giraffe/diffusion_ilovehorsesremix.zip

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/200613/rules.php

http://www.nuon-dome.com/media.html

http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-Jaguar-Tempest-2000-Audio-CD_W0QQitemZ180151138310QQihZ008QQ

Can't we need the leaderb0AR|>Z via the intawebz?

This and pac man has basically sealed the deal for the xbox 720... oh and VT3 and VF5 and er BC for OutRun2 and orta.

Are you going for an Elite system? Hell if you're on I might even start to use Live more.

I've yet to post a score on SG. Chances of me being as dedicated as Paper and catching up with him are slim, but I'll give it a shot

You can rip the T2K music from the PC version, it's just an audio CD. Not tried to rip T3K from the game DVD, but I imagine it's not all that difficult.

How do you feel SG stacks up against T3K?

The T3K soundtrack can't easily be ripped, but the nuon-dome site linked above has it to download. I linked the T2K soundtrack so that it could be ripped to a 360 if you didn't have the PC version... PC version would be cheaper though eh.

Comparing the gameplay in SG to T3K is like comparing Psyvariar to Gigawing - they are different games.

In terms of difficulty progression Space Giraffe is much kinder. I can imagine people getting to level 50 plus on SG who would not be able to top 20 on T3K. Visually SG is a lot clearer, T3K gets hectic faster and in doing so becomes a harder more quickly, and of course bull running makes hiding a lot safer in SG. HD helps with the clarity.

The Welsh words spoken on the title screen are an homage to number stations, which is cool.

My scores are piss-poor on this. How is everyone doing so well?

I do ok with the bull-charge thing and with the flowers but I still have huge problem with distinguishing bullets from everything else...though I am on an SD TV.

I think it is just a case of adjusting to whatever kind of TV you have. You can see bullets coming in from miles off, before they reach the web, so you have to try and remember what is incoming. Keeping the Power Zone topped up slows them down as they come in too, giving you a chance to ping them back.

There are so many things going off all at once, it is more about mentally tracking everything rather than visually tracking everything. This is where learning the audio cues really helps. You have to get to a point where you feel your way around each web; take each small visual and audio piece of information and run on instinct.

One 'tip' I have is that the early levels are a lot less frantic than they seem - get yourself a spare pod, and you can really take your time. If you wait until the web has it's fill quota of enemies, you can ensure there are no flowers and very few bullets heading your way. Then its a case of tapping jump and hoovering them all up.

My score has stabilised now, something like #162 in the rankings. I can steam through the first 20 or so levels, then I begin to struggle with the newer enemies. Need to spend some more time with them The rotator from T3K is back, which is probably one of the coolest video game enemies of all time.

It seems like there are a couple of nasty bugs in there, which can be exploited for score chasing - totally removes any fun, I couldn't bring myself to use them. Other than the authenticity of the leaderboards, it doesn't affect what is a rather superb game.

Thanks for the advice, I'll put it into practice the next chance I get.

As for the bugs, I hope they can cleam them up with a patch.

There was something else I thought of earlier... if you can't make out what is going on in the corridors next to you, and can't remember, but it looks like a mass of enemies and bullets, then gingerly edge towards the area you need to run through with both analog sticks in the same direction. You should take out any bullets, and if a flower is hidden in there you'll hear the tinkle sfx as you take out a few segments from the stem.

#70, 115 million!

I need some competition here

he he. Competition you must be joking right? I've now played this twice and the second time I got over 5 Mill (whoop de doop). Having said that the game is making much more sense now. I'm almost not bad or something on the inter-level ratings screen.

I just need some uniterupted time on this to build some skills. Time is a rarity at the moment

I'm grimly holding on to my place in the top 100.

I'm gonna try and just get the few Achievements I need to get (apart from the completion ones..) before the scores are reset now.

See you on the leaderboards Papercut!

Good work! I will have to play some more.

I would have placed on the hardcore table with that 115 million, but the 360 decided to log me out of Live. Git.

I saw you are not far behind, so I had to add another 15 million to my score on Saturday

We're both just outside the top 100 at the moment.

I am really beginning to get into this now, and starting to get good at it. I find starting from level 1 the best way, then I can get properly settled into it before it throws some nasty stuff at me.

When I lose it my game goes big time though, the limit of 9 lives is pretty evil. A couple of iffy levels and I've had it.

My score on the first 20 or so levels is improving lots.

One thing I've found useful - try and get the achievements. It really forces you to learn the game properly, and I've improved as a result.

Hmm some good tips, you may have noticed I posted a paultry 10mil on this over the weekend. I think improvement will be rapid before I hit a plateau.

I went for the tutorial achievement and missed, so I need to rethink my game. The graphic at the end of a game is quite useful in showing the gap between where you are and where you should be.

My understanding of the multiplier is lacking I think. Am I right in thinking you have to bull a certain number of enemies off in one go to get the multiplier to increment?

Yeah, I think it is three enemies bulled in quick succession that give you a multiplier.

I haven't figured out how that accumulates though - whether 2+N in quick succession gives you N multiplier, or whether 3N in quick succession gives you N multiplier.