Remember when we reported on a rumor that Microsoft will be increasing the file size of XBLA games? Well, Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) David Edery spoke up about this and more. To find out more, click on the "read more" link below which will send you to the full article.

Jeff Minter, founder of software studio Llamasoft and most known for llamas-laden shoot 'em ups, just posted a short update over at his personal blog detailing his frustrations about the fans' reactions to Space Giraffe.

The game has been released on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA service) for a couple of months now but the current sales state and reception are not what Minter had in mind when he first came up with Space Giraffe. More on this after the jump!

Llamasoft founder Jeff Minter revealed on his personal blog that he is currently re-designing GridRunner++ to be released on Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. The developer is not at all new to this especially with the recent appearance and relative success of Space Giraffe on XBLA.

GridRunner++ originally appeared on the official Llamasoft website as a shareware. It was then ported to Mac OS X and to a portable Java applet. The game is actually a scrolling shooter carrying the signature of Minter with its psychedelic visuals and references to sheep. Minter discussed:

I already have it running modified for the different aspect ratio and working off the x360 pad as opposed to the mouse, and I'm changing and extending the gameplay. It'll be a much more involved game than the PC-only predecessor.

I'm getting all the gameplay working first then I'll overhaul the graphics. We'll likely go for algo generated 3D shapes rather than the hand-drawn sprites of the PC original.

The planned modifications, we have to admit, got some of us excited here at QJ.NET and we can't wait to see GridRunner++ in its brilliant Xbox 360 iteration.

One of the most anticipated titles on XBLA is to be released this Wednesday. Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe is hyperdriving into the Marketplace, and sidling along it is - after what seems like ages - Street Trace: NYC.

There seems to be some confusion on the pricing of hypnotic shooter Space Giraffe though. While we hear from the Major that the official press release does notch it up as 800 MS Points, the developer himself said in his LiveJournal blog that it's actually just 400 MS Points. If that's the case, then, man, that's so going to be worth it. For those wondering why some of us have been excited for this, we shall mention a quote from the Llamasoft Blog:

Space Giraffe is an evolution of the tube shooter, but it’s a huge one – if Tempest 2000 represents the difference between a caveman and a caveman with fire, Space Giraffe is the difference between a caveman and Ben Affleck. - Yak

Street Trace: NYC is also another video game that some of you might have been waiting for since way back when. For those who aren't familiar, it's developed by Gaia Industries and plays kind of like Trickstyle (Dreamcast). It's a hoverboard racing title with some rather intense versus action, sliding in at 800 MS Points.

Looks like it's a good solid week on XBLA. Given that BioShock isn't taking too much of your playing time, then by all means, splurge on your MS Points.

 

Looking through ESRB listings and retailer databases are usually a nice way of getting advance word on what new games should be available in the coming months. So here's the latest "early look" courtesy of IGN. They were informed that the latest list of games submitted for rating by the Entertainment Software Review Board include the two arcade classics, Fatal Fury Special and Tempest.

As always this isn't official word that they're coming. It is however, evidence that SNK and Atari wants ratings for their 360 games.

Although we already know about Fatal Fury Special (since it was announced for XBLA way back in the Tokyo Game Show 2006) the 1980s arcade game Tempest is a bit of a surprise for some of us.

For those who aren't old enough to remember, Tempest was one of the first games to have a selectable difficulty level, and it has players flying down a tube shooting at enemies coming their way. It's worth noting that Jeff Minter, the man responsible for Space Giraffe, is also the creator of Tempest and both games have some uncanny similarities.

As for Fatal Fury Special, what else is there to say about the game? If you're a 4chan regular you've probably had enough of SNK sprites. Kidding aside though, Fatal Fury Special is an update to Fatal Fury 2 and has three more characters from the original Fatal Fury, and has Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting.

That's it. Jeff Minter's blog says it. Space Giraffe is done. Well, barring a bit of polish here and there, but it's done. What's left is Microsoft certification and this will be in Marketplace for, according to Eurogamer, the "paltry" sum of 400 Microsoft points.

One of the features Jeff's plugging into this game is the Game Over screen. Besides telling you that, simply, your skills teh suxxor if you can't complete all 100 levels of the game, it will demonstrate how your skills are teh suxxor with a convenient and equally psychedelic graph. As he says, the green line is your best level scores to date, the yellow line is what the game considers to be "good" scores through those same levels, and the orange section represents recently-played progress through the game. Simply put, given any point on the graph,

IF Green < Yellow

THEN You = Teh Suxxor for that level/s.

 

Gamasutra got to talking with Llamasoft's Jeff Minter to talk about making Space Giraffe (and hope the visuals don't induce seizures... kidding), and you'd be surprised at what goes on behind the scenes. Well, for starters, the core dev team is really an army of two: Jeff Minter and Ivan Zorzin. Well, there is an extended team of contributors that he's grateful for, but at the core, it's just the two of them.

So if you're wondering why it's taking a bit of time for this visual menagerie to hit Xbox Live Arcade, well, there's one of them.

He also revealed why the game's called Space Giraffe: it's sort of accidental demand. He posted a picture of "a little creature" and a giraffe at a watering hole - absolutely nothing to do with what you see in the game, we guess - on a forum thread called The Space Giraffe, and suddenly, he says gaming site suddenly reported that he was working on a game called "Space Giraffe"! And that's how it stuck.

Who knows if the giraffe and "the little creature" made it into the game? Other stuff you might like to know:

• Don't worry, no matter how weird the levels start to look, Jeff says "if you're actually in there playing it, you can still read it." So the screenshots really can't do any justice to this game; we need visuals.
• Jeff Minter loves the visual power he's got with the Xbox 360. He especially loves pixel shading.
• Each level in Space Giraffe has its own graphical theme.
• This is a self-funded game, because they wanted to maximize returns: "We didn't want to take any funding... We figured we'd go out on a limb and self-fund, and then hopefully do better when it's released."
• Contractually speaking, Llamasoft is still very much third party; they can code for the PS3 and Wii if they wanted to - except for the light synthesizer, which is contractually restricted to Microsoft.
• And Jeff would one day like to work with the Wii; he'd like "to get cracking" on another Xbox Live Arcade game before then.
• Yes, Jeff does own llamas. As pets.

It seems that Jeff Minter maintains a LiveJournal where he can keep readers up to date on whatever he's doing, including the work being done on Space Giraffe (Llamasoft). And in the latest blog post a couple of days ago, he says that all the main levels are complete for the game. He also mentions that he's the only one in the alpha team with a build "that goes all the way to 100" - which kinda implies that there are 100 main levels in this game.

(Yep, it has to be Jeff Minter.)

Oh, well. Shine get, most certainly. Not only that, we now know the extent of the coming Xbox Live Arcade title, although Jeff also says that he has some tweaking to do over those 100 levels. Other than that, are you ready for 100 levels of trippy, back-to-the-60's, "oh god, what have I been drinking last night?" gameplay?

CONGRATULATION! YOU SUCCESS!
A WINNER IS YOU!
BUT OUR GIRAFFE IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!
(x 100)

Yep, you got that right. Jeff Minter's flower power-themed psychedelic action game Space Giraffe is all set to hit Xbox Live Arcade-- all they're waiting for now is Microsoft's go signal.

1up reports that according to the dev's LiveJournal blog, a user by the name of StinkyGoat divulged some details about the game going on an alpha release to MS tomorrow. Here's what StinkyGoat said about the alpha release:

The release to MS is a little bit scary because we effectively get the go/no go for the whole thing on this submission, but damn me if it doesn't look gorgeous and I think it plays really nicely so I would be very surprised if we have any problems there.

Well, if the game lives up to these words, then we guess there won't be any problems getting that thumbs up from MS. Some are saying that Space Giraffe actually looks a lot like Geometry Wars, but we doubt the gameplay would be highly similar. After all, we trust Jeff Minter has a few twists and tricks up his sleeves for this trippy game. To get a preview of this game on XBLA, you can check out the video we brought you guys a while back, rest assured we'll keep you posted for further developments.

So where's the giraffe? And if it is in fact in the game somewhere, what's it doing in outer space? Why the giraffe? Why not a hippo, or a lion, or a peacock? Nobody really knows the answer to those questions, except for Space Giraffe creator Jeff Minter, maybe.

What we do know is that we've described this game as psychedelic and trippy. You know why? Because it is. Just check out this new gameplay vid from the game. Although Space Giraffe itself appears to draw inspiration from the arcade game Tempest, we can't help but be reminded of Dance Dance Revolution with its funky beat, but minus the dance pad.

It won't be out for the XBLA until some time next year, but already, it's causing enough trippy stir to have us wanting it now. Check out the vid below, and get lost in a trance for 10 minutes.