Jeff Minter is a genius. I don’t know how else to describe a developer who’s been dabbling in far out magic since 1982 and conjuring up games that have always been pushing at the more extreme edges of the form: fizzing psychedelic light shows backed up by tightly engineered arcade chops, and experiences that dizzy you with their intensity and verve. Somehow his games haven’t lost any of their dazzle over his 40 year plus career, all of which to me makes him something of a hero to me.
Excuse the hyperbole, but I don’t mind admitting that I’m a bit of a Minter fan. He’s an exceptional engineer and a proper eccentric to boot, a fine combination that makes for games with an abundance of personality. In the noughties, when I didn’t do much more than read and re-read old Edge magazines and was often given to strange notions, I was convinced the all-timers had surnames beginning with M; there was Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, Tetsuya Mizuguchi and then finally Minter himself, the mad professor amidst those greats.
I mention this because I’ve had a mental checklist I’ve been working through over the years, and I’ve been lucky enough to tick off all those luminaries who lit a spark in my Edge-obsessed days. So when the opportunity to interview Jeff came up as part of the run-up to Akka Arrh’s release – a fascinating revival of a 1982 Atari arcade game that never passed its field test, and now finished up with typically exuberant Llamasoft flourish by Minter and his partner Ivan ‘Giles’ Zorzin – I wanted to do it properly. In his adopted hometown in west Wales, and over a pint and a curry.
Source – eurogamer.net
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