Jeff Minter is a respected video game developer who has earned a reputation for creating a brand of colorful, whimsical, irreverent and challenging games in a career spanning more than 40 years. He’s credited for his 75+ games, and we wouldn’t be surprised if his computer has some unreleased gems hidden in it.
Jeff has been releasing games for 10 years on PlayStation devices such as PlayStation Vita, PlayStation VR and PlayStation 4. Currently in Akka Arrh he is released for both PS4 and PS5. Akka Arrh exudes Jeff’s sense of humor, love of psychedelic color and light, and ability to create games that are fun to play.
With the release of Akka Arrh, I had the opportunity to speak with Jeff to learn more about the new game.
Q. Why Akka Arrh?
I’ve been intrigued by Akka Arrh ever since I first heard about this incredibly rare arcade game being kept secret by a collector for 30 years before the ROM was “released” for everyone to play. I had
When I had the chance to play the game, I liked its abstract nature, the flower-like shape of the platform. I also found it interesting that the level is split between the 2nd floor and his 2nd floor, and that the 2nd floor level section is lit up to “electrocute” incoming enemies. The original has some cool ideas, but they don’t quite fit in a way that I’m happy with. I thought it was my chance to explore original ideas and make them work.
Q. Despite the ROM controversy, Akka Arrh is still not a household name. How would you describe your new game?
The original felt almost like a real-time strategy game, so I pushed a bit in that direction and made the levels more like a series of puzzles. You can easily burn yourself up with bombs and pass levels easily, but you’ll need to study your attack patterns and learn how to be efficient in order to wash out your points to the max.
It’s like a cross between a shooter and a puzzle game. A friend described it as “cerebral”.
Q. How did you approach the game design?
For me, the design process isn’t something you do first and then code to spec, it’s something that continually evolves as you build things. There was a lot of evolution and some dead ends before I got to where I felt it should have been. There was. So this is a very iterative process.
Q. You said the original was cool, but the gameplay wasn’t satisfying in the end. What do you think will make PlayStation gamers happy about this new take?
We changed more things from the original design than if we were dealing with a more famous classic. It had to go from ‘interesting but a little average’ to ‘interesting and fun’, and it took longer than expected.
We wanted to introduce a chain score mechanic where the bonus multiplier increases with consecutively pinning enemies. That’s why I wanted something that worked over a period of time instead of instantaneously. So it creates a distance field “shockwave” on the surface that expands over time, so when you shoot an enemy, it creates a shockwave whose impact spreads to other enemies. These chain reactions are really fun to pull off. Each level has its own shape and pattern, and if you master how to manipulate them, you can cause a mass extinction of sounds and colors.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about gameplay?
I wanted enemies to have more visible missions than just “go downstairs, do a little damage and run away”, so I made some “energy pods” that they had to steal. You lose the game if you lose all your pods. Some enemies will go down there and snatch the pod, then go upstairs and drag them out. You can intercept them and get their pods. After that, unless you intervene, they will go downstairs and have enemies sitting there eating their pods.
Q. Any advice for players?
It’s basically a tower defense game where “you” are the tower. Hordes of enemies will attack your tower. You try to destroy them before they get too close. If they manage to reach you, they will go downstairs and deal damage. It’s up to you to go there and sort them out before they run away.
There are two types of shots: bombs and bullets. Bombs create a highly destructive shockwave, but using a bomb resets the score multiplier to zero. However, each time you destroy an enemy with Shockware, the bonus multiplier increases. You can fire bullets, but it doesn’t reset the multiplier, but it’s a finite resource. Destroying enemies with shockwaves gives you more bullets.
So, ideally, you drop 1 bomb first to start the chain, increase the bonus multiplier to gain bullets, and get as few of those bullets as possible to pass the level with the highest possible score. recommended.
Some levels can be completely conquered with a single bomb and smug expression, as a devastating chain reaction consumes the entire level and awards the highest bonus score.
Q. The original Akka Arrh used a trackball, which is not a common controller in most homes. How did you adapt the gameplay to work with modern controllers?
The game works fine with analog sticks. Expanded the weapon to allow shots to be fired from the cursor itself and the turret. This opens up the gameplay to give you a good idea of how analog sticks work with your controller. However, you can use the PlayStation controller’s touchpad.
Q. Many of your games are known for their music. What can players expect from Akka Arrh?
I wasn’t sure what kind of music they were going to put in the game. I was interested in making some sort of semi-generative music. So I scraped together a big bag of audio samples that I had amassed over the decades.. including some samples from my previous games and old voice-overs of women saying different things. Interesting stuff I kept.. Then I created a very simple little sequencer that played samples from an instrument and a grab bag of sounds based on what was happening in the game. Create a tone sequence that is generated by the enemy and the action when shooting the enemy. Each level has its own tonal “theme” which helps to make each level feel distinct. In the end, I think the word “music” is too big, but I actually really like it.
Fans of incredibly psychedelic arcade gameplay can look forward to Akka Arrh when it releases on February 21st!
