Jeff Minter is an English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 1981 with games for the ZX80. Minter's games are shoot 'em ups which contain titular or in-game references demonstrating his fondness of ruminants. Many of his programs also feature something of a psychedelic element, as in some of the earliest "light synthesizer" programs including Trip-a-Tron.
Gears of War is a 2006 third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is the first installment of the Gears of War series, and was initially released as an exclusive title for the Xbox 360 in November 2006. A Microsoft Windows version, developed in conjunction with People Can Fly, was released in November 2007. The game's main story, which can be played in single or co-operative play, focuses on a squad of troops who assist in completing a desperate, last-ditch attempt to end a war against a genocidal subterranean enemy, the Locust, and save the remaining human inhabitants of their planet Sera. The game's multiplayer mode allows up to eight players to control characters from one of the two factions in a variety of online game modes. Gameplay features players using cover and strategic fire in order to win battles.
The Virtual Light Machine (VLM) is a light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter in 1990. It was installed into a number of electronics, including the Atari Jaguar CD and Nuon DVD players.
Trip-a-Tron is a light synthesizer written by Jeff Minter and published through his Llamasoft company in 1988. It was originally written for the Atari ST and later ported to the Amiga in 1990 by Andy Fowler.
Music visualization or music visualisation, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music. The imagery is usually generated and rendered in real time and in a way synchronized with the music as it is played.
SpeedTree is a group of vegetation programming and modeling software products developed and sold by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV) that generates virtual foliage for animations, architecture and in real time for video games and demanding real time simulations.
Shadowrun is a first-person shooter video game, developed by FASA Studio for Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. The game features a buying system which is inspired by the game Counter-Strike. The game is also inspired by the role-playing game of the same name.
Tony Hawk's Project 8 is a 2006 skateboarding video game and the eighth installment in the Tony Hawk's series. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision in November 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable. The game complements the release of Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, which was conversely available on Nintendo systems along with the PlayStation 2 respectively.
Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console, augmented reality, and virtual reality platforms. It is particularly popular for iOS and Android mobile game development, is considered easy to use for beginner developers, and is popular for indie game development.
FMOD is a proprietary sound effects engine and authoring tool for video games and applications developed by Firelight Technologies. It is able to play and mix sounds of diverse formats on many operating systems.
Space Giraffe is a fixed shooter video game by Jeff Minter and Ivan Zorzin of Llamasoft. The game was released on 22 August 2007 for Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade. The main graphics engine is based on the Neon Xbox 360 light synthesizer visualisation software built into the console. Llamasoft released a version for Windows on 15 December 2008. It was made available on Steam on 19 March 2009.
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information announced later that month at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
MT Framework is a game engine created by Capcom. "MT" stands for "Multi-Thread", "Meta Tools" and "Multi-Target". While initially MT Framework was intended to power 2006's Dead Rising and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition only, Capcom later decided for their internal development divisions to adopt it as their default engine. As a result, the vast majority of their internally developed video games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms were created on it, including four new titles and three remastered ports of past titles in the Resident Evil series. The visuals of the first games built with the engine were well received, and MT Framework has also won a CEDEC award.
Umbra is a graphics software technology company founded 2007 in Helsinki, Finland. Umbra specializes in occlusion culling, visibility solution technology and provides middleware for video games running on Windows, Linux, iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, handheld consoles, and other platforms. In 2021, Amazon acquired Umbra.
Xbox Avatars are avatars and characters that represent users of the Xbox network service on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S video game consoles, Windows 10, and Windows 10 Mobile. Avatars originally debuted on the Xbox 360 as part of the "New Xbox Experience" system update released on November 19, 2008, updated on Xbox One with "New Xbox One Experience" Xbox One System Software on November 12, 2015, and reimagined with the release of the next generation character for Xbox One on October 11, 2018.
Psychedelia is an early light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter and published by Llamasoft in 1984. It was converted to the MSX and ZX Spectrum by Simon Freeman.
Chrome Engine is a proprietary 3D game engine developed by Techland. The current version, Chrome Engine 6, supports Mac OS X, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows.
FIFA 11, titled FIFA Soccer 11 in North America, is a football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts worldwide under the EA Sports label. It was released on 28 September 2010 in North America, 30 September 2010 in Australia, and 1 October 2010 in Europe for all platforms, except the Wii and Nintendo DS. The Wii version was released on 1 October 2010 in North America and Europe and the DS version on 8 October 2010. The PC version of FIFA 11 is the first in the series to use the same game engine as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. The game received positive reviews and was awarded 'Sports Game of the Year' at the Golden Joystick Awards after a record-breaking 2.05 million votes. This was the last FIFA title to be released for the Nintendo DS.
The 4A Engine is a graphics middleware engine developed by 4A Games for use in their video game Metro 2033, published by THQ. It supports Direct3D APIs 9 through 12, OpenGL 3.2, Nvidia PhysX, and Nvidia 3D Vision.
The Ascent is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing video game developed by Swedish indie game studio Neon Giant and published by Curve Digital for Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One on 29 July 2021. It was developed using Unreal Engine 4 by a team of 12 people and is Neon Giant's debut in the industry. The game received positive reviews from critics upon its release, with praise for its visuals, combat, and soundtrack, but criticism for the emphasis on grinding.
