Iconic developer Jeff Minter brings ‘Tempest 2000’ to PS Vita

By Anthony John Agnello April 11, 2013

SpaceGiraffe.pg — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sony isn’t messing around when it comes to getting indie developers on the PS Vita. Terraria, Hotline Miami, Divekick… heck, even DayZ might be coming to Sony’s struggling handheld. The device may not be selling like gangbusters, but it’s certainly got a booming library of offbeat fare. Part of this is in part due to the efforts of Shahid Ahmad, SCE’s senior business development manager in the UK. Ahmad continues to bring in new talent like Velocity developer FuturLab. Ahmad’s latest PS Vita coup? Convincing iconic designer Jeff Minter to make a sequel to Tempest 2000 specifically for PS Vita.

“We happy to announce that we have just begun work on a new game of the PlayStation Vita,” wrote Minter on his studio Llamasoft’s website, “19 years ago saw the release of one of the best games Llamasoft ever made, a game which came to be recognized as one of the best games on an entire system – Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar. I’ve often thought that one day I would like to revisit that game and do some kind of an updated version on modern hardware.”

“And so that brings us to our new project – TxK on the Playstation Vita. We’re going to base it on the essence of the original T2K. It’ll be the pure, straightforward shooter that maybe you hoped for when you first saw Space Giraffe. We’re not going to overload you with ultra psychedelia, but we will make it fluid and colourful and awesome-looking on the Vita’s delicious, vibrant OLED screen. We’re going to give you a perfect treat for your eyes, ears and thumbs with a modern extrapolation of one of the best shooters ever made on hardware that’s just perfectly suited for it, and in a way that retains the purity of the original design.”

Minter released the aforementioned Space Giraffe in 2007 on Xbox 360, and while the overwhelming psychedelic shooter received many rave reviews, it also earned a reputation for being obtuse and difficult (OXM actually went as far as to name it the Worst Game of the Year). Since then, Lllamasoft has focused primarily on iOS games, like the wholly enjoyable Goat Up.

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Anthony John Agnello

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…

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