Update #2 [Thu 22nd Feb, 2024 11:00 GMT]: At IGN FanFest, Digital Eclipse revealed a brand new launch trailer for its upcoming interactive documentary Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, as well as a launch date: March 13th, 2024.
The trailer features a glimpse at some of the interviews that will be included, such as conversations with Minter himself, as well as a bunch of talking heads. It will be released across Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PS5|PS4, Steam & GOG simultaneously. You can watch the new trailer below:
Update #1 [Wed 6th Dec, 2023 17:15 GMT]: Digital Eclipse has finally revealed that the next game in its Gold Masters series will be Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.
The interactive documentary was unveiled at Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Edition earlier today, and will feature 42 titles from 8 different platforms including, perhaps most remarkably, the unreleased Konix Multisystem from Flare Technology. According to the information we've managed to dig up about it from Digital Eclipse's social media and website, it will be released in 2024 across Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and Steam.
You can watch the trailer below:
Original Story [Thu 27th Oct, 2023 18:00 BST]: A SEC filing for the publisher Fig, submitted on the 27th of January of this year, seems to indicate that it is helping to fund a new collection celebrating the games of the UK developer Llamasoft.
Llamasoft is a developer that's been around ever since 1982 and has developed games for machines as diverse as the Vic-20, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari Jaguar, to name just a few. Jeff Minter, commonly known online as Yak, is the studio's primary developer and is known for his fondness for ruminants as well as the often trippy nature of his games.
We came across the filing on the Llamasoft forums, where a user named Witewulf had posted a link to the filing, as well as an image. The filing reveals that Fig will fund the developer Digital Eclipse to create a new collection called "Jeff Minter's Llamasoft Collection" and describes it with the following:
"One of the UK’s premiere “indie” game developers, Jeff Minter began designing and programming games in 1981, for the Sinclair ZX80. Through Llamasoft, he created dozens of games across a broad spectrum of devices. This game and media collection will celebrate Minter’s work (including his “Tempest 2000” for Atari Jaguar), history and visual style."
This will be fantastic news for fans of Minter's work, should it come to pass, though no official announcement has been made yet by either Llamasoft or Digital Eclipse. Hopefully, this filing means that a proper announcement is just around the corner.