Jeff Minter is a respected video game developer who has been known for creating a colorful, whimsical, irreverent and challenging game franchise over his 40+ years of career. He’s credited with over 75 games, and we wouldn’t be surprised to find some unreleased gems hidden in his computer.
Jeff has been releasing games on PlayStation devices for a decade, including PlayStation Vita, PlayStation VR, PlayStation 4, and with Akka Arrh now both PS4 and PS5. Akka Arrh is enamored with Jeff’s sense of humour, his love of color and psychedelic lighting, as well as his ability to create fun games to play.
With the release of Akka Arrh, we had the opportunity to talk to Jeff and learn more about the new game.
Q. Why Akka Arrh?
I’ve been interested in Akka Arrh ever since I first heard the story of this extremely rare arcade game kept secret by a collector for 30 years and how the ROM was “released” so everyone could try it out.
When I got a chance to play this game, I liked its abstract nature, the flower-like shapes of the platforms. I also think that the leveling between the upper and lower floors is interesting, as is the lighting of the upper floors to “electrify” incoming enemies. The original had some good ideas, but it didn’t quite fit together in a way that I was happy with. So when Atari asked me which of their game IPs would I most like to work with, I took it as an opportunity to explore the original’s ideas and turn them into reality.
Q. Despite the controversy over ROM, Akka Arrh is still not a household name. How would you describe the new game?
The original almost felt like a real-time strategy game to me, so I pushed a bit in that direction and made the levels almost like a series of puzzles. You can easily bomb and pass a level with ease, but to remove the most points from it, you need to study attack patterns and learn how to use them effectively.
It’s almost like a cross between a shooter and a puzzle game. A friend described it as ‘brain’ which is not what people usually say about my shooting stuff.
Q. How do you approach game design?
To me, the design process isn’t something you do in the beginning and then code a spec, it’s something that evolves continuously as you create the thing. There was a lot of evolution and some dead ends before I ended up where I felt it should be. There was a time when I was so desperate because I thought I would never get the game to work properly. So it is a very iterative process.
Q. You note that the original was great, but the final gameplay wasn’t as satisfying. What do you think this new product will please PlayStation gamers?
I changed more things from the original design than if I were working with a more famous classic. I had to turn it from “interesting but a bit funny” to “interesting and fun”, which took me longer than I expected.
I’d recommend a chain scoring mechanism where killing consecutive enemies increases the bounty multiplier, and for that I’d like something that works over a period of time instead of right away. instantly. So the distance field creates “shock waves” on surfaces that expand over time, so when you shoot an enemy, the impact creates a shock wave that spreads to other enemies. These chain reactions are really fun when you do them. Each level has its own shape and pattern, and if you learn to work with them you can create a mass extinction of sounds and colors.
Q. What else did you recommend for the game?
I wanted the enemy to have a clearer mission than just “go down the stairs and do a little damage and then run away”, so I created some “energy shells” that they had to steal. You lose the game by losing all groups. Some enemies go down there, snatch the pods, and go upstairs to drag them away; you can block them and get groups. Then there are enemies that will go downstairs and sit there eating shells unless you intervene. There are other types that can be lifted up by a traction beam without going down the stairs.
Q. Do you have any advice for players?
It’s basically a tower defense game where “you” is the tower. Swarms of enemies attack your tower; and you try to destroy them before they get too close. If they reach you, they will go down the stairs and deal damage; It’s up to you to go down there and sort them out before they run away.
You have two types of fire: bombs and bullets. Bombs generate huge destructive shockwaves, but using one will reset the score multiplier to 0. But for each enemy you kill with the shock software, the bonus multiplier will increase go up. You can fire bullets and they don’t reset the multiplier, but they are a finite resource — you get more ammo to kill enemies in a shockwave.
So ideally you’d want to start off by dropping a bomb to start the chain of increasing the bounty multiplier and accumulating ammo, then use as few of those bullets as possible to get through the level with highest possible score.
Some levels can be completely conquered with a single bomb and show smugness as the chain reaction of destruction consumes the entire level and gives the highest bonus.
Q. Akka Arrh originally used a trackball, which is not a common controller in most households. How have you adapted the gameplay to work with modern controllers?
The game works well with an analog stick. I’ve expanded the weapon so you can fire from your own cursor as well as from the turret, which opens up the gameplay and maps well to how analog sticks work on a controller. But you can use the trackpad on a PlayStation controller.
Q. Many of your games are known for their music. What can players expect with Akka Arrh?
I had absolutely no idea what kind of music I was going to put in the game. I’m interested in making some sort of semi-synthetic music. So I rummaged through a large bag of audio samples that I’ve accumulated for decades.. things that interest me that I’ve kept, including some samples from my previous games myself and an old dub of a woman saying different things. Then I built a very simple little sequencer that plays samples from the instrument and this collection of sounds based on what’s going on in the game. It creates a sequence of sounds produced by the enemy and by your actions when you shoot the enemy. Each level has its own audio ‘theme’ that helps make each level feel different. In the end, I think ‘music’ is too big of a word, but I actually quite like the result.
Fans of the incredible psychedelic arcade gameplay can look forward to Akka Arrh releasing on February 21st!
