Gridrunner
1982 — VIC-20, C64, iOS, Android
The original Llamasoft shooter. Fast, harsh, and beautifully alien. Still being remade today.
Llamasoft is the one-man game studio of Jeff Minter, a British programmer who has been making games since 1981. Starting on the ZX81 before moving to the Commodore 64, Minter spent the 1980s producing an extraordinary run of shooters, twitch games, and pastoral oddities — all featuring improbable numbers of ungulates.
Where other developers sought polish and convention, Minter pursued psychedelia and personal vision. His games are direct expressions of his personality: loud, colourful, frequently involving llamas, and always willing to sacrifice commercial sense for the sake of a good joke or a beautiful light show.
The VLM — Virtual Light Machine — became his signature: a real-time music visualiser built into the Atari Jaguar CD, and later the Xbox 360 dashboard. Everything Llamasoft makes feels like staring into a VLM. Explore the History or dive straight into the Catalogue.