Nintendo Life: Can you talk about how I, Robot came to be?
Jeff Minter, Llamasoft founder: Well, I’d look through Atari’s back catalogue for games to update and I like going for the more obscure things. The big titles are often spoken for anyway, and if you go for something like Asteroids or Centipede, people tend to have pretty big opinions on how it should be, so you have a bit less creative freedom.
The more obscure games tend to have very interesting ideas that perhaps didn’t get the kind of exposure that they deserved back in the day. I quite like the idea of taking these things, blowing the dust off, and perhaps giving them a bit more publicity in modern times. I, Robot is a particular favourite of mine, I played it back in the day a fair bit; a friend of mine actually owned the coin-op machine, so I was able to go to his house and play it extensively.
The technology was groundbreaking at the time, and so it definitely stuck in my mind. One thing I loved about it was that because the graphics technology was so new, they built a special mode into the game where you just played with the 3D graphics. That was at a time when I started doing my own early light synth work, so there was the idea of playing a game that wasn’t quite a game, but still interesting. I’ve actually implemented something similar into my own version; it’s called ‘The Ungame’, so you can go ahead and play around with the parameters of the lights.
So in what ways has Llamasoft’s I, Robot been updated from the original?
There’s a chunk of Llamasoft in there, there’s no doubt about that. But you also have to make the basic translation from an arcade environment to a home environment; arcade games are built to kick you off within three minutes and get more money in. So you have to adjust it to allow players to sit down and enjoy it a bit longer.
I hope I’ve kept enough of the original that fans enjoy it, but also there’s enough Llamasoft in there that people who like Llamasoft will enjoy it too.
The basic idea is the same. There’s this eye looking at you and you can’t jump while it’s open. I’ve extended that from the original a bit, so now the eye can fire at you while it’s open along with some other stuff. I’ve sped things up a little so it’s not quite as slow anymore. Every few levels you get something called the Arena Mode, and this essentially sees you being attacked from all sides, but you have extended firepower with which to shoot back.
Ultimately, I’ve kept the spirit of the original and I hope people like it. I hope I’ve kept enough of the original that fans enjoy it, but also there’s enough Llamasoft in there that people who like Llamasoft will enjoy it too.
Were there any challenges with the development of I, Robot that you perhaps haven’t experienced before?
Well, to me, it’s always a bit of a step into the unknown when I’m doing a new game. So I don’t sit down and design everything first, I kind of just make it up as I go. Sometimes it can take a while for a game to find its groove; you can be fiddling about, you’ve got some structure there, but it’s not quite working.
So it can be a bit of an anxious time because you think, ‘I’m never going to make this fit.’ I’ve been in that situation loads of times over my career and eventually you get to trust your instinct that everything will come together. The same thing happened with Akka Arrh, it actually took quite a while for me to find the correct feeling for that one.
From a technical standpoint, it’s not a particularly demanding game, so there’s little challenge in that sense. It runs very well on the Switch and it runs very well on the Atari VCS. [Note: Not the original VCS, we hasten to clarify; Atari released a Linux-based console in 2021 that unfortunately didn’t quite take off, but still hosts the majority of Atari’s first-party offerings.]
How have you found development on the Nintendo Switch specifically?
Giles, come here!
Giles: Doing the graphics, doing the sound, everything works absolutely fine, no problem. Nintendo has good documentation, and really the only complaint is that there are so many different portals for different things, it can get a bit fragmented.
The biggest pain in the ass is making all the stuff conform, all the UI, little things have to be right, and it can take a long time to test certain things, sometimes hours at a time. But no, the machine is nice, it works very nice, the game runs at 60fps.
You mentioned that you like going for the more obscure titles; do you get any pushback from the folks at Atari, or do they just let you crack on?
Jeff: By and large, they just let me do my own thing. Early in development, they’ll give me a bit of feedback, and usually I’ll say, “It’s too early for feedback, everything can change!”
But generally, they’re very good about it, and it’s one of the reasons I like working with them. They give me complete creative freedom to do whatever I want, and having now done it a couple of times, they trust me enough to just get on with it and something good will come in the end.
You’ve mentioned in the past that working with Atari affords you that vital creative freedom, but also brings some financial stability. With this in mind, can we expect this partnership to continue going forward?
Jeff: Oh yeah absolutely, I’m extremely happy with it. I can just sit down and concentrate on the things that I do well and not worry about the things I don’t do so well. Stuff like marketing I’m absolutely terrible at. I’m happy to offload that onto them, and they do a nice job of it; they do wonderful trailers which I could never do.
As you say, there’s a bit of financial stability to it, which is always welcome. So yeah, we’re definitely not stopping yet.
I would like to ask if there’s anything else from Atari’s back catalogue that you’ve got your eye on, but I suspect you’re probably not going to tell me!
Jeff: All I’ll say is that we had a meeting to discuss potentially what I might do next. Before the meeting, I went through the IP catalogue and there were two titles which stood out to me. So one of the Atari guys at the meeting said, “We’ve been thinking about what you might be interested in doing and what might suit you,” and it turns out that the two games at the top of their list were the same two titles that I picked.
I’m very lucky to have this opportunity to work on exactly the kind of things I like to work on, because there’s a great deal of stability, and I’m seizing onto that with both hands and going to keep it up as long as possible.
That’s wild! So if I look into the back catalogue, I might be able to guess..?
Jeff: Well if you’re thinking the same way that they’re thinking, then maybe you could guess them!
I’m not going to do that now, I don’t want to embarrass myself [though for the record, we’ve got Black Widow in our minds…!] On the flip side, are there any games that are an absolute no-go for you?
Jeff: Well, there’s always room to do something, I think, but you’ve got to respect the original. Sometimes you can go a bit too far and do something completely different. I wouldn’t put anything off the table, but I’ve got to be into the idea of whatever it is that I’m going to do, y’know? I don’t think I’d be happy if they just handed me something and said, “Do that!”
Doing things your own way has always been a Llamasoft staple, and it seems to be quite a rare thing in the current climate. I wonder if you can comment on the state of the industry at large at the moment?
Jeff: Yeah, it’s obviously a very difficult time for the industry at the moment. I’m very lucky to have this opportunity to work on exactly the kind of things I like to work on, because there’s a great deal of stability, and I’m seizing onto that with both hands and going to keep it up as long as possible.
It’s very hard for indies to get known these days. It seems a lot of the times it’s more about how good you are at publicity than how good you are a making a game, so a lot of creators are having a tough time. I wake up every day and I count my blessings. I’m very lucky to be able to do this.
It seems especially difficult to stand out amongst the crowd at the moment given how many titles release on digital storefronts all the time. We’ve particularly highlighted an issue with so-called ‘scam games’ over the last few years…
Jeff: Oh yeah, someone told me about something called ‘Jumping Hot Dog’ or something where you just press a button and get achievements. I don’t understand how those things are even allowed to go onto the stores, it’s just clogging things up for everybody else.
How does it feel to see this kind of stuff when you’re trying to put your own game out there?
Jeff: It’s a perversion of the whole thing. To me, making games is about making something which I think is good and that I hope other people enjoy and will think is good value for money. There’s pride in it for me. I don’t think I could be proud of something that may well make more money than I could do normally, but there’s no art, no communication, no substance to it.
Yeah, I’m old school. I was lucky enough to be there at the start of the games business when you really could just do everything out of passion, and everything grew up around that. Now it seems quite a lot of game design and publishing is more about making money than it is about making art. It should be more about art than money, really.
Now it seems quite a lot of game design and publishing is more about making money than it is about making art. It should be more about art than money, really.
Perhaps both you and Giles can chip in with this, but what are your thoughts on the Switch 2 from what we’ve seen so far?
Jeff: I’m very much looking forward to it, it looks like it’ll be a nice thing.
Giles: We’ve been trying and trying to get a dev kit but sadly nothing at the moment.
Jeff: Yeah I think we’re probably fairly low down on the priority list! But we’ll definitely be keen to work on it when we get our hands on it, for sure.
Giles: I will say that it’s always good to work on the lower side of things, because if you can make it good there, then you can always make it even better on more powerful hardware.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity.
A huge thanks to Jeff and Giles for taking the time to sit down and speak with us. I, Robot launches on the Switch eShop on 17th April 2025. Will you be picking it up? Let us know with a comment down below.
