Akka Arrh was, for a long time, one of Atari's long-lost treasures, an arcade shooter that was scrapped back in the '80s. After making its return in Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, legendary game designer Jeff Minter and his studio Llamasoft brought an updated version to consoles in the form of a kaleidoscope of colours and sounds.
Atari sat down with Minter in a recent video to discuss how and why he decided to bring this once-lost classic back from the brink, with updated visuals, gameplay, and sounds. It's a brief video, but Minter's experience and interests shine through as he details the process from how the original ROM was saved to his decision to make the game a bit more "relaxed".
Minter also details his inspirations from former Atari producer and developer Eugene Jarvis — responsible for Defender and Robotron: 2084, among other titles. If you're a fan of Minter's work or are even just curious about Akka Arrh, you should check the video out above.
Not only that, but earlier today, Atari announced that physical copies of the game will be available to pre-order from this Friday, 10th March, from Limited Run Games in North America. In Europe, Numskull Games is handling physical pre-orders, including limited quantities of a Day One Edition, but those aren't due to be available until the spring.
Our lovely friends over at Time Extension had a chance to sit down with Jeff Minter last month to talk all things Akka Arrh, Atari, and sheep. Though there aren't any sheep in Akka Arrh, unfortunately.
Have you picked up Akka Arrh on Switch yet? Are you happy with how it turned out? Let us know in the comments.
Comments 7
On the one hand, I really love Minter's whole design philosophy. He is truly one of a kind in some respects, and this interview was super interesting.
On the other hand, his maximalist design sensibilities means that his games are often headache simulators so I find them hard to actually play.
(Enjoyed Iridis Alpha on Evercade, though. Bit less headache-inducing, with that signature Minter flair of tons of moving parts in play and a weird concept.)
Nice IBM Model-M keyboard he's using there too, though this title looks a bit chaotic for my taste, maybe it makes more sense while playing
@World And he's had an unfortunate habit over the years of often putting them on flop consoles.
Jeff is a treasure. Let him go crazy making arcade style games!
@Clyde_Radcliffe Oh yes, definitely! Certainly he's that sort of type to make a game for a console just because he can, without ever thinking about whether or not he should.
(But it's hard to argue that it's given him at least an interesting body of work!)
What a legend! Great to see and hear him on a video, having grown up with his games on my C64
I didn't know Ozzy was a game developer! Cool!!
Tap here to load 7 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...