Space Giraffe "is not Tempest 4000", says Minter

Kicking off the Independent Game Summit at this year's GDC, veteran game coder and camel fanatic Jeff Minter has given a fresh showcase of his new XBLA game Space Giraffe, which he insists "is not Tempest 4000. "

"Space Giraffe is not Tempest. It may look like Tempest but that's basically because I wanted to have some kind of continuity with Tempest 2000," he told the keynote audience. "Plus I don't want to have to always worry about who owns the rights to the name Tempest," he notes as one of the reasons for ditching the shooter IP.

Minter demoed several levels of the psychedelic 360 blaster (including our favorites "Stargate: Basingstoke" and "Another Day in the Orifice") which shares technology with the Xbox 360's own visualization software, which Minter developed for Microsoft. Ok, I would buy this game alone for xbox live arcade just because of the name of this game. I think that the name of this game will sell alone. Anyways, what the hell does a giraffe have to do with this game? I don't know yet, but I want to find out. And for what Tempest is, you have got me there, I have no idea on what Tempest was or is, so if any one knows what it is, can you let me know, Because I want to know what Space Giraffe is going to be like. It sounds awesome, I think I am going to make a T-shirt with that phrase on it now.