Gridrunner+++ revealed with screenshots from Jeff Minter for Xbox Live Arcade

Gridrunner+++ XBLA screenshot shows psychedelic shooting

Gridrunner+++ has been revealed for Xbox Live Arcade from infamous UK-creator Jeff Minter.

Minter is the creator of Space Giraffe, which was an unappreciated shooter in the same vein that was also released for Xbox Live Arcade. And Gridrunner+++ is his next title, an XBLA update of the PC, Mac and iPhone game Gridrunner++.

The game is an intense psychedelic shooter in which your ship continuously shoots upwards. Enemies appear to attack the craft and in order to beat the game you must defeat all the enemies on the stage. One hit and you die. You can see enemies that are part of the stage but haven’t yet come onto the field as glowing lines in the background.

Other unique features include “pods”, small circular objects that destroyed enemies leave behind, these can be destroyed by shooting at them but will also kill you if you come into contact with them. If you don’t shoot them quick enough they will explode with the explosions lines heading out in the four cardinal directions (which are obviously fatal to your ship if they touch you). You will occasionally see the “XY Zapper” activate as your going through the stage, this sets four lines that appear on the stage and begin to converge on a particular location on the screen. When they do, you are destroyed if your ship is aligned with that location either horizontally or vertically.

Finally, the game contains sheep, yes sheep. Referred to as sheepies (and inspired by Jeff’s own pet sheep) these will begin to drop from the top of the screen as you score points.

Gridrunner+++ screenshot shows a Sheepie at the top!

The sheepies have several different effects:

* Collecting sheepies increases the firepower of the player’s ship, and enables it to fire backwards.
* Collecting a tenth sheepie activates “the pill” – a smaller sheep which moves around the screen destroying enemies on the player’s behalf.
* Normally, all sheepies are lost when a new stage begins, but collecting a sheepie in the short hang-time between the end of the stage and the start of the next will cause the first sheepie on the new stage to flash, indicating that collecting it will restore the sheepie count from the previous stage. This is referred to as a “Continuity Sheepie”.
* Most importantly: when the player’s ship is destroyed, the falling wreckage can be steered, and if the center point of the wreckage lands on an uncollected sheepie, then the player’s ship is resurrected and no life loss occurs (although no other benefit arises from collecting the sheepie). This is referred to as a “Sheepie Save”.

Here is a video of the “Old Modes” that will apparently be an extra in the Xbox Live Arcade version of Gridrunner+++ and allow you to play the original Commodore 64 version of Gridrunner!