This is the Space Giraffe FAQ v0.4 By Mark Green Email address for submissions/comments: mark [at] antelope [dot] nildram [dot] co [dot] uk The latest version of this FAQ will always be available from http://www.gamefaqs.com. ----------- wwwwwwwwwww If the block of characters on the left has a straight mmmmmmmmmmm right-hand edge, you are using a monospaced font. iiiiiiiiiii This FAQ looks far better viewed in a monospaced font. OoOoOoOoOoO Use Notepad, MORE, or the IE or Firefox text viewer 12345678901 to view this file. ----------- Neither the author of this FAQ, nor any person who distributes it in any way, shall be responsible or liable for anything that results from using this FAQ for any purpose, including but not limited to damage to your Xbox 360, controllers, hands, eyes, or sanity. If you're epileptic, stay far far far far away. This FAQ may be freely distributed provided that it is kept unmodified and in its entirity. If the FAQ is distributed in a form where it can be updated, for example as part of a website, then it must be kept up-to-date with the latest version. This FAQ may not be sold, or included as part of a publication that is sold (including a website to which a subscription is charged), without the author's express permission, which can be requested only by e-mail to the address above. Space Giraffe is (c) and (tm) Llamasoft, 2007. Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade are trademarks of Microsoft. The use of any trademarks within this FAQ is not intended to represent a challenge to their validity. ================================ INTRODUCTION ================================ Space Giraffe is a psychedelic shooting game on Xbox Live Arcade, available for 400 MS points (half the price of a regular title). It's especially notable because it's been developed by Jeff Minter, a legendary game developer who produced a large number of artistic and original shooting games on home platforms in the 80's. After this, he continued writing games for consoles, but many of them were written for consoles that did not become popular, such as the Atari Jaguar and the VMLabs Nuon. Space Giraffe is his first game for a truly mainstream console, and the first taste many modern players will have had of his unique development style. ================================= HOW TO PLAY ================================ OK. WHAT'S GOING ON? Some forums and other sites have been saying that Space Giraffe is a complex game, but it isn't really: it just has a large number of systems that interact with each other, but all of them are simple enough. So let's start with the very basics, and work our way up: THE VERY BASICS You're the Space Giraffe. You move about on the top ("the rim") of a three dimensional surface ("the web"). The web is divided into "lanes", and your giraffe moves between these when you press left and right on the left analog stick. A bunch of bad guys are coming out of the web, and want to kill you. Kill them. Score points. 0WNZ0R your buddies on the XBLA leaderboards. Word. Your Giraffe regularly fires single bullets down the lane it's in, which will kill enemies. You also have a smart bomb (aka "sheepiezapper"), which is used by pressing the A button. It will kill everything on the web at the time you fire it. Once you use the smart bomb, you can't use it again until you either a) finish the level you're on, or b) die. If an enemy touches the Giraffe, they will either kill it, or grab it and try to drag it into the Web. If the Giraffe is dragged into the Web, it will die, but you have a few moments to save it by using a smart bomb. If you don't have a smart bomb at that time.. um, tough. If you look into the distance beyond the web, you can see a series of dots - those are enemies that have yet to arrive on the web ("embryos"). When the enemies are ready to jump onto the web, they turn into lines of different colours: the colour of the line tells you what kind of enemy is incoming. Kill everything on a level and you'll finish it, with the message "GIRAFFETASTIC". Your giraffe will then fly into the centre of the web (but having killed everything, it's safe there now) and through to the next level. That's the basics. Easy enough, right? Now we need to think about.. THE POWER ZONE You've probably noticed that there's a line stretching across the web, dividing part of the web where you can see lines between the lanes, and part where you can't. That line is the boundary of the "power zone". The power zone starts at the rim, and extends down as far as the line. (In the tutorial, the line has the words "POWER ZONE" floating above it in inch-high letters - which is actually a bit misleading, because the line isn't the power zone. The power zone is THE AREA BETWEEN that line and the rim where your giraffe is.) The position of the line, and thus the size of the power zone, will change constantly during the game. Shooting or killing enemies moves it outwards, away from the rim, making the zone bigger. At all other times, the zone slowly shrinks, and the line moves inwards; if you're stationary, it shrinks even faster. If it shrinks all the way to the rim, the line disappears entirely, but shooting or killing an enemy will bring it back. At all times when the power zone line isn't at the rim - ie, while there is a power zone of some description on the web - the power zone is said to be "active". In a well-played game, the power zone will be active most of the time. When the power zone is active, a couple of the standard rules change: First, and most importantly, certain enemies will NO LONGER kill the giraffe by touching it when they're on the rim. Instead, the GIRAFFE will kill THEM! They'll go flying off the rim and explode in disconnected space. This is referred to as "bulling" and it's an essential technique. You can bull enemies anytime the power zone is active, and because you are killing enemies by doing it, it'll make the power zone expand. If you bull a large number of enemies in succession (a "bull run"), you'll gain a Bonus Multiplier, which multiplies all the points you score for the rest of the stage - this is also the way to ridiculously high scores. (When you bull an enemy, you'll hear the sound of a plane crash-landing; when you increase your bonus multiplier via bulling, you'll hear a bull lowing. Um, "lowing" is the old word for "mooing". I think.) Secondly, the giraffe fires two extra shots while the Power Zone is active. These two shots ("hoof shots") normally are fired down the same lane as the Giraffe's in, just as with the normal shot. But unlike the normal Shot, the Hoof Shots can be steered left and right using the right analogue stick. This becomes very important later on for killing enemies that you maybe didn't want in the same lane as you. PODS AND JUMPING Whenever you score a certain number of points, a pod will be generated at the end of the web. (Pods look like glowing cylinders. Listen for the synth sound effect.) Touch the pod to collect it. When you collect a pod, a little ball of energy will appear attached to the Giraffe by a glowing thread - you can see these thin threads connected to the Giraffe to see how many pods you have left. When you have any number of pods, you can press the RIGHT TRIGGER to have the Giraffe jump off the rim of the web, at the cost of one pod. You can hold the RIGHT TRIGGER to keep the giraffe hovering for a while; when you release the trigger, the Giraffe falls back onto the rim. This will enable it to avoid being killed by enemies on the rim (although some enemies might be able to move above the rim too, and it's still in danger from them). Also, when you jump, the power zone fills up right to the maximum, no matter where it was before. Thus, when the giraffe lands, it will be able to bull enemies near it. The giraffe can hold up to five jump pods at a time. If you carry on collecting pods when the giraffe already has five, you'll get extra bonuses, as follows: 1st extra pod: 1UP (Extra life). 2nd extra pod: Fast bullets (double speed shooting). 3rd extra pod: Ox token (if no pods were missed this level) More extra pods: Bonus score. An "ox token" is used to access the secret bonus round. If you get one, the end of level summary screen will include the message "OX TOKEN GET" and the number of Ox Tokens you need to access the bonus round. If the Ox Token you got was enough to give you the required number, the message will say "BONUS ROUND ACTIVATED". Note that you can only access the secret bonus round if you have registered (ie, paid the 400 points for) Space Giraffe. If you haven't, you can still collect Ox Tokens but the countdown message is replaced by an advert for the full version and you'll never reach the bonus level. If you happen to collect a Pod while the Giraffe is flying away from the web at the end of a level, you won't get the normal bonus. Instead, you'll hear a voice repeating "Yes, yes, yes!" and you will have fast bullets from the beginning of the next level. In some unusual circumstances it is possible to collect TWO pods in this situation, but this provides no extra benefit. ENEMY BULLETS Ok, don't worry, we're onto the home stretch now.. Some enemies will fire bullets at the giraffe. Bullets are blue/red, and they glow. Being shot will kill the giraffe instantly. If a bullet misses the giraffe and flies off beyond the rim, the bullet is destroyed. However, you can shoot enemy bullets! When an enemy bullet is shot, it is pushed backwards down the lane it's in, and you'll hear a sound like a tone dialling phone, or a very brief sheep bleat. (There'll also be an explosion effect at the point of impact, which can make it look like the bullet blew up. It didn't! It's just been pushed back.) You can push a bullet backwards all the way off the back of the web, but this doesn't destroy the bullet, and it will continue moving forwards when it can, eventually coming back onto the web again (you'll hear a "dog bark" sound when it does). It's best to shoot enemy bullets with hoof shots - you can shoot them with the main shot, but that means putting the giraffe right in front of the bullet, which can be a bit risky! So, you can just dodge enemy bullets and let them disappear, or you can shoot them and juggle them back and forth on the web. Juggling them has the disadvantage that there will be many more bullets around on the web, and therefore much more danger of you getting shot. But it has the benefit that shooting enemy bullets scores points - so the more of them you keep around, the more likely your own stray shots will hit enemy bullets and score you points. There's an extra bonus, too. When your Giraffe is flying off the web at the end of a stage, it can't be killed by any enemy bullets - but if it happens to fly PAST any enemy bullets, the enemy bullet will explode with a "sneeze" effect and you'll get another score bonus! So by keeping enemy bullets around as long as possible, you make the game harder for yourself, but you score far more points. One last point about enemy bullets: they travel slightly more slowly when they're in the power zone. So keeping the power zone extended will enable you to keep them around for longer to shoot, or to dodge them more easily. DEATH When you die in Space Giraffe, unlike previous Jeff Minter games, the level doesn't reset. Instead, you'll be dropped back into the level at the time you died. For a few seconds, you'll be automatically hovering over the rim, and the power zone will be locked at a low minimum value, enabling you to get back into the fray without getting killed right away. On the downside, you will lose your Bonus Multiplier, and all your pods. Losing pods by dying does not prevent you from recieving an Ox Token for the stage (provided you can generate enough pods in time), nor does it lose an Ox Token you already had. The sound effect plays when the Giraffe dies tells you what killed it: Synthesized Scream effect Dragged into the web by a grunt Ringing bell Hit by a bullet or flower head Quiet phaser sound Ran into a flower stalk Synthesized crash effect Ran into a Boffin END OF LEVEL BONUS At the end of each level, you are given a "ranking". The ranking is based on Jeff Minter's own score on an "average" playtesting playthrough. The ranks are as follows: A Bit Rubbish Not Brilliant Unambitous Meh Bland Average Slightly Not Bad Semi-Respectable Getting Respectable OK Not Too Bad Getting Good Getting Better Nearly Good Good Awesome Giraffetastic (*not* the same as the end of level message) Top Banana Caprichoso-tastic Ox-cellent YAKTASTIC ================================= ENEMY TYPES ================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GRUNTS (X-shaped) These are the basic enemies in Space Giraffe. They move up the web, flipping across lanes to get towards you. If they hit the Giraffe from straight on (ie, they move up the web into it), they will kill it; if they hit it from the side, they'll drag it into the web, where it can be saved with a smart bomb. Grunts can be killed in a single shot. They are vulnerable to bulling when the power zone is active. BULLABLE: Yes, when power zone is active. ARRIVAL LINE COLOUR: Red. AUDIO CUES: None especially, but when a grunt grabs the Giraffe you'll hear a scream sound. TIPS: Grunts are made to be bulled. On early levels, Grunts don't even fire bullets, so as long as you can keep the power zone active you're in no danger at all since you can bull them. On later levels Grunts will fire, but even then, when they eventually reach the Rim they cannot fire any more and it's worth remembering that as long as you have some energy in your Power Zone they are no threat to you. Use this fact to wait out time and allow a large number of Grunts to gather on the rim, then bull them all off at once. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FLOWERS (Green/White lines with flower heads) Flowers grow up from the bottom of the Web until they reach a certain length (which varies with the level). Then, they gradually turn from green to white. When they become completely white, the flower's head detaches and flies up the lane the flower was in. Touching any part of the flower will kill the Giraffe; flowers cannot be bulled. Only the ends of flowers are vulnerable to the Giraffe's shots. Shooting a flower will reduce its length slightly; it will begin to grow again when it has a chance. If it is shot all the way back to the end of the web, it will die. A detached flower head cannot be shot. Your Giraffe can run into the stalk of a Flower as it is leaving the Web at the end of a stage. If this happens you will lose a life but when you resurrect, the Web will still be empty, and you will immediately move onto the next stage. BULLABLE: NO. ARRIVAL LINE COLOUR: Green. AUDIO CUES: When a flower is shot, a muted chime effect is played. The higher the chime, the shorter the flower is. If a flower is shot right back to the end of the web and destroyed, you'll hear the sound of a donkey braying. (Um.) When a flower head detaches, you'll hear a resounding chime. TIPS: Flowers sound innocent, but they can be very dangerous because of the invincible launched flowerheads. Learning to listen for the audio cues is very important; learn to recognise the resounding chime that means a flower head was launched, and when you hear it, make a quick note as to which lane it was in. There's nothing more embarassing that setting up a lovely big bull run that should get you skads of points and then running into a flowerhead in the middle and getting diddly-squat plus a free dead giraffe. However, there's also a neat trick with flowers. See, when you shoot a flower, if you don't kill it completely, it'll grow back - but it still counts as shooting an enemy. Which means it extends your power zone. So by carefully managing a flower - pruning it back just enough to extend your power zone, but without killing it - you can use it as a never-ending source of power zoney goodness. --------------------------------------------------------------- CONTAINERS (Flat discs with radiating spikes) Containers move up and down and across the lines of the web. They don't attack, although they can kill the Giraffe if they happen to bash into it. They will take a certain number of shots to kill, but every shot from a container will cause either a Grunt or a Flower to spawn at the current border of the power zone. The Grunt or Flower does not necessarily arrive instantly. BULLABLE: No, but they tend not to hang around on the rim. ARRIVAL LINE COLOUR: Cyan. The arrival lines for enemies spawned by shooting the container flash. AUDIO CUES: When you shoot a container, it shouts "NI!". When you finally destroy a container, you'll hear a breaking glass effect. ------------------------------------------------------------------ BOFFINS (Two kinds: "chilled" are smooth globes, and "aggressive" are spikey globes. Note the distinction between spikey globes (aggressive boffins) and a spikey disc (container). Also, the design that's on the surface of the globe can change between different levels.) Boffins move slowly up the lines of the web, skipping between the different lanes. When they arrive at the rim, they travel around and around the rim to kill the Giraffe. Shooting a boffin while it is moving between lanes kills it immediately. Shooting it while it is in a lane pushes it backwards, but also slightly increases its rate of advance up the web. Aggressive boffins will also shoot bullets diagonally across the web at the Giraffe. BULLABLE: No. ARRIVAL LINE COLOUR: White. AUDIO CUES: When you destroy a boffin, you'll hear a synthesized haywire effect. When a boffin arrives at the Rim, you'll hear a woman's voice saying "Danger". Because the emphasis on the word is slightly strange, it can wind up sounding like "Space". TIPS: These guys are an absolute pain for setting up any bull runs. Always check up for them first. If they get to the rim, the only way to kill them is to jump over them and shoot down, so Pods are a lot more important once they're around - don't casually use them to fill your power zone if you don't need to. BE VERY CAREFUL if you die while Boffins are around. Dying by running into a Boffin kills the Boffin too. But if you die by something else while a Boffin is on the rim, or a Boffin arrives at the rim during the death sequence, then you ABSOLUTELY MUST KILL THE BOFFIN DURING THE GRACE PERIOD AT THE START OF YOUR NEW LIFE. Otherwise, you will be dropped back onto the Rim with the Boffin there and no way of jumping over it (you lost all your pods when you died, remember?). Ta ta. Aggressive boffins are, to be blunt, complete pains in the ***. As I mentioned, they shoot bullets which travel diagonally across the web. The problem is that with the webs being all warped and tangled, "diagonally" can wind up being a pretty strange direction. This means that you can no longer simply ensure you can see the lane ahead of your Giraffe - you'll have to watch every lane to avoid the Boffin bullets. This takes a lot of practice, but it can be done. ZAPPERS, ROTORS, FEEDBACK MONSTERS: to come. ================================ ACHIEVEMENTS ================================ 50 - ERROR_SUCCESS Complete level 100. 35 - LONG-NECKED LONG MARCH Complete the entire game in one session, levels 1-100. 10 - PROFESSOR OF GIRAFFEOLOGY Score 10 Million or more across the 3 tutorial levels. [Note: this is the ONLY achievement you can get in the tutorial. Even if you qualify for one of the others in a tutorial level, you won't get it.] 10 - BOI BUMBA Increase the bonus multiplier from 1x to 9x in a single bull run. [Level 2, "UV Exposure" is basically designed for you to do this. Move out to the edge and move between just one or two lanes, shooting enemies to keep up your power zone. When the pod comes out, try to get it as quickly as you can without killing too many grunts. Then just sit and wait for as long as you can as the grunts move onto the rim, then jump to fill your power zone and rush over to the other edge of the rim, bulling the whole lot of them.] 15 - EWIGE BLUMENKRAFT Keep the first Flower to appear in a level, alive until the end of that level. 15 - GIRAFA CAPRICHOSO Finish 5 consecutive levels with your Bonus Multiplier at 9x. 10 - GIRAFA GARANTIDO Finish 16 levels without losing a life. 10 - GREAT GREEN ARKLESEIZURE Pass by 20 bullets when leaving a level. 10 - KLEPTOGIRAFFE Collect 20 pods without missing one. 15 - I ADORE MY 64 Finish level 64 without losing any lives during it. 10 - MINE'S A 99 At any time, have 9 lives and a 9x multiplier. 10 - POD PRESERVER Complete 16 levels without jumping. ================================ ACTUAL FAQ'S ================================ Q: Doesn't this game suck? OXM gave it a 2/10. A: Not everyone will like Space Giraffe. It so happens that the reviewer was someone who didn't. But that doesn't mean that nobody will. Other reviews have shown that the people who like it, REALLY like it. And that's very much the spirit in which it was designed. Q: Can I turn the visual effects down or off? A: No! The thing is, in Space Giraffe you're not role-playing a Space Giraffe or anything like that. It's YOU playing this game, and the game is challenging YOU. Learning to work out what's going on in the swirl is part of the challenge, just like learning to read the arrow patterns fast enough in BeatMania or DDR. In fact, there are enemies which explicitly attack by making it hard to see what's happening. Q: Seriously? I can't turn them down? A: Grr.. alright. If you turn the Music volume down to 0, the visual effects will be somewhat muted, because some of their input variables depend on the music. But they won't be removed entirely, and some will actually become more intrusive, not less. Q: Why do I keep dying in the middle of a big bull run? A: Check that you didn't hit a flowerhead, or a bullet, during the run. Q: How come it doesn't have the silly, bouncy music on the tutorial stages that was shown on the YouTube preview videos? A: That music wasn't ever officially part of the game - it was only used for testing purposes, since no music had been written at that time. You can't access it in the game. But you _can_ download it (it's the Diffusion remix of "I love horses", available from www.diffusiononline.net) and play it in SG via Music Select. Q: What is the "secret mode" I get for finishing level 100? A: Super Ox Mode. To access it, press two buttons at once when "choosing mode" at the start of a game (you must have finished level 100 first). Essentially, it randomises many aspects of the game (such as level names and geometries) and makes other aspects harder (enemies are faster, and they fire more, faster bullets). Q: Is Space Giraffe the same game that Unity would have been? A: No, Unity had a very different game design before it was cancelled. ========================= REFERENCES AND TRIVIA ============================ Meta References: "The KLF" is a British acid house band, which is referred to many times in Space Giraffe. ERROR_SUCCESS The Windows API ("Application Programming Interface" - the standard method used by programmers to connect their programs to the operating system), paradoxically, returns the value ERROR_SUCCESS to indicate that a function worked. (It is possible that the Xbox API does so too, but it is not publically published.) Boi Bumba The Boi Bumba or Bumba Meu Boi is a brazilian cultural festival which is based on the life of an ox. This achievement was originally named "Super Horny Beastie" but had to be renamed because the word "Horny" is unacceptable according to Microsoft's approval rules. Ewige Blumenkraft German for "Flower Power Forever". This was also used as a password in Robert Sheckley's "Illuminatus" trilogy. It is not known if a reference to this was intended, but since "Illuminatus" is also referred to by the KLF, it's likely. Great Green Arkelseizure From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I Adore My 64 The Commodore 64 was an early computer that Jeff wrote many well-known games for. Mine's a 99 From the advertising for "99 flake" ice cream. This is also a KLF reference, as they used ice cream in their promotions. "GET" The repeated use of the word GET at the end of a sentence when you collect something ("POD GET", etc) is a reference to Japanese games that use this same construct (eg, "FIGHTERS FEATHER GET" in the Dreamcast game Sonic Adventure). This is a result of the Japanese sentence having been literally translated into English (in Japanese, the verb is supposed to appear at the end of a sentence). This phrasing appears to have been fashionable in Japan at one time. The most famous example (not necessarily the origin) is Pokemon; the Japanese equivalent of "Gotta Catch Em' All" (ie, the show's slogan) was "POKEMON GET da ze!" The Eyes of Allard (level 1) From the name of Microsoft boss J Allard, whose face is visible in the level background. Origin (level 3) This level was used for initial testing of the game engine. Valley of the Bulls (Level 8) A spoof reference to Valley of the Dolls. Cube Is Not For Yiffing (Level 9) From the webcomic "Slash'n'Hack"'s section named "Cube". (NOT from Second Life, where cubes are a standard building shape and there is a large furry presence, although some 'Cube is not for yiffing' signs are said to have appeared there since the game's release!) Royal Arch Purple Degree (level 10) From the name of a rank within the Orange Order (aka Orangemen), a Protestant secret society. This may also be an oblique reference to the fact that this is the first level that can't be accessed without unlocking the full game; thus only the "members" are admitted :) May I Have A Drop Of Fire (Level 13) Apparantly from My Little Pony. 3am External A reference to the KLF song "3am Eternal". Babylon and Ting A reference to a prank call made by comedian Victor Lewis-Smith to a night security guard at London Weekend Television, in which he claimed to be Marcus Garvey (a long-dead Rastafarian prophet), and to be scheduled to meet with Haile Selassie (a long-dead on Earth figure, who is considered God incarnate by the Rastafarians) in their reception. On being told that Selassie was not there, he asked the security guard to take a message to pass on to Selassie when he did arrive, asking him to meet at "Babylon and Ting". The security guard dutifully noted this down. This prank call was also sampled as part of a song named "Towers of Dub" by The Orb. Diary Room (Level 20) A reference to the TV series Big Brother. SOUNDTRACK TRIVIA Opening Title The opening title theme is supposed to resemble a "numbers station" - one of several bizarre radio stations that broadcast voices reading out apparantly random numbers, which are generally believed to be secret messages for spies. The speech consists of a series of digits from 1-10 read out in Welsh by a young girl (apparantly a girl whose family were regulars at the same local pub as Jeff). The Welsh words for numbers from zero to ten are: dim, un ('een'), dau ('die'), tri ('tree'), pedwar, pump ('pimp'), chwech, saith, wyth, naw, deg ('dairg'). It is not known if the numbers actually represent a coded message or not. In-Game Music The music that features sheep bleating samples was written by Jeff Minter himself as an experiment using the FruityLoops sequencer software. The sheep bleats were sampled from Jeff's own pet sheep, Flossie, who sadly has now passed on. The remaining in-game songs were written by a band called Redpoint, very probably using Reason. Sound effect when a Pod is launched Actually the sound effect from a power-up crystal being collected in Wizball, a well known C64 game. Sound effect when a Pod is collected Actually a chant of "Mu! Mu!" sampled directly from the KLF's song "Justified and Ancient". Sound effect on shooting a Container "NI!", of course, is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Sound effect on killing a Boffin Actually the player warp-in effect from Jeff's earlier game, Iridis Alpha. Sound effect on dying by a Boffin Actually the player death effect from Wizball. ================================ CREDITS =================================== FAQ written by and material obtained from: Mark Green Dafydd Williams Jon Saulnier Alan Jaffray Space Giraffe forums on www.yakyak.org Space Giraffe WikiPedia entry Jeff Minter's blog Rumiko Hoshino (SG Japanese translator)'s blog Major thanks to Llamasoft for writing this game, and Microsoft for supporting Llamasoft in doing so. If you have anything to add to the FAQ, or _especially_ have questions about things which confuse you about the game, please e-mail me and let me know. (I especially want to deal with "confusion" about the game because I understand the tutorial mode is a bit overwhelming and I want to try and make sure that more people can access this wonderful game.)