The first games to be scheduled for release were for the Vic 20 with one in particular involving a plane that would drop bombs on buildings (think of Super Blitz on the C64). This was timely because Britain was on a war footing due to the invasion of the British Falkland Islands by Argentina. For a bit of fun, Jeff modified the game to feature Argentinian flags on the buildings, play Rule Britannia and the title of the game would be 'Bomb Buenos Aires'.

The game was sent to various computer publications and newspapers. It was soon picked up by the Daily Telegraph (see image right, text bottom left) a centre-right newspaper in the UK, which viewed the patriotic slant of the game as more than worth a mention. This became just a little too controversial for Jeff,  so he decided to remove the Argentinian flags from the game and thereby any political references to what was going on in the real world.

To enhance the profile of the Llamasoft company and garner more interest in the games, a stand was organised at a Commodore computer show to promote some of the Vic 20 games already in the Llamasoft catalog.

This turned out to be one of the best decisions Jeff could have made, as one of the games - Defenda (a clone of the popular and successful arcade game Defender), was noticed by an employee of the U.S software company Hesware. A contract was subsequently signed to complete the game for the U.S market and this time Jeff would be rewarded fairly for his efforts.

The game was eventually released in the U.S under the name Aggressor (aka Andes Attack in Europe) with some of the graphics changed so it would be disassociated from the original Atari arcade game Defender. Atari was notorious for aggressively pursuing any infringement of its intellectual copyright, so avoiding a confrontation at this stage was essential.

Things were about to get even better for Llamasoft, with the arrival on the computer scene of the Commodore 64 home computer, which was destined to replace the Vic 20 and send a shock-wave through the computer world.
Daily Telegraph June 5th 1982
©Copyright 1982 Daily Telegraph

It did not take long for Jeff to be enamoured by the C64's potential and he was soon writing games for the format. His first game would be Gridrunner, with the inspiration for the name coming from the successful movie Blade Runner, that was showing on Cinema screens at the time.

His relationship with Hesware went from strength to strength, with further games being sent for evaluation and possible release in the USA. The success of Llamasoft was now assured and Jeff Minter would go on to become a legend.

Aggressor - Andes Attack - Vic 20
Aggressor by Hesware
Aggressor - Andes Attack - Vic 20
Hesware Aggressor Cover