''Pimania'' is a text-and-graphics

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

written by Mel Croucher and released by

Automata UK Automata UK was a software house which developed and published ZX Spectrum video games between 1982 and 1985. Significant releases included ''Pimania'' (1982), '' My Name Is Uncle Groucho, You Win A Fat Cigar'' (1983) and ''Deus Ex Machina'' (1984 ...

in 1982 for the BBC Micro,

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

Dragon 32 The Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 are home computers that were built in the 1980s. The Dragons are very similar to the TRS-80 Color Computer, and were produced for the European market by Dragon Data, Ltd., initially in Swansea, Wales before mov ...

, and Sinclair ZX81. It was the first real life video game

treasure hunt Treasure hunt generally refers to: * Treasure hunting, the physical search for treasure, typically by finding sunken shipwrecks or buried ancient cultural sites * Treasure hunt (game), a game simulating a hunt for treasure Treasure Hunt may refer ...

to be released. It was inspired by the 1979

Kit Williams Christopher "Kit" Williams (born 28 April 1946) is an English artist, illustrator and author best known for his 1979 book '' Masquerade'', a pictorial storybook which contains clues to the location of a golden (18 carat) jewelled hare created ...

book, ''

Masquerade Masquerade or Masquerader may refer to: Events * Masquerade ball, a costumed dance event * Masquerade ceremony, a rite or cultural event in many parts of the world, especially the Caribbean and Africa * Masqueraders, the performers in the West ...

''. Automata gave a prize of a golden sundial worth £6,000 () for the first person to solve the various cryptic clues to its location that were hidden within ''Pimania''.

Gameplay

The player negotiates a surreal landscape with the aid of the mysterious Pi-Man, Automata's mascot. The

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

of the game cassette features a bizarre Pimania song played on a VL-Tone and vocals. The Pi-Man also starred in his own long-running, surreal, comic-strip, soap opera in the company's adverts on the back page of '' Popular Computing Weekly'' magazine and appeared in several subsequent games by the company of different kinds, such as ''

Piromania ''Piromania'' is a 1984 platform game published by Automata UK for the ZX Spectrum. Strange Loop previously published the game as ''Infernal Combustion''. Gameplay ''Piromania'' is a game in which the PiMan runs around setting fire to Walter's ...

'' and ''

Piballed ''Pi-balled'' is a video game written by Jason Austin for the ZX Spectrum and published by Automata UK in 1984. ''Pi-balled'' is a '' Q*bert'' clone. Gameplay ''Pi-balled'' is a game in which the player has to change the colors of the cubes in ...

''. The sundial was eventually won in 1985 by Sue Cooper and Lizi Newman, who correctly worked out that it could only be found on 22 July (because π is sometimes rounded to 22/7) at the

Litlington White Horse The Litlington White Horse is a chalk hill figure depicting a horse, situated on Hindover Hill (known locally as High-and-Over) in the South Downs, looking over the River Cuckmere to the west of the village of Litlington and north of East Bla ...

on Hindover Hill near

Litlington, East Sussex Litlington is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Cuckmere Valley, in the Wealden district, in the county of East Sussex, England. It is focussed ENE of Seaford on the south coast. It was in a roughly square parish of dr ...

Legacy

The

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

listing of the game is available online. In 2010 Feeding Tube Records, a small label in the United States, released "Pimania: The Music of Mel Croucher & Automata U.K., Ltd.", a deluxe vinyl

LP album The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a ...

of the musical B-Sides to the Pimania games, as well as tracks from other Automata releases. The album came with extensive liner notes by Croucher and Caroline Bren, as well as a large poster featuring selections from the original Automata print campaigns and was issued in a one time edition of 500 copies."Pimania: The Music of Mel Croucher & Automata U.K., Ltd."
LP on feedingtuberecords.com

References

External links

*{{WoS_game, id=0003714
"Pimania: The Music of Mel Croucher & Automata U.K., Ltd." LP''Pimania''
ZX81 Collection entry with the original inlay scan and program listing. An emulator is available on the site to play the game online. 1982 video games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commercial video games with freely available source code Dragon 32 games Puzzle hunts Video games developed in the United Kingdom ZX81 games ZX Spectrum games Automata UK games