Of Puzzles, Prizes and Pi-Men: The Story of Automata UK | RoseTintedSpectrum

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RoseTintedSpectrum

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Published on November 21, 2019 10:41:59 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3oVe34riZo

Game:

Pimania (1982)

Duration: 22:22

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So, a slightly more serious affair than usual, but I was pretty gobsmacked by this story and I thought it was worth talking about. This is an abridged version of the history of Automata UK, and they released much more than is shown here - I simply wanted to capture the weirder side of their career, and that stuff was certainly centred around the Pi-Man for the most part.

This video basically takes us through the arc of their inception, Pi-Mania and the subsequent answer, the Pi-Man games, Deus Ex Machina and their final dissolution. Hopefully I've captured enough of that, and hopefully you'll find it as interesting as I did.

Here are some links to further reading that I found both useful and interesting:

[video] A full Pi-Mania playthrough, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqezCJTWgQ0

[website] The Pi-Man files, an invaluable resource of all things Automata/Pi-Man: https://www.worldofspectrum.org/hardware/pi.html

[article, Alan Bilton, 2017] How punk and Thatcherism came together in the surreal ZX Spectrum Pimania craze: https://theconversation.com/how-punk-and-thatcherism-came-together-in-the-surreal-zx-spectrum-pimania-craze-74866

[article, Jimmy Maher, 2014] The Merry Pranksters of Automata: https://www.filfre.net/2014/01/the-merry-pranksters-of-automata/

[website] melcroucher.net, for all your Mel Croucher related news: http://melcroucher.net/

[video] Steven Goodwin's talk on porting Pi-Mania to Amazon Alexa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sobTHq-cNY&fbclid=IwAR3VetI7SIoq2XHGfq1zRkkCIdnJNOIDEg5SSmgtySFpYyRXTh1BswUtEM0

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