Pimania

---

title: "Pimania" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["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"] description: "1982 video game" topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimania" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary 1982 video game ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox video game"]

Field	Value
title	Pimania
image	Pimania cover.jpg
developer	Mel Croucher
publisher	Automata UK
platforms	BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Dragon 32, ZX81
released	October 1982
genre	Adventure
::

| collapsible = | state = | italic title = | title = Pimania | image = Pimania cover.jpg | alt = | caption = | developer = Mel Croucher | publisher = Automata UK | series = | engine = | platforms = BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Dragon 32, ZX81 | released = October 1982 | genre = Adventure | modes = Pimania is a text-and-graphics adventure game written by Mel Croucher and released by Automata UK in 1982 for the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Dragon 32, and ZX81. It was the first real-life video game treasure hunt to be released. It was inspired by the 1979 Kit Williams book Masquerade. 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

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Pimania_screenshot_(ZX81).png" caption="ZX81 intro screen"] ::

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

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 on Hindover Hill near Litlington, East Sussex.

Legacy

The BASIC source code 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 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.

References

References

1. (November 1982). "Computer & Video Games - Issue 013 (1982-11)(EMAP Publishing)(GB)".
2. (2008). "''Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008''".
3. (November 1982). "Computer & Video Games - Issue 013 (1982-11)(EMAP Publishing)(GB)".
4. [http://theconversation.com/how-punk-and-thatcherism-came-together-in-the-surreal-zx-spectrum-pimania-craze-74866 The Conversation: How punk and Thatcherism came together in the surreal ZX Spectrum Pimania craze]
5. . (October 1985). ["PiMania – The sundial is revealed!"](https://worldofspectrum.org/hardware/piwin.html). *Computer and Video Games*.
6. [http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/tape/Pimania ''Pimania''] on ZX81stuff.org (2005)
7. [http://www.feedingtuberecords.com "Pimania: The Music of Mel Croucher & Automata U.K., Ltd."] LP on feedingtuberecords.com

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::