Deus Ex Machina

About Deus Ex Machina

Deus Ex Machina (1984) is Mel Croucher's ZX Spectrum art game charting a "defect" in the machine from conception to death, the first game with a fully synchronised soundtrack, featuring Ian Dury and Jon Pertwee.

Deus Ex Machina in Depth

The game follows the life of a "defect" formed in "the machine", which takes the form of a human body, from conception through growth and evolution to death, from a single cell to a senile old being. Its progression is loosely based on the "Seven Ages of Man" speech from Shakespeare's As You Like It and is full of quotations from it and parodies of it.

The game itself has no sound; instead it comes with a 46-minute audio cassette, the same length as the game, to be played alongside it, making it the first game with a fully synchronised soundtrack of narration, celebrity performers and music. The cast included Ian Dury, Jon Pertwee, Donna Bailey, Frankie Howerd, historian E. P. Thompson and Croucher, who also composed the music. It could be played without the tape, and a full transcript was provided, but the soundtrack makes it easier to follow. Andrew Stagg coded the Spectrum original and Colin Jones the Commodore 64 version. It became the highest new entry in WHSmith's ZX Spectrum chart in November 1984 at number six, four places above Ultimate's Underwurlde, and later gained cult status as an underground art game.

Making Deus Ex Machina

Mel Croucher designed and created it, and Automata UK published it for the ZX Spectrum in October 1984. Croucher later viewed it as a disappointment that only broke even, and in 2014 he released a book about its history and the making of the new game.