THE MAKING OF MANIA

From grunting cavemen to space-age UFO pilots, Mega lo Mania granted us the power to play god with an evolving civilisation while battling rival deities. This was at a time when ‘god games’ and ‘real-time strategy’ were still years away from becoming part of the gaming lexicon. It was hot on the heels of Bullfrog’s Populous, which had broken broadly similar ground two years before. Between that and both Dune II and Civilization launching in the same year it was released, you could say Mega lo Mania was part of a wave of genre-defining strategy classics. It also fully embodied the tongue-in-cheek Sensible Software ethos with plenty of comic touches, from sassy voiceovers recorded by professional actors to island levels with gloriously irreverent names such as Hernia and Pyjama. Mega lo Mania was also the first game Sensible Software designed specifically for 16-bit machines, as well as its first to feature the iconic ‘little men’ sprites that would later reach much wider audiences in Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder.

“THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE GAME WAS A KIND OF SPACE RACE”
JON HARE

Deciding to create a strategic god game might have been seen as quite a wildcard for Sensible Software to have played at that time. It came after it had built a solid reputation for shoot-’em-ups such as and , and sports games including and . So what were the team thinking and where did the concept of originate from? It turns out the whole thing started, as many important things historically do, in outer space.