Realm of Impossibility is an action game created by Mike Edwards for the Atari 8-bit family and published by Electronic Arts in 1984. It was originally released in 1983 as Zombies and published by BRAM, a company formed by Edwards and a friend. BRAM previously developed and published Attack at EP-CYG-4. Electronic Arts ported Realm of Impossibility to the Apple II and Commodore 64. A ZX Spectrum version was published in 1985 by Ariolasoft. Plot The player must traverse 13 dungeons to gather seven crowns to defeat the evil cleric Wistrik. Gameplay Each dungeon comprises up to a dozen separate rooms, with the game moving from one to another when the player moves reaches the edge of the screen. The player navigates through the rooms to find the treasure: either a crown or a key that provides access to a locked dungeon. The rooms contain zombies, snakes, spiders and other creatures which cannot be killed. The joystick button drops crosses which block the creatures. A dozen crosses can be present at once, and they disappear slowly over time. Scrolls can be collected allowing spells to be cast by pressing the first letter of its name on the keyboard: Freeze: holds a monster in place for a short duration Protect: makes the player immune to damage for a time Confuse: makes the monster wander in a daze for a while Two players can play cooperatively on the same screen. This doubles the number of crosses visible at once. Both players need to reach the edge of the screen to cause it to move to the next screen. Development Edwards worked at Boeing. When his job changed and he was no longer programming at work, he became interested in the home computer market as a way to continue programming. Checking over various models at a local computer store, he purchased an Atari after seeing Star Raiders. After having the machine for a while he began programming on it and, at the suggestion of a long-time friend, wrote a simple program in Atari BASIC to sell locally as a tax dodge. He then began programming his first game, Attack at EP-CYG-4, a shoot 'em up which allowed two players at once. This was licensed to another company for sale on game cartridge, with Edwards helping with the port. He then began work on a maze game, which became Zombies after adding in 3D