Frankie Howerd, and Mel Croucher himself. Deus Ex Machina received excellent reviews in the press, coverage in the national media, Croucher was interviewed by Barry Norman and the Sunday Times put it top of its list of games to buy for Christmas. Despite this positive critical response, retailers did not want to stock it, partially due to Automata's policy on charging wholesalers full price for small orders. By February only 5000 copies had been distributed. Due to this, Penfold and Croucher became bitter towards the sales industry: Releases Love And Death (1982) The Bible (1982) Pimania (1982) Automonopoli (1983) Dragon Doodles & Demos (1983) Spectrum Spectacular (1983) Bunny/ETA (1983) - Croucher wrote the ETA portion of the game. Yakzee (1983) My Name Is Uncle Groucho, You Win A Fat Cigar (1983) Piballed (1984) Crusoe (1984) Dartz (1984) Pi-Eyed (1984) Pi-in-'ere (1984) Piromania (1984) Olympimania (1984) Deus Ex Machina (1984) References External links http://www.automatasource.com Automata Source Ltd. Automata at World of Spectrum http://www.lysator.liu.se/adventure/Automata_UK_Ltd.html Video game companies established in 1977 Video game companies disestablished in 1985 Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom