Deus Ex Machina was something of a gaming experiment when it came out in 1984. A ZX Spectrum game, it also shipped with a tape heavy rock soundtrack that you played on a stereo to get the full experience. That full experience also contained narration by Christopher Lee and the voice work of Ian Dury. Mel Croucher and his development studio Automata Source are reimagining the game and looking for funds on Kickstarter. Work has already been underway for a couple of years, and you can see the utterly bizarre results in their video.
If you’ve ever seen anything quite like that before, then you were probably ingesting illegal substances whilst watching that bit of 2001: Space Odyssey. You can see all that insanity and more in virtual reality, if only the project gains enough money to hit the Oculus Rift goal.
There is a lot of reboots and reimaginings going on now, but this one feels more important due to the nature of the original game, and the fact that it’s not being rebooted as a first person shooter. Despite Ian Dury’s passing, his performance is being spruced up and reused for this game, and the marvellous Christopher Lee has once again lent his voice for a new recording as the game’s narrator. It almost feels like gaming’s equivalent of Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, which also brought an actor back from the grave to perform in a rock soundtracked story. I look forward with curiosity to seeing the outcome of this oddball project.
If you’d like to give Mel Croucher some of your money to ensure Deus Ex Machina 2’s release, you need only head over to their Kickstarter page.