 | Frankie Goes to Hollywood is a computer game published by Ocean Software in 1985 for the C64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. The game is based on music, imagery and slogans of the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. You start the game without personality in a surrounding of suburban boredom. You must build yourself into a full person, and find your way to the Pleasure Dome, through a series of surreal mini-games hidden behind the doors of the suburban houses. To become a full person, you must fill all four attributes (sex, war, love and faith), and reach BANG! The games was filled to the brim with quasi-philosophical pretentiousness. With messages popping up during the game that were supposed to be clues to solving the murder mystery aspect of the game such as, "Mr Dull has always voted Tory" and "The killer is an atheist." |
To quote from the game manual doesn't help explain the bizarreness of it, and only adds to the wonderful weirdness, of what was an ingenious game for its time. "You begin this extraordinary experience devoid of personality, an amorphous shape in the land of the mundane. Behind the facade of flying ducks and kitchen sinks however lies a giant web of drama and intrigue spun within the pleasuredome. Scruntinise! Investigate! Probe! Objects you take for granted may be your passport to success; clues can be discovered everywhere. In this game of games you will need the skills of Arcade King, Adventurer, Super Sleuth, Mastermind and more. Frankie say Relax. Use the Power of Zap to build the equation (4 icons at bottom right corner are (left to right) Pleasure, War, Love,and Faith) to its peak when, if you respond brilliantly, you may enter the heart of the Pleasure Dome."
