Automata went on to publish a series of idiosyncratic games for the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum, including Pimania, My Name Is Uncle Groucho You Win A Fat Cigar, and his multimedia opus, Deus Ex Machina. Unfortunately, tastes change, and as gaming became more corporate and risk-averse, so Croucher's particular blend of surreal whimsy fell out of fashion.
However, it is one particular Croucher production that we turn our attention to today; the rarely remembered anthology Can of Worms, a collection of mini games for the 1K ZX81, which saw the Sunday Times accuse Croucher of "peddling pornorgraphy to kids".
Croucher, to his credit, saw this as "great publicity".
Here's a rundown of all of the games featured on Can of Worms; a satirical halfway stop between puerile juvenilia and artistic genius, that in many ways is as relevant today as it was back in 1981.
Given the graphical limitations of the ZX81, Acne demonstrates - as do all the games in the collection - how much could be conveyed through very limited means. Croucher would use ASCII characters alongside blocky pixels to visceral effect.
Essentially, it was Surgeon Simulator 30 years early.
Croucher suggests that you simply do "what some politicians do anyway: and just sit back and watch the country going down the tubes into oblivion"...
Too little and "the blockage will be consolidated". Too much and "we have Brown Alert, all over the Privy Council"...
Again: look at the graphics. Crude by today's standards, but it's pretty impressive that Croucher somehow managed to depict even the defecating royal's emotions through his restricted means.
All of this is horrifically relevant to today's world.
Find out for yourself: you can play Can of Worms here.