The fifth and final Wally Week game, Three Weeks in Paradise was published by Mikro-Gen in 1986, for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.
Tag Archives: Chris Hinsley
Pyjamarama, ZX Spectrum
Pyjamarama is the 1984 follow-up to Automania, and features the same lead character – Wally Week. Which makes it the second game in the Wally Week series.
Everyone’s A Wally, ZX Spectrum
Chris Hinsley‘s 1985 follow-up to Pyjamarama sees the return – once again – of Wally Week. The mechanic turned mundane video game hero.
The unique thing about Everyone’s A Wally is that you can switch between five different characters and go about your adventuring business – two years before Maniac Mansion.
There’s big, yellow, colour-clashing Wally Week himself, who you start as. There’s Wilma, Wally’s cyan wife. And their friends Tom (the green punk), Dick (a magenta plumber) and Harry (a grey hippy electrician).
The aim of the game is to do a full day’s work for each character by picking up objects and solving puzzles. I don’t know about that. Seems like much too hard work for my liking…
Everyone’s A Wally even came with a promotional single by Mike Berry upon release. It might have even charted.
The game is well-remembered though, if a little bit archaic by today’s standards. The graphics and characterisation are pretty classic though.
The Wally Week series:
Automania (1984)
Pyjamarama (1984)
Everyone’s A Wally (1985)
Herbert’s Dummy Run (1985)
Three Weeks in Paradise (1986)
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyone’s_A_Wally
Automania, ZX Spectrum
Automania – developed by Chris Hinsley for Mikro-Gen in 1984 – is the first ever appearance of the character Wally Week.
Wally Week went on to star in a series of games after this (Pyjamarama, Everyone’s A Wally, Three Weeks In Paradise, etc.), but this first encounter with the yellow Wally is a simple game of collecting car parts and assembling them, and avoiding contact with various moving meanies.
Although Automania was not a massive hit (I must admit I did buy it back in 1984, and really enjoyed it), it did set up both Wally Week as an interesting character, and Chris Hinsley, as a developer to look out for. And Chris’s next Wally Week game – Pyjamarama (also released in 1984) – was the big hit that really put Wally Week on the map.
And now: some 30 years plus, after release, Wally Week is all but forgotten. A footnote in video game history. Unless someone’s attempted to bring him back via the magic of “homebrew”. You never know these days. Anything is possible.
The Wally Week series:
Automania (1984)
Pyjamarama (1984)
Everyone’s A Wally (1985)
Herbert’s Dummy Run (1985)
Three Weeks in Paradise (1986)
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikro-Gen
