Megamania is a fixed shooter video game developed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600.
It was published by Activision in 1982. In the game, a pilot of an intergalactic space cruiser has a nightmare where his ship is being attacked by food and household objects. Using the missile launcher from their space cruiser, the pilot fends off the attackers. The game was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers.
Cartwright initially found inspiration for Megamania’s gameplay from the arcade game Astro Blaster (1981). After completing a variation of the game, the team at Activision felt it needed a different form to separate itself from various space shooter games on the market, eventually leading to Activision’s ad agency developing the food-induced nightmare theme. The game took nine months for Cartwright to develop.
Initial response to Megamania had critics split with early reviews complimenting the graphics and varied movement of the enemies, while others felt it was another game in an already oversaturated field of games influenced by Space Invaders (1978). The game received the “Most Humorous Home Arcade Game” at the 4th annual Arkie Awards, and in 1984 Video and Computer Gaming Illustrated declared Megamania as the best Atari 2600 game.
