In a flash I blurted out "Simple, you start with two 'E's, £50 & a Flyer and you've gotta get to a Rave before it gets busted without getting busted yourself" Suddenly it just hit me, I guess I was still glowing from the night before "We gotta do that.... it's just gotta be done!". They just asked me to pass around the turkey and rolled their eyes to the ceiling.

But... you can't 'un-have' a good idea, I was mates with Jimmy Cauty at the time and ran it buy him... he laughed, "Do it Pat, do it!"

At that time, the scene was so new no-one could guess whether it'd still be there in six months, but a backer came in, such a great guy... and we went hell for leather. If I knew what we were getting ourselves into, I really wanted it high production, I designed the Flyers myself, insisted on Jamie Hewlet and Alex Patterson's who did the limited edition remix cassette.

Then toy and game consultants got involved who had NO idea..... I have really fond memories of arguing the toss as they told us it was too controversial. I asked for the phone number of the M.D. of the UK's top game store chain, he said "Where can I get this game, if it ain't sh*t on a stick I want two gross now, the kids wont stop asking for it... I want it now!". I walked back into he meeting and told 'em, they shut up after that.

But it cost a fortune to produce, (and the consultants bled what they could out of us too !)

It went to the top of the Virgin Game charts just before Xmas, HMV and I think WH Smiths bought in too. Then... just around New Year I got a very rude phone call from The Sun I think, or the Mirror asking about it. We blamed it all on a fictional guy called B.P WOW, we said, "We don't know anything, he just flys in from Tibet and tells us what to do."

"When's he flying in again then the guy said", I can't remember my exact response, I think I gave him some flight times, I thought it'd be such a laugh to see them all at Heathrow ready to lay into this fictional character.

Shortly thereafter I had a phone call from someone at Virgin saying they wanted to give the games back, the guy from the Mirror had apparently phoned Richard Branson right as he was having his lunch. I argued with 'em, citing all the games about Murder, War.. whatever... it was no dice!

My other fond memory was 'squatting' a stand at the British Toy and Hobby Fair that February. They accepted our booking.... then suddenly declined. We demanded a reason but they wouldn't say... so we went in there surreptitiously with samples, banners, posters, flyers, the works.... found an empty stand and set up. My girlfriend at the time, Sophia was a complete diamond, solid as a rock. She managed the stand whilst I distributed a mocked up broadsheet with a headline emblazoned across it saying 'Civilization Rocked by Acid House Board Game' ;) We were there for two days and actually got some orders.

Then suddenly I heard these voices behind me "There he is!", "Who?" " Him, Rave!" and I knew my time was up, they demanded I took 'em to the stand, dismantled it & marched us out. We were yelling, " What about Cluedo, it promotes murder!" It was hilarious.

But getting into the market after that was really hard.

S'funny really, I knew our audience, and we all knew what people are only saying now in retrospect, they were cool people, making incredible music, pulling off the most amazing stunts. And time has shown, they did no harm to anybody, the moral panic that set in certainly sold newspapers, but was completely unjustified. Dance music stayed its course longer than The Beatles, or good 'ole Rock n' Roll for that matter. For me, the fact they tried to ban everything and act hysterical just made more people wanna do it, it made it a game... that was the whole point of the thing.

Getting it online? There was a time when I really considered it, but I wanted interactive music. I'm looking for a top class team right now, I think the time is right, waddaya reckon?

Patrick