The Young Ones

The Young Ones is a video game based on the British comedy television series, The Young Ones.

The game takes place in the students' home. The player can choose to play as either Mike, Neil, Vyvyan or Rick to explore the house and enter different rooms. The other characters become computer-controlled players. All characters can move around the house, pick up and drop objects, as well as break and fix things. The characters often talk, giving the player clues as to what the character is intended to do.

The aim of the game is to try and move out of the house with all the character's belongings in the shortest time possible. This is not so easy, because these possessions are typically not in their preferred condition, or are hidden around the house, and players need various tools to get to them. The other characters will move around the house, behaving in-character, occasionally moving around or further damaging the possessions - making the task harder.

The game was published by Orpheus Software, based in Hatley St George in Bedfordshire, UK. The concept of the game was created by Orpheus director Paul Kaufman (previously director of Oric software house, Tansoft). The majority of the game was programmed by John Marshall, with input from Geoff Phillips. The Young Ones characters were licensed from the owners of the BBC TV series, Rik Mayall, Ben Elton and Lise Mayer.

Screen shot from the Commodore 64 version of the game

Due to difficulty in licensing the original series music from the BBC, an alternative music sound track was commissioned to sound similar to the original theme. Over 10,000 copies of the game were sold, mainly through Boots stores, Woolworths and independent computer stores.