[2] The six bosses act as Draconia's living defence mechanisms—the planet was created to habituate gruesome and harmful creatures,[1] of which there are over sixty,[3] participating in unlawful tasks.

[2] Game development studio Acme Software was founded in 1987 by David Jones, Russell Kay, Steve Hammond, and Mike Dailly, in Dundee, Scotland.

Jones began developing Menace under the working title CopperCon1 in his bedroom at his parents' house[4] while attending the Dundee Institute of Technology at the time.

When Jones was informed Hewson wanted the game to be the "Amiga version of Zynaps ", he realised sales would be limited and refused to sign the contract.

[6] The development team faced difficulty porting the game to the Atari ST, due to the hardware's limitations with smooth scrolling.

Brian "Biscuit" Watson, who the team met at a computer club in 1984, discovered a technique to overcome this difficulty.

[25] Holborn of ST/Amiga Format called the gameplay "exceptional" and "addictive", stating that players will be "hooked for hours on end".

[2] Conversely, Zzap!64's Kati Hamza wrote that the gameplay is "rather poor", disliking the pace and level design, and Maff Evans in the same review called it "dull and unrewarding", pointing out the lack of excitement and reward.

[21] The Games Machine was disappointed by the graphics,[18] particularly identifying the limited colour capabilities of the Atari ST version.