Released to a huge marketing
campaign in December 1982,
E.T. soȢǁ ʥeȢȢӗ ƹut reʤieʥs ʥere
poor, and Atari produced a
huge oʤersuppȢʰ oǹ cƃrtriǁgesӝAdviceToolbox
Spielberg’s
Suggestion
8hen first nresented my
design to /te{en /nielberg,
he suggested do a +acż anż
like gameŬ susnect he was
thinking about the action
sepuence near the end of the
mo{ie, with lliott running
around town Ÿthe maeŹ and
neonle chasing him Ÿthe
ghostsŹŬ is friends are helning
him along the way, and Ŭ1Ŭ’s
in the basket as a wild card for
snecial nowersŬ t’s a nerfectly
reasonable concent for a
{ideo gameŬ ’d considered it
initially, but getting something
like this nrogrammed and
nlayable at an accentable
le{el was unlikely to hannen in
fi{e weeksŬ(.T. assembles a phone from a variety of Munk.
2nce assembled, he uses it to call home.
Then he must find a way to evade interfering
humans and board the returning ship.PHONE HOME
It’s a beautiful, multilayered structure of Tuests.
Number one find all the phone pieces hidden
in various places pits). Number two find the
place to call home among all the Ȇlocations’ in
the world. Number three find the designated
landing ]one in the forest while avoiding the
humans) in time to meet the ship.
Three successive treasure hunts, each
building on the last. As long as I have enough
phone pieces, pits, locations, and ]ones, the
random redistribution each time hopefully
creates a challenge fresh enough to motivate
the player to try again particularly if executing
the search and rescue feels fun). The player
will be (.T. This way, they can have special
powers more credibly, and it’s probably a
more interesting graphic than (lliott. The game
practically designs itself. Nothing else to it but
generating assets and coding. This could work
And there you have it. The next time you or
someone you know asks what that guy was
thinking when he made the E.T. video gameȐ
This is what I was thinking.programming time. )ewer and simpler rules are
Tuicker to program. Therefore, I need a game
with few rules and a simple environment which
combine to create lots of possibilities.
+ow about a treasure hunt game? The basic
treasure hunt game goes something like this
find some treasure. Is this enough treasure?
No, get more treasure. When I have enough,
take it to the bank and win the game. The game
components are simple pieces of treasure,
places to hide them, obstacles to increase the
challenge, and some way to use the treasure
to win the game. I only have to tune the basic
process of finding the treasure and using it.
This sounds like something I can make happen
in five weeks.
But meeting the time challenge isn’t enough.
What about longevity or replayability? I can make
the game shorter, but it still has to have legs.
The key feature of the treasure hunt game
is the fact you can actually win it. With the
exception of Warren 5obinett’s Adventure, most
video games of the era had no Ȇwin’ condition.
3layers played until they ran out of lives, trying
to set new high scores. It’s the +ow-+igh-Is-8p
model of gaming. This is because most thinking
about home game creation was based on
the arcade paradigm. +aving a win condition
makes no sense in an arcade game because
you need people to keep pumping Tuarters into
the machine. But home gaming? Not so much.
+ow do you keep a Ȇwinnable’ game fresh?
If I can make the basic mechanics of the game
enMoyable enough i.e. finding, collecting, and
using treasure), the player will want to do it
again after they succeed. Then I randomly
redistribute the treasure for another round,
and if there are enough hiding places, then the
challenge level should be maintained. This could
give the game some life.
6o how does all this fit with the movie?
After all, at some point in the E.T. video game
design process, I’m going to have to account
for the 6teven 6pielberg film it was meant to be
based on.
When I think about the treasure hunt model
in the context of the E.T. movie, it goes like this
wfmag.cc \ 29“Fewer and simpler
rules are quicker
to program”