ET the Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is an adventure game for the Atari 2600. The player assumes the role of E.T., who tries to phone home, but usually ends up falling in pits a lot instead. The game met inital commercial success, but is critically regarded as one of the worst games of all time.

- Published by: Atari, Inc.
- Developed by: Atari, Inc.
- Designer: Howard Scott Warshaw
- Platform: Atari 2600
- Year Released: 1982

Significant Contributors to Game Development:
- Genre: Adventure
Other Games in Series:

E.T. Phone Home! (Atari, 1983)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Game Boy Advance, 2001)

E.T.: Digital Companion (Game Boy Color, 2001)

E.T.: Escape from Planet Earth (2001)

E.T.: Interplanetary Mission (PC, Playstation, 2002)

E.T.: Cosmic Garden (Game Boy Color, 2002)

E.T. Away From Home (2002)

E.T. Phone Home Adventure (2002)

E.T.: Return to the Green Planet (2002)

History

In June 1982, E.T. (the film) was released, and gained a large amount of commercial success. Steve Ross, the CEO of Atari at the time, made negotiations with Stephen Spielburg to acquire the license to make a game based on the film. His reasoning was that the combination of the Atari and E.T. brands would create a successful product. Once the negotiations were made, Ross commissioned Howard Scott Warshaw to make the game in a development cycle only six weeks long, in order to meet production schedules for the holiday season. Warshaw designed the game and pitched it to Spielburg, who disliked the idea and said that he would prefer the game to be a Pac-Man clone. Warshaw decided to stick with his idea, and finished the game with no audience testing involved.

The game ended up being the fifth best selling Atari 2600 game of all time. However, it did not sell nearly as much as Atari had expected the game to. Critical response to the game was very negative, with complaints about the graphics, story, and gameplay abound. E.T. is now generally considered to be one of the worst commercial games of all time. It has been cited as one of the major contributing factors to the game crash of 1983, and eventually Atari had a mass burial of copies of the game in a landfill.

Game Design Elements

The player's primary goal in E.T. is to collect three pieces of a telephone, call home, and enter their spaceship before they run out of lives. The player assumes the role of E.T. himself, and other characters present in the movie appear in the game. The gameplay can be frustrating at times due to insufficient player feedback and occasionally awkward controls.

Gameplay

When the player begins the game, a spaceship drops E.T., the playable character, on the planet Earth. E.T. can move around, perform actions in specific context zones, and collect objects. The objects include pieces of a phone and Reese's Pieces. When all three pieces of the phone are collected, the player needs to find the context zone with a UFO symbol, which lets E.T. call home and request for them to send a rescue ship to bring him home. A timer represented by a mail letter appears, and the player must find and go to the landing site for the rescue ship before the timer runs out. If the player does so successfully, they win the game and their final score is calculated.

There are six different screens in the game for E.T. to traverse that are connected to each other like a cube. At the top of the cube is a forest where E.T. is initially dropped off, and eventually saved. The bottom of the cube is the town, where an FBI building, science lab, and Elliot's house are located. The four "sides" of the cube are areas that contain pits and Reese's Pieces. If the sprite for E.T. collides with a pit, E.T. falls into the pit and is forced to levitate to get back out. However, the levitation mechanic is far from foolproof, and players will see themselves fall into the same pits over and over again because the mechanic does not always completely bring the player out of the pit. This can severely consume E.T.'s energy, which is vital to completing the game. Pits can contain a piece of the telephone, a flower that when touched gives the player an extra life, or nothing.

Scattered across the six screens are various context zones. When E.T. stands in one of these context zones, a symbol appears at the top center of the screen, and if the red button on the joystick is pressed, the action specific to that context zone is performed. Some of these zones stay the same in every game, and some are randomized. Zones with an arrow symbol let E.T. automatically teleport to the closest area in the indicated direction. Zones with a question mark reveal which pits on the current screen contain a phone piece, if any. Zones with two concentric circles let E.T. eat Reese's Pieces, which restore E.T.'s health by a small amount. Zones with the letter 'e' and two lines let you call Elliot, who will retrieve all the Reese's pieces that you currently own, which can then add to your final score. The zone with a UFO triggers the returning to home sequence, and the zone with a square and a cross in the center is the landing site where E.T. needs to be when the timer reaches zero.

The game has three difficulty modes. The easiest mode has no enemies. The medium mode has an FBI agent that brings E.T. to the FBI building whenever he catches him. The hard mode has an FBI agent and a scientist that brings E.T. to the science lab. Context zonesshaped like the roman numeral three send the agent and the scientist back to their respective buildings. Every action that the player can perform reduces E.T.'s energy, which starts at 9999. When his energy reaches zero, he loses a life and is resurrected by Elliot. After the player loses three lives, the game is over.

Controls

The controls for E.T. were relatively simple. On the title screen, the player can press the Select button on their Atari VCS to choose from one of three difficulties. The joystick moves the player avatar across the various screens. The red button on the Atari joystick performs different actions based on the different locations, or context zones, of E.T. This is perhaps the most interesting and modern design element present in E.T., as symbols at the top center of the screen describe the specific action that pressing the "contextual action button" will cause. This feature can be found in other graphic adventure games, such as the games in the Zelda series on the N64.

Plot

E.T. has been left on Earth and needs to collect pieces of an interplanetary telephone to call home and be rescued. However, the FBI want E.T. for interrogation, and are trying to capture him. In addition, scientists want E.T. to study his body for medical purposes, and are also pursuing him. A boy named Elliot is on E.T.'s side, and stores all of the vital Reese's Pieces that E.T. collects for later. E.T. must reassemble the interplanetary telephone and be rescued before it is too late. According to the ending cutscene, instead of the rescue ship sending E.T. back to his home planet, it sends him to Elliot's front yard, where Elliot can be seen running around in circles in and out of his house.

Characters

E.T., an alien, is the playable protagonist of this game and is searching for a way back home.

Elliot is a boy who aids E.T. in his goal. (Or at least stealing his Reese's Pieces)

The FBI agent is an antagonist that wants E.T. for interrogation.

The scientist is another antagonist that wants E.T. for research purposes.

Art

Visual

The title screen

The art elements in the game are 8 bit, two dimensional, raster, and are almost exclusively functional aside from the title screen and one background. The title screen contains a yellow and white pixel art image of E.T., the letters "ET", a copyright message, and the difficulty level.

The forest screen, with E.T. inside his spaceship.

Inside a pit with a piece of the telephone.

The game is presented at a three quarters view, and the backgrounds for every screen have two colors. The forest screen and the screens with pits are light and dark green. Even the Reese's Pieces in these areas are dark green. The city screen is blue and light gray. The city contains one house and two identical buildings that have three columns of support each. The pits are black and gray. In-game, a gui is visible. On the bottom, a light blue bar with dark green text displays E.T.'s energy and number of Reese's Pieces. On top, the symbol for the current context zone is displayed, as well as the progress of the phone and the countdown timer.

E.T. is a single-color sprite with one still frame and three walk cycle frames. As a default, the sprite faces left, but the sprite is flipped if E.T. moves right. When E.T. dies, he turns into a white sprite lying on its back. The FBI agent has three walk cycle frames and five colors. He is wearing a yellow trench coat and a black fedora. The scientist has the same specifications, but is wearing a white lab coat and no hat instead. Elliot has six colors, and is wearing a striped tshirt and jeans. The phone pieces and the flower are both 3-color sprites. The spaceship is purple and striped, and consists of three different colors.

Sound

While there are many sounds present in the game for various player actions and calculations, the sound feels quite minimal and empty due to the short noises and monophonic nature of the Atari 2600. The title screen plays the E.T. theme song. A "shimmering" sound effect plays on the pulse channel of the internal synth when the spaceship is present. When E.T. walks, a repetitive beat vaguely resembling footsteps is made on the noise channel. When he runs, a high pitch looped melody plays on the pulse channel. When E.T. extends his neck, a low pitch buzzing noise is made on the pulse channel. A short static burst is played when E.T. finds a Reese's Piece. A note that descends in pitch is played when E.T. falls into a pit. A blip is played when E.T. gathers a part of the telephone. Walk noises are also made for the secondary characters in the game. A blip is made whenever the timer loses a visual increment.

It seems that the sounds were completely utilitarian, and only put in there because they "had to". The sounds do not provide the player with any feedback that cannot be discerned visually.

References

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/et/et.htm

http://www.snopes.com/business/market/atari.asp

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/a2600/file/563239/53037

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_%28video_game%29