More info on Extra Terrestrials by Skill Screen Games required

[+Random Terrain]

This was posted in another thread:

The company that created Extra Terrestrials, Skill Screen Games was created as a games division of a company called Telcom Research. Telcom Research is a successful company that started in 1968 and is still around today. Check out their website at http://www.telcomresearch.com/. The effort to produce Extra Terrestrials cost the company tens of thousands of dollars. A professional programmer named Herman Quast was hired and paid to reverse engineer 2600 games and to create a new game. I have met Herman personally. He still works as a programmer doing work on embedded systems. Herman disassembled 2600 games to determine how the system worked and how to create new games. Skill Screen Games spent $15,000 to create molds and tooling in order to produce their first game. I'm told that the molds are still packed away somewhere at Telcom Research. Professionally printed labels, manuals and boxes were created for the game. Unfortunately none of the manuals and boxes are known to still exist.

Due to numerous problems, the company did not get Extra Terrestrials finished in time for the 1983 Christmas season. By the time the game was completed in early 1984 the video game market had crashed. As a result, major distributors refused to work with Skill Screen Games to distribute their first product. In an attempt to recover their investment, the owners of the company tried selling the games directly to local game retailers. As the 2600 market had collapsed, very few stores purchased copies of the game.

So I certainly wouldn't call Extra Terrestrials a "homebrew". Skill Screen Games did what most other companies did - they reverse engineered the 2600 and created their own games. Professional packaging and marketing was planned. They were just too late.

Do we know what month they tried selling the games directly to local game retailers in 1984? If we don't, can somebody find out?

[awhite2600]

I was part of the group involved in the initial rediscovery of the game and the creation of the reproductions that were sold. I spoke to Herman Quast, the programmer, for a few hours over two different occasions. Another member of our group spoke with the former owner of Skill Screen Games.

 

Everyone seemed to have suffered a bit of a memory lapse. I think the failure of the project was very traumatic for the organization. Herman tried to remember as much as he could and was very happy to talk to me. I was surprised that nobody had a clear memory of the timeline, number of units produced / sold, what the box / manual looked like or what might have become of any related materials.

 

To answer the original question, we were told that the game was not completed until after Christmas of 1983. A "best guess" would be that the game was sold in late winter / early spring 1984. There was mention that there might have even been door-to-door sales of the game to homes in the Hamilton / Burlington area of Ontario, Canada. Herman told me that it took time to reverse engineer the 2600 by disassembling other games and comparing what he learned to the play mechanics. He admitted that his addiction to playing River Raid was a factor in the delay in finishing Extra Terrestrials.

 

To my knowledge, only five copies of this game are known to exist:

 

1. The cartridge that was donated to The Personal Computer Museum. This started the "discovery". This cartridge turned out to be a prototype as there were some bugs and minor differences in the gameplay and sound.
2. A cartridge that was donated to the museum by Herman Quast - the programmer.
3. Herman told me that he kept a copy as a memento.
4. One of the museum volunteers had a friend that owned a copy. This copy was also donated to the museum.
5. A woman in Hamilton, Ontario has a copy. At one time she expressed interest in selling it. I offered to meet her to "authenticate" the cartridge based on my knowledge of the other copies. The meeting never happened. I contacted the owner by email about a year ago. She was quite cold and stated that she was not interested in selling the cartridge or having me look at it. She told me that she doesn't want to discuss the matter again. (This is upsetting to me as this is the only known copy that could potentially be sold to a private collector.)

I don't recommend that anyone attempt to contact the people involved in the game's creation. The financial loss incurred by Skill Screen Games seems to have made this a difficult topic of discuss to those involved. Getting the information that we have was only accomplished by the amount of local publicity after the initial discovery.

 

If anyone has further questions, feel free to ask here or in a PM. I'm happy to share anything that I know.

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks. Until somebody remembers a month, I'll put it in 1984 under the "Need A Month" section.

[Supergun]

Hmm.

 

Looking over, reading carefully, and processing the information you wrote about the 5 known copies of this game has made me rethink the games status.

 

Do you have or could you give a little bit more detail regarding the museum volunteer's friends copy?

 

Reason being, the particulars involved with 3 of the 5 copies do not meet the required stipulations to qualify the game for the status of an official release.

 

One was a prototype version. And the other two were BOTH in the possession of the programmer; albeit one that he donated & one that he kept.

 

And "technically", without any evidence such as a picture, to support the woman's alleged claim of having a copy of the game, it too is disqualified & does not count either.

 

Leaving only this museum volunteer donated copy as the only cart that MIGHT be able to be proven & accepted as proof of the games "release" (and subsequent "availability") as a legit opportunity that a member of the general public had to obtain it.

[awhite2600]

Hmm.

 

Looking over, reading carefully, and processing the information you wrote about the 5 known copies of this game has made me rethink the games status.

 

Do you have or could you give a little bit more detail regarding the museum volunteer's friends copy?

 

Reason being, the particulars involved with 3 of the 5 copies do not meet the required stipulations to qualify the game for the status of an official release.

 

One was a prototype version. And the other two were BOTH in the possession of the programmer; albeit one that he donated & one that he kept.

 

And "technically", without any evidence such as a picture, to support the woman's alleged claim of having a copy of the game, it too is disqualified & does not count either.

 

Leaving only this museum volunteer donated copy as the only cart that MIGHT be able to be proven & accepted as proof of the games "release" (and subsequent "availability") as a legit opportunity that a member of the general public had to obtain it.

 

There was a YouTube video showing the copy of the game owned by the woman in Hamilton. I can't seem to find it anymore. It may have been taken down. In the video you could clearly see the cartridge in at 2600 along with the game on a TV. The original cartridges were smaller than a "typical" 2600 cartridge - which made them every distinct. I have no reason to believe that the video was faked. Especially when the owner never attempted to sell the cartridge.

 

The "friend's copy" was owned by a person in Kitchener, Ontario. Kitchener is about 40 miles (60 km) from the Burlington / Hamilton area where the game was produced. This person recognized the game from a segment that was shown on the local TV news. (I made an appearance in this news segment.) The owner of the cartridge contacted one of the museum volunteers that they were friends with. They were gracious enough to donate the cartridge to the museum. I don't think that the owner was told how valuable the cartridge might be if it were put up for auction. The museum refuses to sell any of their copies.

 

The owner of Skill Screen games was interviewed by a few media outlets when the game was rediscovered. He mentioned that 200 to 300 copies were sold. We don't know if those copies were sold to retailers (and never sold to consumers) or sold direct.

 

I have no doubt that Extra Terrestrials was officially released. Like a few other games (Air Raid, Red Sea Crossing, Birthday Mania) it was just sold in very small numbers. Sadly, very few copies survived to be in the hands of collectors.

[Supergun]

Indeed.

With this additional detailed information, the game is welcomed back with open arms into the 2600's holy grail four leaf clover.

[awhite2600]

A bit of follow up...

 

I found an email address for Herman Quast from our correspondence with him a few years ago. I decided to contact him one more time to see if he could answer any of the questions regarding when the game was first sold and how many copies were sold. It took about a week to get a reply.

 

Herman apologized by saying that he was just the programmer. He had no involvement in sales or distribution. He doesn't remember how many copies were sold. He thinks he was told when the company shut down, but doesn't remember any details.

 

I will provide the quote below directly from Herman's email reply. Reading between the lines, it looks like the game may have been sold before Christmas 1983 with revised versions sold after Christmas.

 

"What I do remember is that I intended to work over the Christmas holidays (I guess that would have been 1983) but I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. We had something before Christmas but I didn't think it was good enough. We sold some while I continued working on improving the game. I know that not all the versions that were 'rediscovered' were the same."

 

So a little more has been uncovered. Now someone just needs to find another copy...and the box.