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Interview With Pitfall! Creator, David Crane
Bill Kendrick writes "Good Deal Games recently interviewed David Crane, creator of 1982's Game of the Year, 'Pitfall!' (as well as many other titles for the Atari 2600 and other systems). Topics include the 1000s of fan letters Activision received every week, the firing of Bill Gates, and how tennis helped bring Activision together."
shockwave version of pitfall
http://www.langleycreations.com/pitfall/
If that one guy at Activision had just kept Bill Gates, Windows might never have existed?
Wow, that's messed up!
To recall the greatest feat (if indeed you can associate great feats with video games :) involving this game.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/19/235023 4&mode=thread&tid=127
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Although David Crane is most famous for his Pitfall! creation, I personally prefer David Crane's A Boy and His Blob, which ran on the 8-bit NES system. The story line of a the boy's blob, and his jellybean consumption is unique. I'd recommend every reader check out the review at SA...I usually don't link to them but in this case I'll make an exception.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
I like the last question, it has a good point!
- MT> You been quoted as stating, "man will always use his most advanced technology to amuse himself." Care to elaborate?
Most advanced tech used for amusement... yeah, that fits. Just off-the-cuff I can think of a bunch of examples:DC> Quotes are a funny thing - there are as many attributed to me that I didn't say as there are things I said many times that are easily forgotten. The best line I didn't say was, "It's a jungle in there!" referring to Pitfall! But the quote you mention has been referred to as "Crane's Law", and I firmly believe it.
(Snip the part about electric model airplanes)
- Gamers driving the high-end PC market
- Doom 3
- $400 GeForce/Radeon/Parhelia graphics cards
- Any sports car from Ferarri/Porsche/Mercedes/BMW/Audi/Acura/Lexus/you
r favoritebrandhere
- Insanely huge home theater installations
- Should I even point out that the porn industry was the first to release material using the advanced features of DVD? Or that they drove the adoption of videocassettes?
I'm sure other people can come up with even more examples.(For that matter, look at street racers putting Acura VTEC engines in their Honda Civics!)
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Pitfall was my favourite game when I was a kid. I'd say it's a tie between Pitfall! and Super Mario Bros. as to which game really invented the platform game genre.
Pitfall! is what originally got me programming. I remember doing a simplistic platform game in GWBasic using ascii characters. That lead to learning Pascal and C and eventually my career as a Programmer/Analyst.
Activision also deserves kudo's for keeping those programmers/designers from being forgotten. Of course, that lead to the whole rock star image conscious industry that spawned the likes of John Romero.
Whatever happened to that guy anyway?
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Pitfall ruined my brother's childhood. After watching me play Pitfall he was deathly afraid of the water (and tar pits for that matter) and never learned to swim. Of course, scaring the crap out of your little brother is every big brother's responsibility. Thank you, David Crane.
One thing that always inspired me to try to play a perfect game of Pitfall was the music. Nice and cheery and adventurous, until you died. Then it got depressing and never got cheery again.
He helped start a company that took work-for-hire, no-credit-getting designers and gave them the credit they deserved...
And he later formed a company where he basically does games for corporations in a work-for-hire type situation. His name isn't even mentioned in the "about us" section of his company website.
Not that I lose any respect for him - I'm no elitist, anti-corporate type. Just figured his name would be on the website...
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Pitfall! was! the! first! game! that! caused! me! to! write! with! lots! of! exclamation! marks!
Hooray! for! Pitfall!
Burma?
My favorite game for the platform was Adventure. Not only was it quite possibly the first graphical RPG (admittedly a simple one), it was also the first game I recall with an easter egg in it. Plus, the dragons looked like giant ducks, and there was a bat you couldn't kill that would constantly steal things, including live dragons, and fly around the 'world' with them until it found another item to pick up.
Like Pitfall, it was a game that for all its simplicity would still find itself being played again and again. I miss those sort of games.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Anyhow, if you've never seen it, check out this music video inspired by various Atari games (including Pitfall!).
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
3dfx (you still remember them right?) had a series of ads along these lines a few years ago. They were patterned after those pharmaceutical company ads about how their technology is bettering the planet. Transcript from one:
[file footage of children running through grassy fields, etc.]
What could we do with a chip that performs a hundred billion operations per second? Why, we could bolster the world's food supply. We could use our chip to genetically engineer juicier fruits. Hardy, mineral-rich vegetables. Tastier greens. And tender, all-white-meat chickens. We could use our technology to feed the world.
But then we thought -- hey, we could use it for games!
[All the food disappears from people's plates, and the camera pans to screenshots of games]
3dfx PC accelerators -- so powerful, it's kinda ricidulous.
And from another:
[File footage of doctors and old people and such]
We have in our possession a chip -- a chip that could revolutionize medicine as we know it. By performing a hundred billion operations a second, this chip could help us heal across continents. We could touch more lives, help people live longer than ever, and give us all more time to cherish the journey's truest rewards.
But then we thought -- hey, let's use it for games!
[The life-support equipment stops working and everyone dies, pan to screenshots of games]
3dfx PC accelerators -- so powerful, it's kinda ridiculous.
[Doctor from the earlier file footage shots says "you know, that game's a little violent for my tastes"]
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Pitfall! was defiantely a classic, howver I think it was Pitfall II for the atari 2600 that was truely groundbreaking and possibly the best game ever made for that system. It definately foreshadowed the side scrolling adventure games of the NES and Sega master system. If I'm not mistaken, it actually had a slightly different chipset than the standard 2600 game. Definately worth checking out on an emulator if you didn't catch it the first time around.
This month's Retrogaming Radio has an interview with David Crane. As much as Shane R. Monroe tries to push Mr. Crane into complaining about the "whoring out" of Pitfall (in recent PSX versions of the game). He responds by basically saying that it's ok for other developers who now own the rights to the Pitfall name, do as they please with their investment. This month's episode also has a review of that new act labs light gun.
"I was disappointed... he was fired from an Atari project, not fired from Microsoft (Thought I missed something good over my weekend of /. withdrawl)"
Why do I have the feeling that this article wouldn't have been posted if not for the Bill Gates reference?
"Pitfall was a revolutionary moment in gaming, but the real news here is that something bad happened to Bill Gates before he was rich."
"Derp de derp."
"One can imagine how the world would be if one single little stupid decision wasn't taken... "
Yeah, computers would only be owned by geeks as opposed to ordinary everyday people. MS did some shitty stuff, but they also made PC's the popular item they are today.
"Derp de derp."
The Atari 2600 is a classic, and will never die. Neither will the Amiga. Just try it, they're indestructible, they will outlive us all.
One can imagine how the world would be if one single little stupid decision wasn't taken...
Stupid?
Sounds like bill didn't do much work in a whole year. Can't blame the company for firing him, although things might've been a lot different if he worked for some place where they don't care about performance...
Freevo - Linux Multimedia Jukebox
What was the text of the plate then? The obvious "PITFALL", or something else? And yes, I've done the obligitory searched with Google, and no reference appears to spell it out, so to speak.
Not a huge deal - but an opportunity for the Karma-hungry.
Ryan Fenton
"And unix and linux probably would of still evolved to be as good if not better then it is today."
Doubtful. They're playing catch-up as it is. They're not exactly breaking new barriers today. I honestly hope that changes.
"Alls microsoft did was make a standard. "
All Microsoft did was single-handedly turn the PC into an easy to use household product. Before Windows 95 came along, a PC owner was either a geek or somebody doing graphic work on a Mac.
Without MS, *Nix probably would never have even attempted to be an OS for the everyday Joe. Right now, they're evolving to dethrone MS.
"Derp de derp."
That is nonsense. Two things were abundantly clear to the parents of myself and my friends in the early '80s. One was that you could use computers to manage information (finances,wp,etc) and two was that they were general purpose devices that could do other things too. Related to that was the fact that there were us kids begging for them to play games and learn to program on. There was quite a bit of competition back then too - Apple, IBM, Commodore, Atari, Tandy, Kaypro, hell remember the Coleco Adam?! And they were all pretty distinct systems. So no, I totally refute the premise that computers would not have been taken up by society just as quickly without the MS domination of the last decade+. The demand was already there and growing.
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
So the surge in PC sales circa 1995 had nothing to do with MS? Heh. Whatever. Win95 + Internet = Huge PC explosion. Computer ownership not only skyrockted into the millions, but females were using them as well!
"Derp de derp."
Wasn't it DR's (Digital Research) work which he licensed or bought?
Imagine the world today if IBM had sewn up the hardware IP and refused Gates the right to sell copies of DOS under his own company's name. Yeah. Mac's all over the place... or something Open would have come along. Entertaining thought for late on a Monday night.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes it is and the reason why gaming companies don't promote developers anymore is really simple, you don't want to be dependent on the reputation of one developer for the sale of game, otherwise they will have all the cards come renegotiation time.
I was hoping they would mention Super Pitfall, the abomination that forever ruined the Pitfall experience in my mind. For those who aren't familiar with the title, Seanbaby sums up the experience pretty accurately.
Anyway, I wonder if David had any involvement in Super Pitfall. I highly doubt it.. but even if he did, who would fess up to that?
"Were Gates to not have come around, we'd all be using Ataris, or Amigas, or Macs, or maybe something totally different instead."
The geeks would, the average person wouldn't. Apple didn't even have a hot product on their hands until the iMac came out. Too little, way too late. Bill Gates wasn't lucky, he was opportunistic. Windows 95 was successful because people felt like they could use it without needing fear it. It had stability issues, nobody's arguing that, but it did do a lot of fundamental things correctly.
I know, I know, everybody hates MS and all. But they poured tons and tons of research into making sure the user experience was a good one. That's why Windows survives today even though there are technically more sophisticated OS's out there.
If Windows 95 hadn't have happened it is almost certain that the population of PC's would be drastically lower today. Argue with me all you want, it doesn't change the fact that MS's release of 95 was extremely profitable to them. That didn't happen because MS went door to door putting a gun to people's heads to make them buy. No other OS company had a similar boom. If your theory had played out, then MS would have competition like Sony has with Nintendo.
"Derp de derp."
Computers were just toys back then. People bought them, played with them, and occasionally found a good use for them. At their peak, they were hobbyist toys like Ham Radio. Then Win95 came around. Suddenly the computer becomes useful. It's like turning Ham Radio into cell phones.
I'll have to agree with Nanogater on this one.
Adventure was awesome. It's still one of my #1 favorite games of all times (even though I own every other system between the 2600 and the PS2).
That fscking bat was a pain in the ass, and it made for hilarious frustration in that game. He'd fly by, carrying a pissed off dragon, and go "oh hey! that's a nice shiney sword you've got there... *YOINK!*" And leave you with aforementioned lizard...
The easter egg was well known, actually. There was a secret item in the black castle's dungeon (you know, where you couldn't see anything except right around you). It was a 1x1 pixel dot. Oh... and it was invisible. AND, it was inside a little area that you couldn't get to without the bridge. (And since it was dark in that room, you'd almost never notice there was a little blocked-off area.)
:)
Well, get the dot... and guess what? NOW you have to CARRY it (remember, it's invisible) to a particular part of the world... near the gold castle, I believe. It was a room with a vertical line for a wall, instead of a solid wall on the side. You need to have a few additional items in that room, so that the vertical wall would kinda flicker some (too many sprites on the screen).
After doing all this, you now carry the dot (I think) THROUGH the wall, and you'll see the name of the author on the screen.
Pretty cool.
Why do I have the feeling that this article wouldn't have been posted if not for the Bill Gates reference?
*snicker* [innocent whistling]
"You really don't think any other system (GNU/Linux, Apple without M$, OS/2, etc.) + Internet wouldn't have produced the same result? "
No.
GNU/Linux - Never really targeted to mass audience
Apple- They had ample opportunity, but for some reason it didn't work. This probably has to do with typically higher prices of Macs (back then) and the fact that few places carried them.
MS wasn't lucky, they were smart. If Apple had been smart, they'd not have been so restrictive on their hardware. As for GNU/Linux, they'd need somebody like Apple or MS to come around and show them how to make an interface. As it is today, nearly all Linux commands wouldn't survive a spell checker. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
That was frickin' awesome. :)
(The other day I bought the new Hitchicker Guide to the Galaxy DVD and was amused by the 'asteroids'-style effects in one of the scenes... I had forgotten about that!)
Megamania. It was like Space Invaders against household items. Your space ship looks pretty much like a low-rez Starship Enterprise or Klingon ship or something. ;)
(I have it here next to me somewhere... too lazy to pop it in and check)
Don't tempt me !!!
Something like if you held RESET as you turned it on, you could shoot 2 or 3 shots at a time (instead of one). Check AtariAge... they have hints and 'did you know?' info for tons of games (along with all of the other typical info & images).
"MS wasn't lucky, they were smart."
No, they were/are criminal. Funny how you can get ahead when you cheat. If MS hadn't been around, the entire industry would be different, but still here. Computers were fscking _destined_ to be in the home. I think the Commodore and Atari machines pretty much proved that to begin with.
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Do the people on that channel just repeat other people's jokes or do they make up their own? No wonder I never watch Comedy Central...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
It makes me wonder why music industry is the only industry where the product creators are made celebrities. I mean I bet Quake has sold more copies than Madonna's latest album but I don't see John Carmack's face in the news papers or not even in the Quake retail box.
And here I was thinking that Win95 was successful because it was backwards compatable with the large installed base of win3.1, the success of which was dependant on the large installed base of DOS, which was dependant on the marketing muscle and name-recognition of IBM.
Had IBM not been as successful with the PC, it would've been interesting to see who would've become #1... Apple (Mac), Commodore(Amiga) or Atari (ST series), all of which were technically superior to the original PC and ran user-friendly GUI-based operating systems years before Windows shipped.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
(The other day I bought the new Hitchicker Guide to the Galaxy DVD and was amused by the 'asteroids'-style effects in one of the scenes... I had forgotten about that!)
Yeah. All hand drawn and cel-by-cel animated too.
"Information wants to be paid"
Wasn't it DR's (Digital Research) work which he licensed or bought?
No, it was QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) which he bought up from some guy in Seattle who by now must feel like the Pete Best of the computer world.
Isn't the story that IBM approached Garry Kildall of DR, but he wasn't available at the time so IBM copped a hump at the idea of someone not wanting to see them and went to young Bill instead.
I still think that if not for Microsoft, computers would still be a very much just for geeks thing. This would have been BAD, and don't you forget it.
"Information wants to be paid"
Re-read the article. Bill was screwing Atari over anyways. He didn't hold his deadlines because he was working on MS-DOS for IBM at the same time. The only thing Atari did was save a little money. (On the other hand, though, it is typical of Microsofts business strategy: futz on a project for somebody else and secretly work for their competitors.
I have a feeling that Bill wasn't planning on delivering the goods. You need to remember that he's less of a programmer than a crack Monopoly player. He knows how to sweet-talk the others into giving him Boardwalk and Park Place for free.
What were his royalties for having Pitfall! spoofed on South Park (the molesting priests episode)
?
If you weren't anonymous, I'd have a reply to that.
"However: we would have gotten there faster had MS not gotten in the way, and we had no chance of getting there before MS --- regardless of smarts or technical merit.) "
/.
How do you come to that conclusion? How could MS have possibily gotten in the way?
a.) They still have no idea how to be user friendly. That point's been made before here on
b.) MS made computers lots more popular, and at the same time implanted the idea that they were unstable. If anything, GNU could have swept in and closed that gap. It wasn't ready for that, it still isn't ready for that. MS isn't hindering them, instead they gave them an opportunity.
Sorry, not sold. Frankly, I can't shake the feeling that people can't accept that MS did anything right. I think that's the basis for the arguments with me on this topic.
"Derp de derp."
You know, for once I agree with an AC who seems (based on scant evidence) to be an MS believer. Gates leaving/dying/becoming catatonic would not end Microsoft. But don't underestimate the celebrity factor in market pricing. The stock would be hurt badly for quite some time until the company persuades The Street (Wall, not Sesame, for those who are just joining us) that their new top management has got what it takes.
In one form or another, no matter what happens, Microsoft will be around for a good long time. But as one of the "Linux Zealots," I have to say that this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I've never hated Microsoft for existing. I have hated it for its unwarranted and unprecedented market power and for its ruthless destruction of any innovator who threatens that market power. Even in this, where Microsoft deserves blame, they are not wholly responsible for the fall of the companies whose air supply they choose to cut off. The management at Netscape for example certainly deserves much of the blame. But giving away IE helped.
I'm going to drop this now, because it really is off topic, but I just wanted to let the Microsoft-defensive ACs out there who constantly complain about the "*nix zealots" (I'm a Linux/BSD/Unix zealot, really) that we're not all raving psychotics. Some of us are really quiet, fun-loving psychotics, who just want the freedom to decide what we will do with our computers.
"However: we would have gotten there faster had MS not gotten in the way, and we had no chance of getting there before MS --- regardless of smarts or technical merit.) "
Yah? And how'd they cheat? By giving consumers what they want? Damn them!
"Computers were fscking _destined_ to be in the home. I think the Commodore and Atari machines pretty much proved that to begin with."
Ouch, bad call. Atari and Commodore *died* long before Windows 3 was out. I know, I used to have an Atari. The ST and the Amiga hung on for a little while, but it didn't last. Nobody was interested. All Atari and Commodore proved was that the market was fragile.
I'll say it again, the people arguing with me are the ppl who hate Microsoft. People sure say strange things in a state like that.
"Derp de derp."
Help me out here...
I vaguely recall playing Pitfall for hours in an attempt to achieve a certain score, in order to join the Pitfall! club or something.
There was information on the box, or in the packaging, and when you achieved a certain score (assuming you took a photo of your TV) -you could join the elite club. I think it was like 10,000 or 20,000.
I've not played this game in ages, but perhaps someone can help me out with this vague memory.
--
Um..
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
MS did some shitty stuff, but they also made PC's the popular item they are today.
Silly newbie...
Go learn about the Apple ][and its creation of the home computer market.
Learn also about Visicalc and its legitimization of microcomputers for business use. Finally, learn about IBM, Lotus 1-2-3, WordStar and WordPerfect, and how they made PCs ubiquitous in the business world.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Microsoft was just one of a number of purveyors of things technicals -- the OS for the PC and two applications for the Mac. That's it. It was the appearance of Windows 3.0 in 1990 and the migration of their GUI-based Mac applications to the PC market that put them in a monopoly position by the mid 1990s.
And this is when their tactics, always on the grey side relative to their competitors, came to greatly harm the overall computer industry.
None of that explains why PC ownership became necessary circa 1995. Come 1997, you were STRANGE if you didn't have a computer.
You're just arguing with me because you hate MS, not because you're paying any attention to what I'm saying. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
Heh no they weren't, at least not the way they are today. PC growth EXPLODED in the late nineties.
Pitfall! must! have! been! the! inspiration! for! Yahoo!
--
I romp with joy in the bookish dark
You can relive the adventure on your PC with this remake called Indenture that includes a whole mess of NEW levels and secrets. All you need is a PC with a DOS box and you're set.