How to play E.T. online
- Move E.T.: arrow keys
- Use the power of the current zone: Space bar
- Levitate out of a pit: hold Space and press the up arrow
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose a game (1–3): F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Landing rules: F4 toggles the left difficulty switch
- Speed of the humans: F9 toggles the right difficulty switch
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
The goal of the game
Three telephone pieces are hidden in pits scattered across six connected areas. Every action costs energy, shown on screen; Reese’s Pieces candy, found along the way, restores it. When E.T. runs out of energy, Elliott can revive him up to three times, or four if you find a hidden flower in a pit.
The icon at the top of the screen shows which “power zone” E.T. is standing in, and the button uses that power. Depending on the zone, E.T. can reveal where a phone piece is hidden, eat candy for energy, send the humans back to their buildings, call Elliott, jump to a neighbouring area, or call his ship. Collect nine candies and call Elliott, and he will bring you a missing phone piece.
With the phone complete, call the ship from the right zone and reach the forest landing zone before a countdown ends. If any humans are on screen when it arrives, the ship leaves without him. After a rescue, a new round starts with the pieces in new places. You score mainly for candy (given to Elliott or still carried when the ship arrives) and for leftover energy.
Game variations and switches
- Game 1: the FBI agent, the scientist and Elliott are all in play. The agent takes phone pieces or candy; the scientist carries E.T. off for study.
- Game 2: no scientist.
- Game 3: only Elliott appears, the best choice for learning the map and the zones.
- Right difficulty switch: A makes the humans faster, B slower.
- Left difficulty switch: in B, Elliott may be on screen when the ship lands; in A, he may not.
Tips
- Use the “find phone piece” zone before exploring pits. It shows where a piece is, so you waste less energy in empty pits.
- Walk around pit edges carefully. The collision checks are strict, and brushing the edge of a pit drops you in.
- Save candy for Elliott. Nine pieces buy a phone part, often quicker than searching pits.
The story behind E.T.
Atari paid a very large sum for the film licence and wanted the game out for Christmas 1982. Warshaw, who had already made Yars’ Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark for Atari, was given the job at the end of July with a deadline of 1 September. Spielberg reportedly suggested something more like Pac-Man, but Warshaw stuck with his own adventure design built around the film’s story.
It sold well at first, but reviewers found it confusing, players hated falling into pits again and again, and huge numbers of unsold cartridges came back. It is widely cited as one of the causes of the 1983 video game crash. In 1983 Atari buried truckloads of unsold stock in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a story many long thought was a legend. In April 2014 an excavation confirmed that E.T. cartridges, along with many other Atari games, were there. Warshaw remains proud of what he built in the time he had, and fans have released patched versions that make the pits less punishing.
Similar games to play next
- Yars’ Revenge – Howard Scott Warshaw’s much-loved first game
- Raiders of the Lost Ark – Warshaw’s other film-based adventure for Atari
- Adventure – Atari’s earlier exploration game with hidden objects to find