July 1983 Mike Hally Interview

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Written by Administrator | 22 February 2010
Posted in Document Library - News Articles

When Mike Hally started working for Atari in 1976, the movie Star Wars had just been released. “I always dreamed that we would have the technology to do that sort of stuff”, he said.

No one did at the time; and besides, strange as it may sound today, "I don’t think seven years ago anyone really thought about the movie media and the game people getting together. Tron really kind of sparked it."

Ever since the game Tron came out—and made more of a profit than the movie of the -same name- manufacturers have been hunting for movie tie-ins for their games this summer. Krull goes with a movie to be released at the end of the month, and Atari is working on an E. T. game.

But the biggest movie series of all time didn't spawn an arcade game until this month, when Atari released the first of what will be three Star wars related games it has licensed from the movies owner, Lucasfilm Limited.

Hally, supervisor of the pro ject office at Atari, was head designer on the Star Wars project. He said the six people in the core design group spent "'six long, hard months" developing the game, using systems from a number of advanced design pro jects Atari had already been conducting.

"What they (Lucasfilm) wanted wasn't really possible until one or two years ago." he said".  The display is a medium resolution, medium speed display, which is new. It produces cleaner color and the ability to draw more things on the screen.

The game hardware has a full 3-D math box. The control is a totally new style, new type, which allows ease of flight. There are also new sound chips that handle the game’s music and dialogue.

Although, “there’s a few things and there” - Hally said the game has no major technical flaws. He called it, “one of the most sophisticated, detailed coin games on the market.”

But, it wont be the most sophisticated for long. Hally said projects now in the works with improved game hardware, make them process information faster, have more memory, and operate in stereo and 3-D. "Anything that will add to the environment", of a game is being tried.

"I'm working on some really bizarre player interaction type games" including systems to link arcade games together so players can compete against one another.

He said Atari is "most definitely" going to come out with a laser disc game fairly soon "We haven't always been first, but we always try to be best" he said. "We're looking at doing a full blownstring capability" which would allow players to control the action at every point in the game — some things videodisc games cannot do now.

Hally said he started out as a mechanical engineer working on pinball games, but was frequently asked t o assist with the design of video games because "I have a knack of picturing things in my head.  I just liked doing it. It was easy for me."

The first game he designed es/advanced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> was Gravitar, followed by one he said was a terrible failure and was never released.

Star Wars was an extra-difficult project. "It was no small feat to get the game, so I was under a lot of pressure to make the game go over well.” The pressure from Atari was simple- “make the game good.”   What Lucasfilm wanted was tougher.

"They require very elaborate overview of the Star Wars universe. It has to fit in the style of play, its sequence, and the options open to the player. You couldn't kill Darth (Vader, the archenemy of the series, who does not die until the third movie). Luke (Skywalker, the hero of the films) can't really get killed."

"We had to create the game within that environment. We worked with them very closely."

Hally said he wanted especially to avoid what happened to Parker Brothers, manufacturer of the Star Wars home games. Hally said Lucasfilm rejected much of Parker Brothers' initial work because it had little to do with the movie.

The second and third games, to be based on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, are now under develop ment "on a decent priority."  The next one won't be out until after the AMOA convention in October, although "there's no guarantee" that the games will be released at all if they are judged not playable.

Meanwhile, the movie/game connection marches on. The E.T. game is "coming along well on us development. “When it gets done is really a matter of when we need it to fill a gap in Atari's release schedule”, Hally said.

And he plans to continue working in what he considers to be his niche in life, or "something like it."

"It's an interesting sort of art form, and I really get a kick out of being able to design some thing that I can watch so many kids enjoying themselves on."