Like most 80s kids, I was a huge fan of The Goonies, the child-adventure movie that did so incredibly well to capture our imaginations and help make 1985 one of the best years our generation had ever known. For us, Donner and Spielberg's was a monumentally important production. No other movie had ever made a bigger impact on our lives. No other movie had ever done as much to define for us an entire era and therein influence the way we felt about childhood and our potential to shape the world around us.
So yeah--The Goonies was a big deal to those of us who grew up during the 80s. It was part of our culture; we took inspiration from it, we bonded over it, and we quoted it to hell ("Goonies never say die!"). Few properties had that power. Few would be as fondly remembered.
The Goonies came into my life at a time when I still saw the world as being filled with wonder and mystery, so it made sense that I was deeply interested in its story about a bunch of kids, all of whom were around my age, defying their parents and going on a dangerous adventure to explore the unknown and search for hidden treasure. "This is something I have to see!" I thought to myself immediately after seeing one of the movie's first TV trailers. So I made sure to ask me father to take me to the theater no later than the day of its release.
And, of course, I absolutely loved the The Goonies! I loved everything about it: the story, the characters, the setting, the soundtrack (particularly the main theme--The Goonies 'R' Good Enough, which was performed by Cyndi Lauper, who at the time was a pop sensation), and the interactions between the Goonies. Sure--I didn't understand half of what they were saying (Chunk "ate weight and got his father's pizza"? Like, what?"), but still I was enamored with the manner in which they communicated with each other and how they worked together--how they combined their unique talents--to solve problems.
The Goonies spoke to me like no movie ever had before. I found myself hopelessly drawn to it. Over the next few weeks, I saw it in theaters multiple times. The moment it was released on VHS, I had my parents pick me up a copy, and then I proceeded to watch it once every day for several months. I couldn't stay away from it. It was, quite simply, my favorite movie ever. I watched it dozens of times. I memorized every bit of dialogue. I thought about it constantly. I just loved it. The Goonies meant the world to me.
So, you would think, I was probably ecstatic when while flipping through my brother's Commodore 64 disks I suddenly discovered that there was a video-game adaptation of The Goonies and that I had ready access to it.
Well, no, I wasn't. In fact, I was feeling rather indifferent in that moment. That's because I had a certain disposition. For as long as I can remember, I'd always had an extreme disinterest in movie-to-game adaptations. Nothing struck me as more boring than or as unimaginative as turning a movie into a video game. I can't adequately articulate why that was (or still is), exactly, but I think that it has something to do with my feeling as though the two mediums were entirely incompatible--as though it wasn't possible to sufficiently, interestingly reproduce a movie's scene-by-scene progression in video-game format. After all: Faithfulness was something very important to me.
So no--I wasn't about to excitedly embrace the game simply because it happened to carry the name of my favorite movie.
But once the game came into view, something strange happened: Quickly I was taken with what I was seeing and hearing. Instantly I was a fan of both its eerie-but fantastically-wondrous title-screen visual--which showed the silhouetted Goonies standing hand and hand in front of the Fratelli's Lighthouse Lounge hideout, looking as though they were sizing up the place up and carefully contemplating their next move--and its emotive-sounding, wistfully haunting digital rendition of The Goonies 'R' Good Enough. The two of them conspired together to put me under a spell--to enter me into a deeply reflective state in which all I could do was stare at the screen raptly and wonder about what the image and the music were trying to tell me.
Somehow, in just its opening seconds, The Goonies had managed to do something incredible: It had breached its way through my solidly constructed mental barrier and convinced me that yes--a video game could indeed capture the spirit of the movie that inspired it. That yes--it was very much compatible with the Commodore 64, which, much like the film in question, had a way evoking feelings of discovery and adventure. "Where better to play such a game than on the C64," I thought to myself, "a platform that has always invited me to explore the unknown?"
This became one of my all-time favorite title screens. Its visual and musical elements combined to create an absolutely intoxicating scene, and each time I'd play The Goonies, I'd always be sure to take a few moments to drink it in. Sometimes, as I'd do with Commando and other games whose opening sequences had so captivated me, I'd load up The Goonies if only to observe its title screen--if only to listen to its main theme and examine its title image and therein absorb its every emanation.
It was an interesting concept, I thought. I'd never seen anything like it. As far as I knew, The Goonies was the first game to ever employ such a system (outside of Combat and Armor Ambush, neither of which, honestly, featured this level complexity). (I realize now that this was my introduction to the team-based system that I'd put to use in future adventure games like Maniac Mansion, which greatly expanded upon said system, and The Cave, which was highly derivative of the former.)
I have to admit, though: At first, I was kinda intimidated by the idea of having to both control and keep track of two separate characters. I feared that such a system would prove to be too complex for me--that what I was being asked to do was equivalent to attempting to successfully balance a mile-high stack of china in each hand.
What helped to ease me in was the game's presentation and specifically its powerfully alluring 8-bit interpretation of The Goonies' world. Immediately I fell in love with the opening stage's rendering of the Lighthouse Lounge and its exterior environment. The visual design, the tertiary color-scheme, the instantly-recognizable decor--all of it combined to render a faithful-feeling re-creation of the Fratelli's hideout and at the same time excellently produce the desired atmosphere. "They really nailed it," I thought.
I simply loved the stage's rendering of the Fratelli's rundown, creepy-looking four-story lounge. I was enraptured by its every graphical detail: the boarded-up windows, the tattered walls, the coat rack next the fireplace, the large spider web on the third floor's left side, and the calm starry night sky whose presence spoke of an outside world that was completely oblivious to all of the unusual activity that was going on in this abandoned restaurant in the middle of nowhere. That the game's wonderfully evocative main theme could be heard in this stage helped to enhance its somber atmosphere and in doing so intensify the feelings of isolation and desperate struggle.
Stage 1's rendering of the Fratelli's hideout represents one of my favorite C64 visuals. It's always the very first image that pops into my mind whenever I think about either Goonies-based video games or early computer gaming. For me, it's an image that defines both of them; it speaks strongly of their values and what they strive to produce. And for as long as I live, I'll always find great enjoyment in looking at it and thinking about it.
I played through this stage more than any other mostly because it contained the game's easiest-to-solve puzzle. All you had to do was send one Goonie to the attic to activate the counterfeit-money machine--doing which distracted Mama Fratelli, who would feel the need to rush outside and catch the counterfeit bills as they floated down from the attic window--and then have the other Goonie jump around on the ground floor's left side and consequently knock over the water cooler, which upon hitting the surface would break through the floor and reveal a secret passage (I'd always have Chunk do the latter, since I felt that it was important to faithfully replicate the movie's scenes).
Then came the difficult part: the harrowing rush to the passage. It was easy to make it there with Chunk, who was able to move about freely while Mama Fratelli was distracted. For the second Goonie (Mikey, I think), though, this was much trickier because you had descend three floors to reach the passage and finish making this mad dash before Mama Fratelli could secure the last of the floating bills; if you weren't quick enough, she'd cut Mikey off, grab hold of him, and then proceed to reduce him to ashes (apparently).
To complicate matters, you had to do some extra work to access the passage: You had to position yourself directly over it and then push down on the control stick, and you had to do so quickly and accurately while under a lot of pressure. And this was one of those games in which you had to press "Up" on the control stick to jump, so you had to be careful not to tilt the control stick too far diagonally while moving forward, lest you'd accidentally jump and potentially stall yourself. Solid execution was critical.
Back then, I was the nervous type, so I'd screw up the execution about, say, 40% of time. This was a problem because often the game demanded pinpoint accuracy (as did a lot of C64 action games), and your failing to meet that standard would likely result in the rapid depletion of your life-stock. So any challenge that required pixel-perfect accuracy could potentially wipe me out. And usually that's how I'd go out: all lives lost in one particular space; it was almost never a slow drain.
I very much appreciated how the subsequent stages continued to follow the movie and in doing so introduced puzzles built around familiar-looking set pieces. The developers obviously had a lot of respect for the subject-matter, which meant a lot to me. All too often, companies would take creative license and turn out products that had little to no connection to the properties that inspired them. This game, though, was faithful all throughout, and its eagerness to remain as such was its greatest strength.
And the subsequent stages did just as well to produce the desired atmosphere. Each one featured imagery that was appropriately somber and creepy and an emotive musical theme that did splendidly to provide it an air of silent danger and mystery. Each was so engrossing that I'd spend just as much time examining its imagery and listening to its music as I did traversing it. That spoke of the game's strong character.
The problem was that each successive stage was significantly more difficult than the last. As you advanced farther into the game, the stages' puzzles would grow increasingly obtuse, and their platforming bits would become much more unforgiving. Soon you'd be asked to tackle a challenge that required you to, say, have one Goonie continuously jump between two or three event-triggering switches while dodging incoming bullets and at the same time have the second Goonie quickly and accurately traverse his way through a maze of twisting caves so that he could arrive in time to hit the next in a series of switches whose flipping would open a path for the rolling boulder that would then be allowed to travel to the screen's left side and depress a floor switch and thus initiate the third part in the super-complex Rube Goldberg-like sequence.
Oh, and all the while, there would likely be one or two bats flying around--bats whose scripted flight patterns saw them pass through all of the points at which your characters needed to be stationed (near switches, levers, springboards, and such). So you had to constantly keep track of them, too. And because so much was going on, it was easy to become overwhelmed to the point where you'd start screwing up even the simplest actions; and even the tiniest mistake could prove disastrous.
If I could make it as far, I'd usually fail decisively on Stage 5--the one with the giant-skull construction whose portals transported Goonies to one of three separate enclosed areas. At that point in the game, the level design had grown too complex for me, and I was finding it too difficult to keep tabs on the bats, which could also travel through portals and quickly bounce around the stage. It was too much for me, and I was unlikely to succeed even if I somehow made it there with all eight lives. "I'm not sure that I have what it takes to beat this game," I was made to think.
Nevertheless, I was still quite fond of The Goonies. It could be frustrating as hell, yeah, but I really enjoyed playing it. For however mystifying its puzzles were, I still had a lot of fun trying to comprehend and solve them. And, of course, I was already a fan of its every other aspect: its clever concept, its inventive team-based system, its alluring graphical design, and its wonderfully evocative music.
The Goonies was a shiny little gem, and I was so happy to have discovered it.
My experiences with The Goonies played a big role in instilling within me the belief that you didn't need to be able to actually beat a game to extract great enjoyment from it--that there were plenty of other ways in which you could derive entertainment from a video game. And for the longest time, that's how I went about interacting with The Goonies. I'd create my own fun; I'd have a great time examining its environments, listening to its music, and finding interesting ways to manipulate its event-triggering mechanics. That, to me, was The Goonies experience--one that I always found highly enjoyable.
However, there was a part of me that desired to see The Goonies through to the end. Even though I thought of it as one of those games that could only be beaten by a well-practiced video-game master, a little voice was always telling me that I could achieve ultimate victory if I kept at it--that I could pull off the perfect run through sheer perseverance. That was one of the many reasons why I returned to the game as often as I did. Sadly, I was never able to advance to the final stage, and eventually I gave up trying. It just wasn't going to happen (not at that time in life, at least).
And, really, I was fine with that. My inability to beat the game didn't at all hamper my enjoyment of it. No--I was still very fond of it. I was still just as eager to visit its world and happily immerse myself in it. That would never change.
My only regret is that I failed to realize that The Goonies had a two-player co-op mode (I didn't learn of it until the early 2000s). Had I known about it, I would have taken every opportunity to play the game with my friends, and surely The Goonies would have become one of my all-time favorite multiplayer games. Playing it that way would have been a blast!
Oh, if only I'd paid more attention. What a waste, man.
Yet even if it were to work out to where I never again laid eyes on it, The Goonies would still resonate just as strongly with me. I would still always remember how it looked, how it sounded, how it played, and, more than anything, how it stirred my imagination. I would still recall how it lovingly recreated the movie's world and in doing so provided me direct transport to it.
And that would be good enough for me.
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