[1][2][3] The VCS game was programmed by Ed Logg and Carol Shaw.

[4] The player can create their own problem by depositing pieces on the board, and select whether to go first or not.

[5] The game was programmed by Ed Logg, who had studied artificial intelligence at the Stanford University AI Lab,[6] and Carol Shaw, who later created River Raid.

[11] A review in the January 1983 issue of Tilt, the French video-games magazine, was broadly positive, particularly praising the ability to set up a problem before starting the game as an advantage over other electronic games of Othello, though it noted that the "expert" difficulty setting merely equated to the level of a good beginner.

[5] Conversely, a review in the Autumn 1983 issue of Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games was praising of the AI, describing the opponent on "Expert" setting as "capable of beating the pants off of you".