G.I. Joe was created by Ray Carpenter, Jeff Johannigman & Pam Carpenter for the C64 in 1985:
Still in the same year it was ported to the Apple 2 with graphics from Michael Kosaka:

  
Creators speak:
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A year ago, I talked with Jeff Johannigman, programmer of the C64 version

Hi Jeff!
"Hi Manuel, Jeff "G.I. Johannigman" at your service. Now officially a "retired game geezer", but glad to see somebody still remembers me and my work. I worked on the original C64 version of GI Joe for Epyx, but didn't do much with the Apple version."

What exactly was your job on 'G.I. Joe'?
"Ray Carpenter and I were co-designers and programmers on it. To be more specific, I did the "man-to-man" combat section, and Ray did the vehicle combat."

Are there other versions besides the Apple and the C64 ones?
"The C64 was the original, and a poorly-implemented Apple port came much later. Those were the only two I'm aware of."

Were you involved in the making of other Epyx games?
"Except for auditioning for the voice of Ken in Barbie, unfortunately not. Epyx laid off much of its staff, myself included, about two weeks after G.I. Joe shipped. I ended up at Electronic Arts a few weeks later."

Maybe you've some trivia to tell about 'G.I. Joe' or Epyx?
"Hmm, trivia... One interesting and flattering story I was told by Kellyn Beeck. Kellyn designed some of the first great "Cinemaware" games for the Amiga, like "Defenders of the Crown" (do you recall Cinemaware?). Kellyn told me that when Cinemaware founder Bob Jacob described his vision of "cinematic software", he used G.I. Joe as an example of using cinematic techniques such as establishing shots, in a computer game. (And here I thought I was just showing a pretty screen to cover up the horrendously slow c64 disk load time.)
I consider one of my best contributions to Electronic Arts was in recruiting two of Epyx's best talents, programmer Steve Landrum and animator Michael Kosaka, to join EA. They went on to create "Skate or Die!" and several other great EA titles."

Now, when this page was finished, I contacted him again, receiving this letter:

"WOW! I'm not sure if I feel really honored, or just really old. Probably a bit of both.
We used most of the characters from the first series of the cartoon.
There were a couple of snickers from our using two G.I. Joe characters listed next to each other on the screen: "Snow Job" and "Blow Torch". The obvious joke was to suggest we combine the two - ummm, "Snow Torch"?
For me, one of the funnest aspects of the project was getting to buy bunches of GI Joe toys from Toys R Us, and expense them to the company. The Baroness was my personal favorite.
And for the longest time around Epyx, I was referred to as "G.I. Johannigman".
Good luck with the rest of the site!"

I asked him two more questions, trying to solve some G.I. Joe mysteries:

Can you tell me who did the music for G.I. Joe?
"I can't for the life of me remember the music composer. His name may have been Bob Vierra, but I'm not at all certain."

Why is the game never ending?
"As for why the game has no end... Now THAT is an interesting point. When I first came to Epyx and they put me on the GI Joe project, they said "This is not a game. It's an ACTIVITY TOY." "Activity Toys" were Epyx president Michael Katz's idea (Katz came from the toy industry), to make products that were more open-ended, less goal oriented. I asked the other designers, and they all came to the same basic conclusion - "design a game, just don't have an ending."
Michael Katz, by the way, epitomized the clueless "pointy-eared boss".
When we first showed him the game prototype, his only real question was "Which one of those guys is GI Joe?"


Trivia:
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G.I. Joe was licensed from Hasbro, producer of the G.I. Joe action figures.
There exist several other G.I. Joe games, for the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainement System, but they weren't done by Epyx and are not related to the C64 version at all.
The game has no ending.

What G.I. Joe to play nowadays?
The C64 version of G.I. Joe is the clear winner in every respect. Better graphics, better sound & better gameplay.

Winning Strategy:
Well, since you can't beat the game anyway - just play it for fun :-)

