Gauntlet

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Description

Gauntlet is an action game where players choose characters and fight their way through hordes of enemies that assault them on the way to the end of the level. One or two players must make their way through 100 levels of mayhem and magic.

The game features a choice of four characters to play with, each with different weapons. Thor the Warrior has a bludgeoning battle axe, Thyra the Valkyrie has a close range sword, Questor the Elf has his long range bow, and Merlin the Wizard has magical bolts.

Ghosts, goblins and even the life-draining Death are among the enemies. Enemies stream out of generators, so destroy these before tackling the rest.

Keys are needed to open the many doors within the levels, and in some situations a door will contain only bonus items, not a progressive route. Scattered magic potions act like smart bombs and clear the screen of all enemies. Beware of poison though, this reduces the character's energy level. Treasure is abundant throughout the levels and adds to the player's score.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "圣铠传说" -- Simplified Chinese spelling
• "Dungeons" -- Working title

Part of the Following Groups

• Fantasy Creatures: Elves
• Gameplay feature: Hunger / Thirst
• Gauntlet series
• Launch title: Xbox 360 (North America)

User Reviews

One of the most addictive games ever, and a downright excellent arcade conversion.	DOS	Tomer Gabel (4633)
OH YES! The Arcade classic comes to the C-64 Personal Computer!	Commodore 64	XplOrOrOr (16)

Critic Reviews

Computer Gamer	Amstrad CPC	Jan, 1987	100 out of 100	100
Computer Gamer	ZX Spectrum	Feb, 1987	94 out of 100	94
Zzap!	Commodore 64	Feb, 1987	93 out of 100	93
Mobile Game Faqs	J2ME	Nov 08, 2004	88 out of 100	88
64'er	Commodore 64	Feb, 1987	13 out of 15	87
Eurogamer.net (UK)	Arcade	Oct 25, 2007	8 out of 10	80
The Games Machine (UK)	DOS	Oct, 1988	72 out of 100	72
Game Chronicles	Xbox 360	Mar 04, 2006	6 out of 10	60
Lawrence	Xbox 360	Aug 15, 2006	5.9 out of 10	59
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	SEGA Master System	Oct, 1990	6.2 out of 12	52

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
advertisement	2	Simon Carless (1850) Jul 29, 2016

Trivia

Development

• Atari arcade programmer Ed Logg wanted to do a Dungeons&Dragons arcade game because his son was a D&D fan. Logg didn't know how to take D&D into an arcade game format, until he was inspired by the game Dandy on Atari 800.
• Tony Porter and Kevin Bulmer - programmer and graphic artist of Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX and Master System conversions - had no support from Atari at coding level. No source code was presented until they had completed the games. They worked everything out by playing the arcade version which they had in the office and could play for free.

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Gauntlet appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

DOS version

The DOS version uses a tweaked 256x200 pixel graphics mode and some other graphics trickery in EGA. Many VGA (and later) cards do not support this properly causing the game to hang after the character selection screen. DOSBox (starting at version 0.73) includes proper EGA emulation that allow this game to run when configured with the "machine=ega" option.

PCjr

There is an interesting note in the documentation for PCjr users:

Note to Pcjr users: If you wish to run the program in 16-color mode, the line DEVICE=PCJRMEM.COM present in the config.sys file on your boot disk must be changed to read DEVICE=PCJRMEM.COM /C instead.

This gives a clue as to how to get other Tandy 1000 graphic-mode games running on a PCjr (ironic, since the Tandy is a clone of the PCjr).

Awards

• Commodore Format
  • March 1991 (Issue 6) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
• Game Informer
  • August 2001(Issue #100) - #64 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll

Information also contributed by PCGamer77 and Steven Don

Related Web Sites

• Gauntlet 1987 C+VG Atari ST Special (Interview with Atari ST version creators Graham Lilley and Teoman Irmak regarding the behind the scenes of the conversion)
• X360A achievement guide (X360A's achievement guide for Gauntlet.)