Gauntlet (arcade game)
Gauntlet is a
1985 arcade game by
Atari Games. Released during the height of popularity of
role-playing games like
Dungeons & Dragons, this game was a sensation, being the first true
dungeon crawl arcade game.
Gauntlet is a
fantasy-themed arcade game which can be played by 1-4 players simultaneously, unique for arcade games of its day. A player may control either
Thor the
Warrior,
Merlin the
Wizard,
Thyra the
Valkyrie or
Questor the
Elf. The character being controlled is dictated by the player's position on the cabinet. (There is only one of each character). Each character has their own speciality/advantage: the Warrior is strongest in hand-to-hand combat, the Wizard has the strongest magic, the Valkyrie has the greatest armour and the Elf is the fastest in movement.
Players must cooperate to traverse the perils of a
dungeon via a top-down view.
The players traverse the dungeon levels controlling their assigned character, attacking persistent
monsters and collecting treasure and potions. The players must cooperate by sharing food and luring monsters into places where they can be engaged and slaughtered more conveniently. The characters continuously lose health during gameplay, regardless of what they are doing - even if they are just standing and not moving (possibly simulating hunger). Characters lose even more health when attacked by enemy dungeon denizens. Besides food found in the dungeon, players can add health by adding more credits. Hence, this game is notorious for being a money-gobbler when it first appeared since players desperately shoved in handfuls of coins in order to not be ejected from the game and run the heartache of sometimes waiting hours in line in order to play again.
One of the game's features was the
narrator's voice. It would frequently make statements reiterating the game's rules, including "Remember - don't shoot food!" and "Warrior needs food badly!" Occasionally, the narrator would encourage (or mock) the players in the thick of battle by saying "I've not seen such bravery!" or "Let's see you get out of here!" A memorable statement of the game occurred when a player's "life force" points dwindled to the point where he or she was in jeopardy of dying permanently: "Your life force is running out" or "
Valkyrie...is about to die"! Some of the game's statements are humorously ambiguous due to limited memory, such as "You are full of bombs and/or keys." These
catch phrases are still repeated today among many
role-playing and computer fans, especially "Wizard needs food badly!", which appears in
NetHack, evidently as a tribute and is the name of a song by the late
Christian ska/punk group
Five Iron Frenzy.
Due to the fact that the game was designed for up to four players to play at once, the cabinet is wider than other standard uprights. After its release, other games started using this design, so it was a popular conversion target for newer games after it had its run. Each player had a
joystick and two buttons, one for "Fire" (to attack) and one for "
Magic".
The historic influence of
Gauntlet can be seen in later dungeon crawler games such as
Cadash,
Dungeon Explorer,
Dark Seal, and
Diablo to name just a select few. Though by no means was
Gauntlet the only influence on these games, it clearly left a mark on them. For
Atari ST and
Amiga was produced a direct Gauntlet clone called
Garrison.
Gauntlet also has a place in
pop culture (specifically
'80s video gaming culture). Quotes from the voiceover announcer such as "Wizard needs food badly!" or "Valkyrie shot the potion!" are some lines from the game that became popular with
video arcade patrons and later with nostalgic Internet users, similar to
all your base are belong to us or the dog from
Duck Hunt. Because of this popularity and the designers' nostalgia for the older games, such lines have been included in the more modern
Gauntlet sequels.
Richard C. White wrote a
novel based on the video game franchise (specifically, the game
Gauntlet: Dark Legacy), entitled
Gauntlet Dark Legacy - Book 1: Paths Of Evil, in
2004. The sequel
Gauntlet Dark Legacy - Book 2: Paths Of Fear has been written and was planned for a
2005 release, but due to the demise of both
Byron Preiss Visual Productions and the licensor
Ibooks, Inc, this never came to pass. As of this writing, the license for these stories has reverted back to
Midway Games and unless a new licensor commissions White to finish his tale, Book 1 will likely be the last of the Gauntlet series (originally planned as a
tetralogy of novels).
There are many cheats for Gauntlet, such as standing still for 188 seconds on any level will cause all the walls to turn into exits. Also you must not kill any enemies during this 188 seconds period of inactivity or the 188 counter will reset to 0 seconds.
Due to its popularity,
Gauntlet spawned several sequels:
Gauntlet II (
1986)
Gauntlet III: The Final Quest (
1991)
Gauntlet: The Third Encounter (
1991 -
Atari Lynx exclusive release)
Gauntlet IV: The Castle of Succession (
1993)
Gauntlet Legends (
1998)
Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (
2000)
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (
2005)
Though the sequels have all enjoyed differing success, none have sparked the sensation this original game did upon its release.
Due to its phenomenal success in the
arcades,
Gauntlet was ported to several home systems of the day. These platforms include
DOS,
Apple II,
Atari 8-bit,
NES,
Atari Lynx,
Amiga,
Sega Master System,
Mega Drive/Genesis,
Atari ST,
Commodore 64 and
ZX Spectrum, among others. More recently,
Gauntlet was included in
Midway Arcade Treasures; a compilation of arcade games available for the
Nintendo GameCube,
PlayStation 2 and
Xbox consoles and
Windows. For some machines, only Gauntlet II was converted, since it was considered to be more advanced than the first game in series. 16-bit conversions (Amiga, Atari ST & Mega Drive/Genesis) had similar sound and graphics as the original game.
A
cell phone version for
Java ME and
BREW phones was developed by
TKO Software.
Gauntlet was recently released for the
Game Boy Advance on one of
DSI Games two packs, alongside
Rampart. In addition,
Gauntlet II is one of the games that can be found on the recently released
Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the aforementioned console systems.
Gauntlet is available for download over
Microsoft's
Xbox Live Arcade service as of the launch of the
Xbox 360. It was released for the same time on the original Xbox's Xbox Live Arcade service.
*
List of arcade games*
List of computer and video games by name*
Get Medieval - a spiritual successor to Gauntlet
*
The KLOV entry on Gauntlet*
Category at ODP*
The Gauntlet Warriors Page*
The NES version of Gauntlet being won in 12 minutes (video available on webpage) 
