Gauntlet (1985 video game)

Gauntlet
North American arcade flyer
Developer(s)Atari Games
Publisher(s)Arcade
Ports
Tengen
U.S. Gold
Designer(s)Ed Logg
Programmer(s)Bob Flanagan[14]
Artist(s)Sam Comstock[15]
Susan G. McBride[15]
Alan J. Murphy[15]
Will Noble[15]
Composer(s)
List
  • Arcade, NES
    Hal Canon
    Earl Vickers
    CPC, ZX Spectrum
    Ben Daglish
SeriesGauntlet
Platform(s)
Arcade
Release
October 15, 1985
  • Arcade
    ZX Spectrum
    C64
    CPC, MSX
    Atari ST
    • October 1987[8]
    Atari 8-bit
    • December 1987[9]
    Apple IIGS
    Apple II
    NES
    MS-DOS
    • 1988
    Macintosh
    Master System
Genre(s)Hack and slash, dungeon crawl
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer
Arcade systemAtari Gauntlet

Gauntlet is a 1985 hack and slash video game developed and published by Atari Games for arcades.[3] It is one of the first multiplayer dungeon crawl arcade games.[16][17] The core design of Gauntlet comes from 1983 game Dandy for the Atari 8-bit computers, which resulted in a threat of legal action.[18] It also has similarities to the action-adventure maze video game Time Bandit (1983).

The arcade version of Gauntlet was released in October 1985, initially available only as a dedicated four-player cabinet. Atari distributed a total of 7,848 arcade units.[19] In Japan, the game was released by Namco in February 1986.[5] Atari later released a two-player cabinet variant in June 1986, aimed at operators who could not afford or did not have sufficient space for the four-player version.[2][20]

  1. ^ "'Role-playing' Vid". Cash Box. November 2, 1985.
  2. ^ a b "The Adventures Continues With Gauntlet" (PDF). Atari Games Players Journal. Vol. 1, no. 3. August 1986. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2014.
  3. ^ a b "Gauntlet". The International Arcade Museum. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  4. ^ "Gauntlet (Registration Number PA0000275895)". United States Copyright Office. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  5. ^ a b "ガントレット" [Gauntlet]. Media Arts Database (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  6. ^ "Gauntlet for Four". Sinclair User. No. 53. EMAP. August 1986. p. 97.
  7. ^ "Availability Update" (PDF). Computer Entertainer. Vol. 6, no. 7. October 1987. p. 14.
  8. ^ "Availability Update" (PDF). Computer Entertainer. Vol. 6, no. 8. November 1987. p. 14.
  9. ^ "Availability Update" (PDF). Computer Entertainer. Vol. 6, no. 9. December 1987. p. 14.
  10. ^ a b "Availability Update" (PDF). Computer Entertainer. Vol. 7, no. 1. April 1988. p. 14.
  11. ^ "Availability Update" (PDF). Computer Entertainer. Vol. 7, no. 4. July 1988. p. 13.
  12. ^ "Availability Update" (PDF). Computer Entertainer. Vol. 8, no. 2. May 1989. p. 14.
  13. ^ "Gauntlet - Sega Review" (PDF). Mean Machines. No. 1. October 1990. pp. 58–60. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 3, 2014.
  14. ^ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-flanagan-906586
  15. ^ a b c d "Gauntlet (1985) Arcade credits". MobyGames.
  16. ^ "GDC Vault - Classic Game Postmortem: Gauntlet". Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  17. ^ "Gauntlet Postmortem by Ed Logg" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 1, 2013. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Palevich was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ "Atari Production Numbers Memo". Atari Games. January 4, 2010. Archived from the original on January 20, 2013. Retrieved March 18, 2012.
  20. ^ "'Gauntlet' For Two". Cash Box. June 21, 1986.