Gauntlet II question....
John Carpenter
that saw a lot of heavy action. There was a group of guys who would begin
a game early in the morning, one player playing the elf, and then they
would trade off and on during the day as they took turns going to class.
Those guys would play all day on one quarter, until the union closed in the
evening. They would build up potions all the way across the score display,
wrap around their health score (or so they said... I never personally saw
this happen). It was amazing, although somewhat annoying because noone else
would get to play.
Well, I bought a Gauntlet 2 a few months back, and after hours and
hours of practice, I still can't reach this "god" status where my game is
never in any threat of ending. Was that "feature" of Gauntlet 1 fixed in
Gauntlet II in order to increase earnings? I admit I am not perfect at
grabbing all the hidden stuff on every level, but I consider myself an
above average game player and yet I die no matter how well I am playing.
Is anyone here able to survive indefenitely (withing human limits) on
Gauntlet II? It seems to me you have a better chance of doing so with two
players, with the "its" and all. Yes, I have the FAQ! Am I still missing
something?
- John
:
--
John W. Carpenter
SEGA Pinball Inc.
jca...@mcs.com
John Carpenter
: > hours of practice, I still can't reach this "god" status...
: Yes, I think you are missing something... I recall a post last summer or
: even before written by a young lady who detailed her Gauntlet skills quite
: well. She could play FOREVER if she wanted, but could only get so far
: on Gauntlet 2. Not enough food to survive I think...
Eric Crabill emailed me and let me know that in Gauntlet II (and
ROM version 3 of Gauntlet I) Atari fixed this "feature" so that it was
impossible to stay alive indefinitely. A smart move on their part, but a
disappointment for me, since this was the reason I puchased the game in the
first place. Perhaps I'll buy a set of Gauntlet I boards in the future.
It's a shame they didn't leave a "super easy" setting in the adjustments to
allow for home players to go crazy.
Kerry Stillinger
>
> jca...@mcs.com
Yes, I think you are missing something... I recall a post last summer or
even before written by a young lady who detailed her Gauntlet skills quite
well. She could play FOREVER if she wanted, but could only get so far
on Gauntlet 2. Not enough food to survive I think...
Maybe this article is on wiretap or some kind soul has kept a copy
for posterity. Good luck in finding it.
Hey, this would be a good addition to the CD! I'll even look.
Kerry
Joe Carl
: Well, I bought a Gauntlet 2 a few months back, and after hours and
: hours of practice, I still can't reach this "god" status where my game is
: never in any threat of ending.
I have a Gauntlet II game in my basement, and I use to be one of those
players that could play Gauntlet I forever. I'd play the Wizard and
build up health so that I could walk away, eat lunch, come back and
still have the character alive.
However, I can't do it on Gauntlet II. I can go a very long time, but
the only way I can survive like I did in Gauntlet I is to sacrifice other
characters. They give me all the food and die.
So if there is a way to survive for long periods of time in Gauntlet II
I don't know how to do it, No matter what the setting on the game
difficulty is.
Joe Carl
Glenn Mandelkern
>Back in school, we had a Gauntlet 1 set up in the student union game room
>that saw a lot of heavy action. There was a group of guys who would begin
>would trade off and on during the day as they took turns going to class.
>Those guys would play all day on one quarter, until the union closed in the
>evening. They would build up potions all the way across the score display,
>wrap around their health score (or so they said... I never personally saw
>this happen).
Did we go to the same university? I went to the University of Miami
where I saw some guys doing this too. My challenge, though was to beat
their scores when they weren't around, it was my way of saying, "Elf
now has limited invisibility!"
Gauntlet shows scores consisting of 1 to 8 digits, from 0 to 10 million - 1.
Getting a score above 10,000,000 would show the rightmost digits needed.
I used to like leaving behind scores of 00000255 as #1 that made it seem
like a low score of 255 beat an average score of 30,000.
>It was amazing, although somewhat annoying because noone else
>would get to play.
Actually, whenever I'd play one of these long marathon sessions of
Gauntlet, I'd always "let" people join in. I always felt that was
part of the beauty of the Gauntlet game, that people could come and go.
Quarters could simultaneously be falling in 3 other slots besides mine.
They visited this smorgasbord, the "All You Can Eat" buffet that the
first two revisions of Gauntlet contained. I would encourage them
to eat, there was more coming. After all, I did not want them to
die right away, sometimes it was embarassing to hear, "Elf has eaten
all the food lately". Then they would leave and I'd pig out again.
Other players also helped my bonus multiplier.
It would have been nice if players were courteous by asking first before
joining, but they really are not obligated to do so. I never wanted to be
told that I was preventing the operator from making his money. Besides,
I was not the owner of the machine.
However, during one visit to Coney Island in New York in 1986, I came across
this Gauntlet that the operator posted a note that read something like:
Please limit your games to 30 minutes, MAX!
This game will be shut off with no warning.
> Well, I bought a Gauntlet 2 a few months back, and after hours and
>hours of practice, I still can't reach this "god" status where my game is
>never in any threat of ending. Was that "feature" of Gauntlet 1 fixed in
>Gauntlet II in order to increase earnings? I admit I am not perfect at
>grabbing all the hidden stuff on every level, but I consider myself an
>above average game player and yet I die no matter how well I am playing.
>Is anyone here able to survive indefenitely (withing human limits) on
>Gauntlet II?
I guess you probably know this already, having put "feature" in quotes
above for Gauntlet. Fixed placement and fixed quantity of food was
never really a feature for Gauntlet. I think the programmers never
anticipated on people playing Gauntlet defensively and therefore lasting
hours (I've previously posted "Questor's Quest", my 16-hour game to find
out if Gauntlet has a Level 1000).
Gauntlet's third (last) revision of software puts out less food than
two previous versions. It starts with a default setting of 700 Health.
If you look at the ROM's on the board, the ones at locations 7A and 7B
have pretty long numbers and have on just one line 09 and 10. The
previous sets were either 409/510 or 709/710. I'd venture that maybe
a number of operators complained about these people who would just never
die on Gauntlet, so the third release was made. I remember seeing one
technician making the ROM swap. I asked him what he was doing, he said,
"We're going to make this an even better game." He probably said under
his breath, "Better for the operator!"
Gauntlet II has some smarts built into it about the distribution of food.
It takes into consideration the number of players, the number of coins
inserted and the time in between coin insertions. The amount of
food decays with time. You can get to a point where you'd see a maze
that when it first appears as Level 6 has tons of food, yet 20 or 30
levels, you'll be hard pressed to find maybe 1 or 2 foods. However,
if you were to add a coin, Gauntlet II would see that and restore food.
This coin may come from you (undesirable because of SCORE PER COIN),
or from another player.
The highest I've gotten on Gauntlet II on one quarter by comparison has
been Level 53. Like you, dieing was not really based on the lack of
skill, it was the lack of food!
Also, the character you play influences the amount of food you get.
When I saw other people marathoning Gauntlet, they'd usually do it
with Wizard, then Warrior. Some people, as noted above, used the Elf.
Rare was the case that they'd use the Valkyrie. When I once visited
New Jersey, I went to a game room and played the Valkyrie until I
got to Level 573. Some guy came up to me and said, "You play really
good, but why the hell did you choose the Valkyrie?" He was going
on and on how I could have done so much better using the others,
expressing a real sense of disgust with the Valkyrie. I told him
that if you can do good with the Valkyrie, the others are special
treats in their areas of strength.
No doubt the game programmers took note of the fact how many Wizards
and Warriors were out there so they get less food. Valkyrie gets
the most food on Gauntlet II. You can notice this on Level 3 where
Wizard and Warrior may not even get 1 food, but Valkyrie will get 2
destructible foods, the ones with the XX's. Elf falls somewhere
in between. My Level 53 game up above was with Elf. I've had similar
successes with Valkyrie, particularly if she gets a secret room
early in the game.
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Glenn Mandelkern Hee, hee, hee, hee!
gma...@megatest.com Questor the Elf lives!
What does Motif sound like in the key of C? C++? X?