The_Laird Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Rather than go more off topic in the 7800 sound thread I thought it was better to start another one so we can discuss it more. So here is what we already know about the missing port of the classic Atari arcade game Gauntlet: It was developed in England by a company called Graftgold who also did Jinks for the 7800 as well as the 8-Bit home conversions of the game. It was previewed in a UK games magazine called ACE that was published by EMAP and they gave a very favourable early impression of it. The game was likely to have been a very large cartridge as it is know that the game featured the digitised voice from the arcade game. A sample from it was actually used on the title screen of Jinks. The game was said to be finished when it was for whetever reason cancelled by Atari, most likely due to the size of the cart and dwindling 7800 market. I was thinking about how we could maybe track this game down and remembered that Retro Gamer magazine did an interview last year with some of the programmers from Graftgold in a feature on Hewson, who published alot of their games and had early associations with them. If I find the article it might be possible to contact these people and find out if any of them worked on it, know who did or even in some kind of miracle have code for the game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tz101 Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 If it could be done on NES then there is no good reason it could not have been done better on 7800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Gauntlet would be an amazing game to have on the 7800! I had lots of fun playing this at the arcade we had on campus when I was in college. I always loved the voiceovers: "elf, shot the food!" Many people believe that Dark Chambers came after Gauntlet but it is the other way around. Dark Chambers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 Gauntlet would be an amazing game to have on the 7800! I had lots of fun playing this at the arcade we had on campus when I was in college. I always loved the voiceovers: "elf, shot the food!" Many people believe that Dark Chambers came after Gauntlet but it is the other way around. Dark Chambers Yeah Dark Chambers is a version of Dandy which was the game that inspired Gauntlet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 So, who's volunteering to bring this to the 7800? Groovy? Where are you? Kidding! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 So, who's volunteering to bring this to the 7800? Groovy? Where are you? Kidding! Nah! I have other plans... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 So, who's volunteering to bring this to the 7800? Groovy? Where are you? Kidding! Nobody needs to convert it again if its still out there to be found 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 So, who's volunteering to bring this to the 7800? Groovy? Where are you? Kidding! Nobody needs to convert it again if its still out there to be found :thumbsup: Groovy, I'm sure you DO have other stuff to work on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 So here is what we already know about the missing port of the classic Atari arcade game Gauntlet: It was developed in England by a company called Graftgold who also did Jinks for the 7800 as well as the 8-Bit home conversions of the game. Are you sure about that? In his introduction to the Stella mailing list Peter Pachla said he was working for US Gold in Birmingham when he ported Jinks to the 7800. IIRC he also mentioned in a different post that he never saw a 7800 version of Gauntlet in his time at US Gold (until 1989). He only used the samples because they already were available in a format suitable for 8-bit systems from the other ports of Gauntlet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 So, who's volunteering to bring this to the 7800? Groovy? Where are you? Kidding! Nah! I have other plans... "Not Gauntlet" "Nontlet" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 So here is what we already know about the missing port of the classic Atari arcade game Gauntlet: It was developed in England by a company called Graftgold who also did Jinks for the 7800 as well as the 8-Bit home conversions of the game. Are you sure about that? In his introduction to the Stella mailing list Peter Pachla said he was working for US Gold in Birmingham when he ported Jinks to the 7800. IIRC he also mentioned in a different post that he never saw a 7800 version of Gauntlet in his time at US Gold (until 1989). He only used the samples because they already were available in a format suitable for 8-bit systems from the other ports of Gauntlet. Very sure, it stated in the magazine that Graftgold were doing it. The magazine was late 89 at the earliest but I think it was from 1990 as I clearly remember that I only got the magazine because of some Lynx coverage in it and I didn't get a Lynx until 1990. You said until 1989 so if the game was done in 1990 he wouldn't have seen it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[d2f]Iggy*SJB Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 If it could be done on NES then there is no good reason it could not have been done better on 7800. I should hope so, the NES version sucked. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I bought the NES and that game, took it home grinning from ear to ear, and plugged it in to find out how crappy it was. I came very close to taking it back. Much later, I was very satisfied with Gauntlet II for the Amiga. It was arcade perfect, up to the ability for 4 players(players 3&4 required a special adapter for the parallel port). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Very sure, it stated in the magazine that Graftgold were doing it. The magazine was late 89 at the earliest but I think it was from 1990 as I clearly remember that I only got the magazine because of some Lynx coverage in it and I didn't get a Lynx until 1990. You said until 1989 so if the game was done in 1990 he wouldn't have seen it. I really wish we could find that magazine again. I read the article once in a store. If I remember right, they also talked about "SUPER HUEY", which wasn't out yet. But it's been over 20 years and my memory is fuzzy. Only other things I remember were: - the people who worked on Tower Toppler worked on Gauntlet - They made a comment about the 7800 not having bells and whistles compared to the 16-bit computers big in Europe at the time, but referred to it as "reliable" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Iggy*SJB' date='Sat Jan 29, 2011 8:25 PM' timestamp='1296361512' post='2196669'] If it could be done on NES then there is no good reason it could not have been done better on 7800. I should hope so, the NES version sucked. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I bought the NES and that game, took it home grinning from ear to ear, and plugged it in to find out how crappy it was. I came very close to taking it back. Much later, I was very satisfied with Gauntlet II for the Amiga. It was arcade perfect, up to the ability for 4 players(players 3&4 required a special adapter for the parallel port). That's good to know about the Amiga version. The ST version was also arcade perfect - from my recollection - but I don't recall if it worked with a 4 player adapter. I do know that there was a 4 player hardware adapter marketed for the ST; the game Leatherneck used it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted February 3, 2011 Author Share Posted February 3, 2011 The ST version is 4-player and arcade perfect. Its also widely regarded as better than the Amiga version. It was very popular indeed at Jagfest UK last year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 The ST version is 4-player and arcade perfect. Its also widely regarded as better than the Amiga version. It was very popular indeed at Jagfest UK last year. I'm curious about what computer platform Atari Games used to create the actual arcade game on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 The ST version of gauntlet 1 (not the sequel) sent you boss-eyed...the scrolling was all over the place (perhaps they should have hired Steve Bak to do the scroll routines) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Speaking of Gauntlet, I was just reading the entries for it and Dandy on Wikipedia and the Dandy entry reports that John Palevich worked on both the OS for the unreleased "Atari Rainbow" computer as well as on the AMY sound chip. Seems I'm going to have to hit up the Atari History Museum and one of the few websites devoted to the AMY chip that I've found in the past to see if Palevich is listed on those sites too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRV Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Here's an article from Zero from 1990 on U.S. Gold, mostly about the Master System versions of Impossible Mission and Gauntlet. There's a brief bit about the 7800 and the 7800 version of Gauntlet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Here's an article from Zero from 1990 on U.S. Gold, mostly about the Master System versions of Impossible Mission and Gauntlet. There's a brief bit about the 7800 and the 7800 version of Gauntlet. That's it! It wasn't ACE after all! I read it in a magazine shop that imported all these over twenty years ago. Thank you for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennybingo Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Is there any reason to believe that Gauntlet ever hit the prototype stage for the 7800??? If so, I would love to see a completed version of this game. One of my favorites from the arcade days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Is there any reason to believe that Gauntlet ever hit the prototype stage for the 7800??? If so, I would love to see a completed version of this game. One of my favorites from the arcade days! Atari 7800 prototypes are quite rare (Tramiel cheapness) and have a habit of being buried for years. It's entirely possible that one was never made. It's also possible that one was, but someone has it and doesn't want to mention it for fear of having the value drop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 It could also be that the prototype never left Graftgold and that if any were released to Atari, they would have headed off to Atari UK. I think Derek Fern bought out much of Atari UKs inventory, which included various prototypes that he later released (like Best have done in the US), so if Gauntlet wasn't amongst them then chances are that there wasn't a prototype. I would hedge a bet that third party developers were less likely to hold onto prototypes if the outsourced projects were cancelled, preferring instead to reuse the EPROMS. If anyone wants to try and find out what happened, there is an information website about Graftgold at http://www.graftgold.com. There is an email address for one of its founders, Steve Turner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 Derek Fern bought out much of Atari UKs inventory, which included various prototypes that he later released (like Best have done in the US), so if Gauntlet wasn't amongst them then chances are that there wasn't a prototype. Prototypes? What were they??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 (edited) Derek Fern bought out much of Atari UKs inventory, which included various prototypes that he later released (like Best have done in the US), so if Gauntlet wasn't amongst them then chances are that there wasn't a prototype. Prototypes? What were they??? TBH I can't remember. AFAIK they were all for the A8, though. He did release a few previously unpublished games. I'm sure Tower Toppler was one of them. Edited August 13, 2012 by Tickled_Pink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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