The key to a better Gauntlet?

[kensu]

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on Dandy (the predecessor to Gauntlet; that's a complex story for another time).

When reading the section on development I noticed this:

 

The game engine was inspired by John Conway's Game of Life. Life is cellular automata; at each "turn" the game examines the squares on the grid that makes up the playfield, and uses a basic calculation to determine whether or not that square should hold a cell. In Dandy this same basic mechanism is used, but the decision was essentially "if the player is on that side of the cell, and there is a monster on the other side, then I will hold a monster on the next turn." This gave the illusion of the monsters chasing the player, when in fact they did not move at all. Like a marquee, the motion was an illusion as they simply turned on or off. This algorithm was easy to implement using the limited resources of the Atari 800; it took the same time to run no matter how many monsters were currently in the map. It also had the property that any dungeon that could be drawn in the editor would run correctly and efficiently, the designer did not have to worry about "correct" placement of the monsters or generators to ensure the map would.

 

Not only was I surprised to learn that the original Dandy was on an Atari 800, but this shows how it got over the limitations of missile/player graphics.

I remember that someone attempted to make a 5200 Gauntlet, and I think it used missile/player graphics with each player object representing a group of monsters, and when you killed one it would change the sprite to a group which didn't contain that monster. This approach would seem to work better.

I wonder if this would also be fast enough for Galaga, which had similar roadblocks to implementation.

[+bcombee]

There's actually a pretty good Atari 8-bit version of Gauntlet on disk. I'm pretty sure it's using ANTIC mode 4 or 5 and doing all the monsters with character graphics, with the two characters and their weapons implemented using players.

[Lynxpro]

A8 Gauntlet was ported to the 5200. There's pics of the limited cartridge run from a few years ago here at AtariAge.

 

The consensus was pretty much that RAM is the limiting factor to making it run better on the 5200. If I recall, the 5200 - compared to the 7800 - is very limited about what you can do with bankswitched RAM on the cartridge [if at all].

 

4-player needs to be added since more than half - I'm estimating - of the 5200s are 4-port models. Gotta address that positive right there.

 

The other option discussed - both for 5200 and 7800 - is skinning Dark Chambers. One would need to convert XE Dark Chambers to the 5200, then grabbing the maps from the NES version of Gauntlet and applying them to it. Then you'd have the speed of Dark Chambers combined with more authentic Gauntlet maps. 4-player would still have be resolved and then there's adding the music back [probably grabbing the POKEY audio from A8 Gauntlet].

 

That would be quite a task and due to the RAM limitations, it might be limited to a ROM image release for the AtariMax cartridge adapter. This is all in theory.

 

Just for kicks, I'd like to see the CX-53 Trak-Ball supported too. I'll have to upload Dan Kramer's documented notes and recommendations on how to support the CX-53 here on AA sometime. He hopes that'll inspire more of the home brewers to support it.

[kensu]

Didn't the arcade game procedurally generate the maps after a certain point? (Level 12, I think?) That would seem to be a better solution than wasting RAM with the NES data.

Can't say I know the first thing about procedural generation, though...

[Lynxpro]

Didn't the arcade game procedurally generate the maps after a certain point? (Level 12, I think?) That would seem to be a better solution than wasting RAM with the NES data.

Can't say I know the first thing about procedural generation, though...

 

I thought they flipped them after Level 100, at least in the arcade original.

[+MrFish]

There's actually a pretty good Atari 8-bit version of Gauntlet on disk. I'm pretty sure it's using ANTIC mode 4 or 5 and doing all the monsters with character graphics, with the two characters and their weapons implemented using players.

 

Actually it doesn't use character mode, it's all bitmapped. They probably did that because of the 128 character limit for a set. It's pretty slow though. Using multiple character sets would have been a better solution. This is what was done with "Into the Eagles Nest", which is also a Gauntlet type game and much faster. A little different, but maybe a conversion of this (if possible) would help fill the need a little better.

Edited December 8, 2014 by MrFish

[ziggystar]

The way I ported gauntlet is how it’s described. I used handy as a basis. It’s all character map with the main player being a sprite only. 

[Lynxpro]

29 minutes ago, ziggystar said:

The way I ported gauntlet is how it’s described. I used handy as a basis. It’s all character map with the main player being a sprite only. 

Hi John:

 

So you ported the US Gold/Domark/Mindscape A8 Gauntlet over to the 5200? Cool!

 

Do you own Exidy's IP?