Falkentyne
New member
I know there was a 2 player test version, but there may have been a 4 player prototype version as well, that came out before "Intermediate release 1"
Has anyone seen or ever played it?
I remember two things from seeing this machine in 9th grade, in mid 1985 at a bowling alley which make me 100% sure it was the prototype version:
1) When Thief stole from a player and ran away, he had a different sound, instead of saying "haha, you can't catch me!", he sometimes said some sort of bizarre laughing taunt very quickly.
I remember it going "hahaha hahaha nak nak naakakak nak nak nak NAK" or something. It was quite fast, and it was NOT the same sound the Thief makes when you block his escape path after being pilfered (the block escape sound taunt is in both Gauntlet 1 and Gauntlet 2). I remember this because when I got pilfered and he got away, he made that strange laughing sound and all the people watching me play just started cracking up massively, as they had never heard that before. I was very surprised, back when I started getting "Good" at the infinite food Gauntlet versions (I didn't know anything about different ROMS yet), why I never encountered either that "food" level mentioned below, or ever saw that thief taunt again.
I checked the sound banks on MAME for "intermediate release 1" to see if any of those sounds are in the game, and they were NOT in the sound banks. If you block the thief's escape sound, his "ha ha" sound sounds similar, but doesn't come out as often nor nearly as fast.
2) There was a famous level I remember seeing around the same time (one of the first times I encountered the 4 player version, so it was still the "prototype"):
This level : or a variation of this level:
On the prototype version, the "key" room was filled with food, probably assuming 4 players were playing and each one would share 200-300 health. I remember watching people play, trying to take turns sharing food, while not opening the doors.
Then there was a key somewhere else and as soon as you opened a door, you got swarmed by ghosts.
On intermediate release 1 you got keys in that location instead.
It would be really nice if someone had access to the proto board and could get the ROMS dumped, as there were probably other bizarre things in the game also.
Has anyone seen or ever played it?
I remember two things from seeing this machine in 9th grade, in mid 1985 at a bowling alley which make me 100% sure it was the prototype version:
1) When Thief stole from a player and ran away, he had a different sound, instead of saying "haha, you can't catch me!", he sometimes said some sort of bizarre laughing taunt very quickly.
I remember it going "hahaha hahaha nak nak naakakak nak nak nak NAK" or something. It was quite fast, and it was NOT the same sound the Thief makes when you block his escape path after being pilfered (the block escape sound taunt is in both Gauntlet 1 and Gauntlet 2). I remember this because when I got pilfered and he got away, he made that strange laughing sound and all the people watching me play just started cracking up massively, as they had never heard that before. I was very surprised, back when I started getting "Good" at the infinite food Gauntlet versions (I didn't know anything about different ROMS yet), why I never encountered either that "food" level mentioned below, or ever saw that thief taunt again.
I checked the sound banks on MAME for "intermediate release 1" to see if any of those sounds are in the game, and they were NOT in the sound banks. If you block the thief's escape sound, his "ha ha" sound sounds similar, but doesn't come out as often nor nearly as fast.
2) There was a famous level I remember seeing around the same time (one of the first times I encountered the 4 player version, so it was still the "prototype"):
This level : or a variation of this level:
On the prototype version, the "key" room was filled with food, probably assuming 4 players were playing and each one would share 200-300 health. I remember watching people play, trying to take turns sharing food, while not opening the doors.
Then there was a key somewhere else and as soon as you opened a door, you got swarmed by ghosts.
On intermediate release 1 you got keys in that location instead.
It would be really nice if someone had access to the proto board and could get the ROMS dumped, as there were probably other bizarre things in the game also.
