Gauntlet

The game is set within a series of top-down, third-person, orthographic mazes where the object is to kill monsters, gather treasures, and find the exit in every level. An assortment of special items can be located in each level. These items can increase the player's health, unlock doors, award more points and destroy all of the enemies on screen.

Each player controls one of four fantasy-based characters: Thor, a warrior; Merlin, a wizard; Thyra, a valkyrie; or Questor, an Elf. The characters are named on the cabinet artwork, but in-game they are referred only by the title of their classes. Each character has his or her own unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, the warrior is strongest in hand-to-hand combat, the wizard has the most powerful magic, the valkyrie has the best armor, and the Elf is the fastest in movement. The characters are assigned by control panel in the four-player version, whereas in the two-player version each player selects their own character at the start of the game or while joining during the middle of play.

Originally called Dungeons, the game was conceived by Atari game designer Ed Logg. He claimed inspiration from his son's interest in the paper-based game Dungeons & Dragons and from his own interest in the 1983 four-player dungeon crawl for the Atari 8-bit computers, Dandy.

The game's development spanned from 1983 to 1985, with a team being led by designers Ed Logg and Roger Zeigler. The working title became legally unavailable in April 1985, so it was renamed Gauntlet in May. Based upon some of the most elaborate hardware design in Atari's history to date, it is the company's first coin-operated game that features a voice synthesizer chip.

The game was highly profitable upon its November 1985 launch in North America, reportedly earning one San Mateo, California arcade operator $15,000 in sixteen weeks and another Canadian operator US$4,500 in nine days. In the United States, it topped the monthly RePlay upright arcade cabinet chart in December 1985, and topped the Play Meter arcade video game charts from January 1986 to March 1986; after being displaced by Sega's Hang-On in April, Gauntlet returned to the top spot in May. RePlay listed it as the second highest-grossing arcade video game of 1986 in the United States, below Hang-On, while AMOA listed it as the year's highest-earning dedicated arcade cabinet. Atari ultimately sold a total of 7,848 Gauntlet video game arcade cabinets.

In Japan, Gauntlet was a commercial success for Namco. At a Japanese trade show in late 1985, the game drew large crowds and set record earnings for an Atari arcade cabinet. Game Machine listed Gauntlet as the second most popular upright/cockpit arcade game of March 1986, below Sega's Space Harrier, before Gauntlet topped the chart in April. It went on to be Japan's third highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game during the first half of 1986 (below Hang-On and Space Harrier), and the sixth highest during the second half of the year. It was Japan's fourth highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game of 1986, below Hang-On, Space Harrier and Pole Position II.

The arcade original was followed by a 1986 sequel, Gauntlet II, which was followed by further sequels on home platforms, including Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, Gauntlet III: The Final Quest, and Gauntlet IV. The arcade series was revived with Gauntlet Legends in 1998, which itself saw the sequels Gauntlet Dark Legacy and Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows. The original Gauntlet arcade game is included in Midway Arcade Treasures (2003) for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows, and Midway Arcade Origins (2012) for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The game was rebooted in 2014 on home platforms as Gauntlet.