Gauntlet is a legendary top-down hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, brought to the NES in 1988 by Tengen in this famous unlicensed port. You choose between four distinct classesโWarrior, Valkyrie, Wizard, and Elfโto navigate seemingly endless, monster-filled mazes. The core gameplay revolves around fighting off enormous hordes of ghosts and demons, finding keys to unlock progression paths, and desperately collecting food to replenish your constantly draining health.
How to play
Your primary goal is to survive and find the exit in each maze level. Health acts as a timer that ticks down automatically and drops further when enemies hit you, making food pickups critical. The default NES browser controls use the Arrow Keys for movement, Z and X for attacking and using magic potions (mapped to the A and B buttons), Enter for Start, and Shift for Select.
Tips
- Don’t shoot the food: Your projectile attacks can destroy food items. Aim carefully when clearing enemies near much-needed sustenance.
- Destroy enemy generators first: Monster spawners will continuously produce enemies until they are destroyed. Prioritize taking them out before dealing with the remaining crowd.
- Save potions for emergencies: Magic potions clear large clusters of enemies or Death itself. Use them only when you are completely overwhelmed.
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