----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Almost Ultimate Gauntlet II FAQ Last Updated: 4/4/96 Authors: Eric Crabill Dave Hallock The Orange Elf (a.k.a. Glenn Mandelkern) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Who the hell is the Orange Elf? A: The Orange Elf is a non-fictional being who has whispered elven secrets in my ear. His name is Glenn Mandelkern. Q: Does Gauntlet II have an ending? A: Not as far as I can tell. I've played up to level 652, with no end in sight. If it is any indication, Gauntlet I does not have an ending. I have played Gauntlet I to level 999 and beyond. After level 999, the next level is level 8 (it wraps around). I suspect Gauntlet II is similar, but wraps to level 6. Q: What is stalling, and what will it do for me? A: Stalling is waiting around without any activity. This includes getting hit by monsters. If you have no keys and stall for about 20 health ticks it will cause all doors to open. If you do have keys, it takes twice as long to happen. This is useful when you run out of keys, or want to save keys to open locked treasure chests. If you continue to stall for about 325 health ticks, all of the walls will turn into exits. On some levels, in a multi- player game, it is possible to get trapped due to transporter folly. On one level in particular (a brown level, with a fake exit, and local traps), it is even possible to get trapped when playing by yourself. Go figure! The stalling times are not adjustable, they are coded in the ROM. Q: Who is the best character? A: I'll tell you what, don't play the Warrior or the Wizard if you want to live for very long. The Warrior's magic power is really poor, and his shots do not fit through cracks in the walls. The Orange Elf has told me that the game program actively (though covertly) discriminates against the Wizard. Playing the Wizard is not a good idea. That leaves the Elf or Valkyrie, a choice you have to make based on your style of playing. Q: What about those "random things"? Are there any patterns? A: There are several random things. First, the score you get for killing a death follows the cyclic pattern 1000-2000-1000-4000-2000-6000-1000-8000. Every time you shoot a death, the score changes to the next value in the pattern. Actually, since the pattern always starts at the same place when the game is powered up, the pattern is really 1000-4000-2000-6000-1000- 8000-1000-2000. The pattern saves its place from game to game, however. The question-mark foods also follow a pattern, so says the Orange Elf. Look at the tens and ones digits of your health when you eat the food. If the tens digit is even and the ones digit is a "7" you will get 200 health. Additionally, if the tens digit is odd, and the ones digit is "5" you will also get 200 health. I guess the rest of the pattern doesn't matter, unless you purposely want to get 25 health. The secret destructible walls and locked treasure chests really are random, but influenced by how many (and who!) is playing. Let's call it directed randomness. The "threshold" for nice things is lowered when more players are active. Remember the Wizard! The walls that disappear/reappear randomly (not the cyclic walls) are random, but if you walk over the floor area that is "tagged" for random walls, it turns the tile into a regular floor. Q: How can I kill the stronger monsters? A: The death can be killed by a potion, squashing him by transporting on top of him, or shooting him with 9 super shots. Each super shot that hits a death reduces the amount of health he can take away from you. Acid puddles can be killed by transporting on top of them or two potions used in rapid succession. The IT can be killed by transporting on top of it. There is no way to kill the Dragon besides shooting him, but you can minimize the damage you take by using reflective shots. Q: What does the Orange Elf say about the secret rooms? A: The Orange Elf knows all, but tells little. However, I juiced the Orange Elf for this information: SAVE SUPER SHOTS: Exit with at least ten super shots. DON'T USE INVULNERABILITY: Use invulnerability without getting hit. DON'T GET HIT: Kill the dragon without getting hit. TRY PUSHING A WALL: Push a movable wall into the exit. DON'T BE FOOLED: Exit without being fooled. DON'T BE GREEDY: Collect no keys nor potions, or collect no treasure. GO ON A DIET: Collect no food. BE PUSHY: Push another player into the exit. IT COULD BE NICE: Be the first player to exit and be IT. DON'T HURT FRIENDS: Don't shoot other players. TRY TRANSPORTABILITY: Use transporters or transportability to destroy a demon or a death, or use it to exit or destroy a secret wall. WATCH WHAT YOU SHOOT: One player must shoot at least two food or two secret walls. Each level has its own trick. You can't get into the secret room simply by randomly performing a trick. A secret room clue is given if you shot a secret wall or killed a dragon on the previous level. Q: What about this Thief bastard? A: Yes, indeed. The Thief is pretty clever, and very fast. He can kill any monster with one hit. The Thief can appear multiple times on a level, and he even comes in Treasure Rooms. Here is his modus operandi--at the beginning of the current level, the Thief calculates who is the richest player. This person is his target. Who is richest depends on each player's possessions. Extra shot power is most valued, then extra speed, and so on. If no one has extra powers, the Thief will look at other things, including potions, keys, and even your lowly bonus multiplier. Once he has picked a victim, he records the victim's exact path. When he appears, he begins chasing the victim at top speed. You can plan for his attack in several ways. You can either push a movable wall to cover your path (which blocks him, as he isn't smart enough to go around), squash him on a transporter, or try to shoot him. Q: And the Mugger? A: The tactics for dealing with the Mugger are similar to those for the Thief. However, keep in mind that if you are planning on shooting him, it takes two shots. After the first shot, his speed is increased. Q: How can I better control where I go on the transporters? A: First off, you always transport to the nearest transporter. There is no way around that. The side of the transporter you will appear on at the destination is determined by which way you hold the joystick while you are transporting (as long as no walls are are in the way). If you hold the joystick left, you will appear on the left side, if you hold it diagonally down-right, you will appear on the bottom right corner, and so on. If there is a wall there, you will appear as close to that location as possible. If you have played the game for a while, this might be old news. If there are several transporters the same distance from you, the brightness of the transporter will determine where you land. If you enter while the transporter is glowing from bright to dim, you will go to the topmost (or leftmost) transporter. If it is glowing from dim to bright, you will go to the bottommost (or rightmost) transporter. Q: Can door opening be controlled? A: When doors join at a corner, both will open if you open the door on the left (character's perspective when looking at the corner from the outside). If you open the door on the right, only the right door will open. This is because doors continue to open counter-clockwise around corners, allowing a square door to be opened from any side. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Known Bugs: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you enter the secret room, you will notice that you are "stripped" of all your keys and potions. If you were originally full or nearly full of keys and potions before you entered, and you pick up many more in the secret room, you will be "overloaded" when you are done. Kind of a useless fact. If a player dies by eating a poisoned food or potion, the next time you join in with that same color, you will be poisoned temporarily. Hangover? If the Thief or Mugger steals something from you, and escapes, and the next level is a treasure room, the stolen item will appear in the treasure room and in the level after that, too! So maybe you can get two foods or potions for the price of one! It is possible to stop the clock in the treasure rooms. Sometimes this takes several tries. Start with a single player game, but put a credit in another player so it can be joined-in at any time. Just let it sit idle for now. When your player enters the treasure room, quickly find the exit so you have enough time to coordinate the next step, but don't exit yet. Now enter the exit. While your player is "swirling" in the exit, join in the other player. This timing is critical; if you are too late, you will join in on the next level, and if you are too early (before the swirling) it won't work. Sometimes, the game won't let you join in and responds with an annoying buzz. You have to try again on the next treasure room. If it works correctly, the new player will have the treasure room all to himself and the clock will not be counting. This works in multi-player games, too, but you join the new player in at the time the last active player has exited. There are several Thief related bugs; some are reproducible and others are not. The non-reproducible bugs deal with the Thief getting "confused" when you have transportability and you continually hop around, particularly on levels that perpetually scroll in all directions. Another deals with squashing the Thief on a transporter. A third, really freaky one I have seen is when the Thief (who is supposed to be following you) walks straight up to a wall and stops. Maybe his linked list got lost. The reproducible (and utterly evil, wicked) bug causes the Thief to go clepto. Let me explain...usually, the Thief will chase the richest player and steal one item. It is possible to make the Thief steal everything from you, or another player. That's right, EVERYTHING including all your extra powers, your potions, your keys, and your bonus multiplier. Nifty, especially on stun levels when you are playing competitively. How to do, you ask? To demonstrate on a regular (non stun) level, set up a situation like this: T V Y Key: <-----> still <---- T = Thief (stunned) V = Victim Y = You Either the V or Y must be the richest player. Make the path of richest player be a straight line (here from the left), and T is running to get either V or Y. Have Y shooting left at V from a short distance away, which will cause T to run back and forth near V. Now, with Y, slowly approach V while continuing to shoot and don't stop shooting. T will slowly get closer to V. At a certain point, T will begin stealing (and continue to steal) everything from V. As you can see, on a stun level, it works the same, but V doesn't need to cooperate!