O wpływie D&D na rynek gier przelano wiele znaków. O Romero, Carmacku czy Garriotcie, których dzieło Gygaksa zafascynowało, pisałem też i ja. Ale oto w sumie pierwszy przykład tego, jak D&D wpłynęło na rozwiązania bardziej mechaniczne niż fabularno-koncepcyjne, na jaki natrafiłem.
To my memory of arcades in 1985, Gauntlet seemed to be one of the first action games to allow four players to play at once.
This was the first multi-player game which allowed players to end or leave at any time and the screen scrolling was controlled by their actions. This was not the first game to have multi-players. Tank 8 allowed eight players on one monitor. But all the players had to start at the same time. The idea of using four players was designed into Gauntlet from the start. I suspect it was due to the fact that I could only put four players around an upright monitor. I believe Gauntlet was the first game that allowed the player to buy in any time he wanted. I did not want the players to wait, like in Tank 8, for everyone to coin-up at the same time. The only solution was to have players come and go at will. Health was always planned from the start. I believe this idea came from Dungeons & Dragons, which was very popular at the time. So it was logical that money just bought more health. Since it is every coin-op designer’s wish to have the players put as much money as they can into their game, I saw no rea son why I would not have the play ers just increase their health with each coin. In hindsight, this is a wonderful idea because losing 2000 health was not as painful psychologically as inserting another quarter. Besides, the players would not need to reach into their pocket to find another quarter to insert before their character was lost.
Wywiad z Ed Logg za Game Design: Theory & Practice Richard Rouse III 2001
