Gauntlet -------- Gauntlet (c) 1985, 1987, 1989 Atari Games Gauntlet Hex Editing FAQ is (c)2012 by Louis Boiko (MASTERNO) ============================ ----------Contents---------- ============================ In order to skip to a specific section, use CTRL+F and copy the number, including brackets, beside the section you want to view, then search. All search numbers are unique and specifically made for ease of navigation. [1].............Introduction [2].........Known Hex Values [2.1]....Using Hex Addresses [2.2]..Known Bugs and Issues [3]......Version Information [4]..................Credits ============================ --------Introduction-------- ============================ [1] Welcome to my Gauntlet Hex Editing guide! This classic gem stole the sanity of many, many gamers back in the mid-1980s both in the arcades and at home on the NES. It's a simple hack-and-slash adventure with a few puzzle elements to it. I personally toiled on it endlessly when I was a kid, my favorite to play with being Merlin (and at other times Questor). For most, the NES version is an exceptionally difficult challenge. Some say that you can't beat the game solo with the Warrior! Well, all that changes today - I'm gonna make the game so easy for you that all you do is just walk on in and take back the Sacred Orb in record time! ============================ ------Known Hex Values------ ============================ [2] The following are hex values I've discovered that are meaningful to gameplay. There's quite a few of them here and they're pretty straight-forward. Since it's a two-player game, all the hexes except for Time have two addresses. The first will always be Player 1 and the second will always be Player 2. I'd also like to note that there are ways to simply ease the challenge as opposed to simply steam- rolling it like my other guides. You can steamroll Gauntlet with just the Health, Power-Ups, and Keys hexes, but you will still have to play from beginning to end in order to get the code for Room 100. A bummer in the truest sense, but it shouldn't make a difference. If you want to just enjoy a slightly less difficult experience, I've provided the hexes for the Invisibility, Repulsiveness, and Invulnerability timers so you can just pick them up and enjoy the benefits for the rest of the level you're on (or as long as you keep the value frozen). Treasure Value addresses don't have much purpose if you're playing with the Health address frozen anyway, so use that to make it easy to max out your health (in a solo game, you can max out your health on the first room no problem). For the record, your passwords will fail to work after you reach a score of 2000, but you do get an additional health upgrade at 3200. There is also one other note I must make before going onto the hex addresses, and that is the discovery of a dummied-out upgrade when using the Upgrades address. It appears to the right of the Shot Power upgrade on the pause screen and looks like the Extra Speed Potion's symbol from Gauntlet II. Though I've tested it a bit, I still can't figure out exactly what it does, if anything, so if anyone can crack the game's code and see if it's tied to anything, I'd be grateful and would credit you for the information. There's likely a sprite for such an upgrade potion in the game's code, but I don't have the tools to go looking into that. ---------------------------- =====Using Hex Addresses==== ---------------------------- [2.1] 0013 - 0014: Invisibility Timer -This sets the duration of the Invisibility power-up. It's normally set to 0B when you pick it up, but you can set it to anything you'd like. In order for it to take effect, however, you must first pick up the Invisibility power-up itself. 0015 - 0016: Repulsiveness Timer -This sets the duration of the Repulsiveness power-up. It's normally set to 0B when you pick it up, but you can set it to anything you'd like. In order for it to take effect, however, you must first pick up the Repulsiveness power-up itself. 0017 - 0018: Invulnerability Timer -This sets the duration of the Invulnerability power-up. It's normally set to 3C when you pick it up, but you can set it to anything you'd like. In order for it to take effect, however, you must first pick up the Invulnerability power-up itself. 00A6 - 00A7: Character -Changes your current character. When modifying this address, you will enter a red pause screen like the one you see when you reach a Health increase threshold. When you come out of the screen, you'll be the character tied to the hex value you put in. Values: 00 - Warrior, 01 - Valkyrie, 02 - Wizard, 03 - Elf. -Will enter red pause screen before changing to the desired character -C0 - DF: Return to Title, E0 - FF: Game Over screen -Causes exits to become warps based on how long you allow the sound to loop, but only while the code is active 00AA - 00AB: Power-Ups -This identifies which power-ups you currently have active. It and the subsequent Upgrades address are unique in that they use a system of sums to determine what the actual value is. Overflowing the natural limit simply restarts the process from square one. This also seems to ignore the actual hex system, instead using the traditional decimal system, so simply add the values of what you want together and plug them in to get what you're looking for. Values: 01 - Invisibility, 02 - Repulsiveness, 04 - Reflective Shots, 10 - Super Shots, 20 - Invulnerability 00AC - 00AD: Upgrades -This determines what upgrades you've obtained. Normally there are only five upgrades you can get throughout your adventure, but I've discovered a sixth one that doesn't seem to have an effect. I mentioned this in the opening paragraphs, so I'm not going to be repetitious. As with Power-Ups, this value is additive, so you have to add together the values that you want. Unlike Power-Ups, however, this does utilize the actual hexidecimal system due to the fact that you can get additive results beyond ten separate digits. 3E will get you all the normal upgrades and 3F will throw in that extra mystery upgrade. Values: 01 - Mystery Upgrade, 02 Shot Power, 04 - Extra Speed, 08 - Bomb Power, 10 - Fight Power, 20 - Extra Armor 00AE - 00AF: Keys -This is where the number of keys you have is stored. 0A is the highest natural value, but you can put in whatever values you'd like. 00B0 - 00B1: Bombs -This is where the number of bombs you have is stored. 01 is the highest natural value, but you can put in whatever values you'd like. 00B2 - 00B3: Health -This is where your health values are stored. FF will keep your health maxed for the most part, but after some health upgrades you'll need to collect a food or two for it to display your true maximum. 00B6 - 00B7: Treasure Value -This determines the value of treasure you collect. It'll also give you free treasure if you have a lower score than the value you put in. The highest score you can naturally obtain is 5999, but if you have the value set to FF you can get up to 6143. There is no real difference because you'd need to reach 6400 before you could possibly get another health upgrade. 00C0: Time -This sets the amount of time you have left in Treasure and Clue Rooms. Freezing the value gives you infinite time. 63 is the highest natural value, but it will still display correctly up to 6D (because the system has a "10" display for the keys and bombs, so it uses that when you reach "100" on the timer). ---------------------------- ====Known Bugs and Issues=== ---------------------------- [2.2] I did a fair amount of bug testing on these hexes, but some of them really didn't have much to show. A few are strange, others just kill your game. I didn't really find any crippling ones, but I also wasn't 100% comprehensive - I never am because I'd get too bored and wouldn't have the time or energy to do a guide for you guys. If you find any yourself through such rigorous testing, feel free to send me the results and I'll give you credit for finding them. 0013 - 0014: Invisibility Timer -No real bugs since this is just a countdown timer. If you deactivate it, it will count down from whatever you set it to. 0015 - 0016: Repulsiveness Timer -No real bugs since this is just a countdown timer. If you deactivate it, it will count down from whatever you set it to. 0017 - 0018: Invulnerability Timer -No real bugs since this is just a countdown timer. If you deactivate it, it will count down from whatever you set it to. 00A6 - 00A7: Character -Going beyond value 03 will bring a whide variety of strange results. For most values, it will keep track of the counting order and return a sprite with the appearance of whatever character was in that position in the main line-up (04 would be the Warrior, for example, and 05 would be the Valkyrie, 06 the Wizard, 07 the Elf, and so on). Using the C0 - DF values returns you to the title screen and E0 - FF causes an immediate Game Over screen, then takes you back to the title screen. -Leaving this on as you exit a room will cause a very strange loop in which you will hear the exit sound continuously until you deactivate the hex, after which you'll find that you've been warped quite a few rooms ahead. This can be useful if you can learn to control it, but can ultimately screw you too since you need to enter the Clue Rooms in order to finish the game properly. 00AA - 00AB: Power-Ups -The only real bug I found was that Invisibility and Repulsiveness don't work together. Some enemies will be repelled, others won't move, and the rest will attack you as normal. It's best to pick one or the other and either one will do. 00AC - 00AD: Upgrades -With the exception of the Mystery Upgrade, there seem to be no bugs associated with these addresses. 00AE - 00AF: Keys -Graphical glitches are displayed when you put in a value greater than 0A. 00B0 - 00B1: Bombs -Graphical glitches are displayed when you put in a value greater than 0A. 00B2 - 00B3: Health -It's not so much buggy as it is just weird. The only plausible "bug" is that it doesn't always display your maximum Health when set to FF, but that's only limited until you either get some food or exit a Treasure Room. 00B6 - 00B7: Treasure Value -No bugs here. Just pumps your score up to ridiculous values. 00C0: Time -Graphical glitches when set past value 6D, but that's all. It's another countdown timer. ============================ -----Version Information---- ============================ [3] Version 1.00 - Initial release version; contains all necessary information; updates will generally be used for clarification and grammatical corrections, but information found to be missing or incorrect may be updated to reflect more accurate information. ============================ -----------Credits---------- ============================ [4] This guide is (c)opyright 2012 by Louis Boiko (a.k.a "MASTERNO" on GameFAQs and Neoseeker). Feel free to redistribute this guide any way you would like, so long as credit is given to me and no money is involved in the receipt of this guide. For further inquiries, comments, or suggestions, please email me at heroman.x.zero.protoman ( A T ) gmail.com or send a message to my GameFAQs or Neoseeker accounts as listed above. I'd like to thank the various FAQ writers that have used this format in the past. I think there are many of them, and I don't really remember who they are or what they wrote FAQs for, but this writing format is my favorite and preferred. Credit goes to them, whoever they may be, for this style of FAQ formatting. Contact me for creds if you know who they are or what games they wrote for. A big thank you to GameFAQs for hosting a website where knowledge such as this can be freely shared by gamers everywhere. Also a big thank you to Nintendo and Atari Games for the creation of the NES and the development and production of this immensly addictive hack-and-slash adventure, respectively.