It’s a Dandy dungeon out there, for sure it is — and Dark Chambers marks the conclusion to one of the earliest and most notorious legal disputes in gaming.
John Palevich’s Dandy begat Ed Logg’s Gauntlet, though the former wasn’t too thrilled with the fact that the latter didn’t credit him. Then Gauntlet begat Dark Chambers, which did credit Palevich — who had also settled out of court with Atari by this point, too. And we were left with several versions of a rather entertaining Gauntlet-alike that ditched some of the annoyances of the arcade game!
Gauntlet is an all-time classic arcade game — and it got a whole bunch of ports to various different systems over the years following its original release.
The Atari 8-bit version, developed by Gremlin Graphics, is not the best version of Gauntlet you’ll ever play — but it was my first ever experience with the game, and as such will always carry with it certain fond memories.
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The history of how a lot of old games came to be is deeply fascinating.
One such tale that I’ve found rather interesting is how Atari’s Dark Chambers found its way to release. This is a game that has its roots in John Palevich’s Dandy, which is the reason the all-time classic cooperative top-down dungeon crawler Gauntlet exists, but then there’s also several versions of Dark Chambers out there to enjoy, too.
For the retro gaming and retro computer enthusiasts among you, here’s the continuation of my ongoing project to explore the library of the Atari 8-Bit.
Released through the Atari Program Exchange (or APX), an initiative by Atari that allowed amateur and professional programmers alike the opportunity to get their projects distributed commercially, Dandy by John Howard Palevich turned out to be a rather influential game.
Originally intended as a multiplayer networked adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons before being simplified and refined into the four-player action dungeon crawler it ultimately became, Dandy would be a defining influence on Atari’s later arcade hit Gauntlet… and it’s not hard to see why.
The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.
