People take Dungeons & Dragons-style class-based heroes for granted in their favorite games now, but Atari’s Gauntlet brought that staple multiplayer feature to arcades and consoles for the first time with its Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, and Elf.
In this GDC 2012 talk, Gauntlet creator Ed Logg, who also designed ground-breaking titles like Centipede and Asteroids, shares his thoughts on creating the game that popularized the phrase “Wizard needs food badly”.
He discusses how the game paved the way for the class-dependent multiplayer experiences that are a cornerstone for many popular titles today.
It was an insightful talk that’s still worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
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