Dudes, Gauntlet was THE LICK! back in the day. The four player action, the Dungeons And Dragon aspects just everything. Dude it was bad to the bone like Al Capone.

I remember the first time I played it at the Aladdin's Castle over at the mall. Where the Victoria's Secret is now. I was hooked. I pumped my whole allowance of tokens in it one after an other after another. 

Serious. What was cool for them and wack for you though was that in the game your HPs or energy or health or whatever was always going down. Like your dude was always dying. quickly. Not at a normal human style rate or anything. 

It was like Snake Plissken in Escape From New York and someone squirted a potion in them  that caused a quick death within a certain time. It was a brilliant design on Atari's side. Kept the quarters coming. There were turkey dinners lying around the dungeons that gave you a burst of HPs but no matter what you did the only thing that would keep you alive was a token.