Well, I made it up to level 69 in world 4.. that puts me about 3/4ths through the game.
Unfortunately, levels 66, 68 and 69 are causing me massive headaches. I've spent the past 3 days playing them over and over and over again. I can beat all of them at 100% speed without needing savestates, because I can do them perfectly now. :p
... and yet when I try making a FMV of those levels, they give me nothing but trouble. I managed to make it past 66 and 68 with brute force (moving 1-2 seconds, saving, testing the FMV, if it works back up the FMV and continue, etc).. but 69 has a teleporter in it, and i can't seem to control where i come out, regardless of how many times I do it.. and as such i've never had an FMV that made it to the opposite side of the teleporter, much less completed the level.
i've tried going back to earlier levels and playing up through them, but it doesn't seem to help.
So, after what must've been something like 6 hours of trying different techniques to get a working FMV, I'm giving up. This FMV just doesn't want to pass level 69.
Furthermore, I'm leaving to study abroad in Japan in a few days, and the last thing I need to do now is play a Gauntlet level another 50 times just to produce a working FMV.
As such, I'm putting this on hold. If anyone wants to beat Gauntlet, be my guest. Maybe you'll have fewer desynch headaches than I.
My last working FMV is available here:
http://fuwafuwa.animeonld.com/gauntlet1-068.zip
It completes the game up through level 68.
Some notes about the run thus far:
You can influence the location of the exits for treasure rooms by waiting on the overworld map. It seems that every few frames (maybe 1/8th of a second, or faster?) of waiting shifts the position of the exit. If you're careful, you can use that to move the treasure room exits close to you so you can finish the levels quickly. I assume this can also be used in regular rooms with multiple exits, too.
Level 5, 27, 42: The run is messier than I'd like for these levels. They could easily be run more cleanly.
Level 9: I shouldn't've picked up the food.. cost a fraction of a second, and it looks bad besides.
Level 13, 19: I pick up the keys in these Treasure Rooms because they're fast. I'm PRETTY SURE you need at least one of them to get the seventh clue in World 5... however, there appear to be some super shots I forgot to tally in World 4, which could make them unessential (speeding up the game by a second or two).
Level 15: The armor potion is slightly out of the way, and can be picked up later (Level 26, the clue room) without a significant detour. It's essential for world 5, though, so it must be picked up in one of those two levels. This was a sloppy run (2 stray arrows fired), but the route (and use of potions) is about as optimal as you can hope for.
Level 16: I think it's faster if you pick up the two bottom chests, and then go left and down instead of the way I do it in this FMV. You want the bomb strength potion in the lower right chest, because with it you can kill level 3 generators with bombs (essential, in world 5)
Level 20: I pick up the shot potion here because the only other shot potion is in level 12.. and that's not in the fastest route. This is useful against the final boss, so that you can kill it in about 1/2 the time.. for the few seconds it takes, it's a worthwhile grab.
Level 26: Pick up the bombs here. You need most of them in World 5, but a few extras wouldn't hurt. You might be able to make-do without them, but it'd require slowing down in other levels, I think.
Level 37: I think it would be faster to hit the glowing tile behind the demon generators, rather than walking past it and hitting the tile below the wizard generator (as I do in this FMV). The speed potion here is, of course, essential to a speed run.
Level 38: I hit a stun square here (it can't be avoided). You might want to try the pause trick to de-stun yourself; press START to go to the status screen, and press START again to go back to the main level and continue playing. I don't know if just taking the stun is faster or not.
Level 40: You can bomb death if you want, but I prefer running over him. :) Due to its position, the super arrows are fairly worthless here. You could use them in 42, but aside from there, I don't see a better place to use them before you get more in Level 50.
Level 58: It would be faster to do this level by shooting down and right, hit the two glowing squares on the right and run out. It'd save a super shot and several seconds.
I think you need to enter level 79 with a minimum of 4 keys *or* 2 keys and 2 super shots. You need to have a total of 4 keys when you enter level 80 (79-82-80 is probably the fastest route) and you get 2 keys on that route. I *think* you only need 1 key when entering level 83.. and if you follow 79-82-80-82-79-83, you'll get 2 additional keys (82 and 79 again) and use 1 (79), leaving you with that minimum 1 key. I could be wrong, but I don't remember any doors that didn't have keys nearby after level 83.
Good luck. If no one does Gauntlet by July, I'll start a new run at that point, hopefully with fewer desyncs.
notice the game gave me the password, but you can try for yourself, it doesnt work!!! (and no, i didnt get 2000+ gold) it even gave me vault clues, and that worked. so, when you start a gauntlet game and get an "A" type password, you will have to finish the game in one sitting or reset and get another type.
i know that because i have been generating passwords for each type using the password crack guide on gamefaqs. but, even though its not mentioned anywhere on the faq, i couldnt generate passwords starting with A. they just dont work. if i generate a password that starts with A and then change that letter and the according checksums protections, then it becomes a working password.
I think the whole "A" issue it a lazy programming error they didnt care to fix and prefered to let it there as another cheap difficulty factor of the game. they used the first letter of the password as a seed for the vault code, and the bits for A are 00000 which is probably a bogus number for a seed,
OR
as its easier to crack a password that starts with A because of the way one of the password protections was made. there are only 2 protections, and one of them is related to the first letter, maybe they simply made all A passwords functionless...
