If you take a Warrior, a Valkyrie, a Wizard, and an Elf, throw them into a series of dungeons packed to the rim with monsters, and throw in a heckling dungeon master, you’ll have Gauntlet.
Each of the four characters has a projectile attack, the Elf fires arrows, the Valkyrie throws axes, etc. Your goal is to get to the exit, to make it as far into the dungeon as you can. This is made slightly difficult because each room in the dungeon is packed tight with abominations, each one hungry for your delicious Hit Points. It would make sense, then, to stand in a corner and pick them off one by one until the way was clear and then rush feverishly to the exit, but there are two problems: the monsters constantly are spawned by ‘monster generators’ replenishing their supply almost as fast as you can mow them down, and your health constantly deteriorates. You can mitigate these problems by moving quickly and collecting food that’s scattered through the level. However, some of the food is destructible. Move too fast and you will inevitably destroy the hit points you were working your way toward (“Someone shot the food!“).
The game is a bit deeper than I’ve gone into here. You have to collect keys to open doors and chests, you can collect magic bomb-things to annihilate screen-fulls of creatures, and you have to deal with Death on more than one occasion. The only flaw with this game? It goes on forever. I would like to have seen some kind of ending to this game, but I would have to wait until Gauntlet 2 or the NES port of this game to get one.