The game Duck Hunt was part of the launch games for the original NES in the mid-1980s and was one of the first games to exploit the NES Zapper, the console's famous gun. This gun is only compatible with CRT screens, because they had a refresh rate slow enough for the gun to detect the target... so it's hard to play Duck Hunt today in yesterday's conditions.
But fortunately, for those who are nostalgic, it exists Duck Hunter, a project of jslegend which offers us a clone of Duck Hunt coded in JavaScript, playable directly from a browser, without requiring any additional download and without NES Zapper.
A NES classic revisited
Developed and edited by Nintendo, it allowed the Japanese firm to highlight its NES Zapper, a light gun that allows you to aim directly at the screen to shoot down ducks in flightThe concept of Duck Hunt was both simple and addictive: players had to shoot one or two ducks that appeared randomly on the screen, while being accompanied by a faithful hunting dog tasked with retrieving prey…or mocking them if they fail.
With colorful graphics, to progressive difficulty curve and its accessibility, Duck Hunt quickly became a huge success, becoming a must-have title in the NES catalog. The game offered several difficulty modes, including a mode where you had to aim at clay pigeons instead of ducks. Although it seemed simple, Duck Hunt had a few surprises in store, such as a frozen game screen (the famous kill screen) beyond level 99 or a score that reset after exceeding one million points.
Today, Duck Hunt is a cult game, often cited among Nintendo's greatest classics.
Duck Hunter: hunt ducks from your browser
Developped by jslegend and available on itch.io, Duck Hunter takes the mechanics of the original Duck Hunt, but with a slightly different visual style. All graphic elements have been redesigned: the dog, the ducks, the tree, the grass and the bushes have received a facelift. Another change is that the game does not only offer a single game mode in which you will only have to shoot one duck per round (no mode with two ducks or mode with clay pigeons).
Another remarkable modification: the famous dog's mocking laugh was replaced by… the cry of a hyena ! Some environmental sound effects have also been added, which changes the atmosphere of the game a bit. But overall, the atmosphere is there, we really feel like we are in a game of Duck Hunt.
To play, you will have to aim with your mouse and shoot with the left click. But you will see, this version becomes very quickly much more difficult than the original. The only option that makes it a little easier is the ability to pause the game with the key P of the keyboard.
So, ready to try Duck Hunter and relive a moment of nostalgia?
