Hunt the Wumpus

Brant Thomsen

About this game

The Wumpus has been attacking your village at night, before escaping back into its cave. You have been chosen to go into its cave to hunt for it. Fortunately, you are not defenseless....

"Hunt the Wumpus" is a puzzle game where you use clues to figure out where the Wumpus is hiding in a randomly generated cave, while avoiding the large bats and slime pits. Guess correctly where the Wumpus is, and you can fire your magic arrow and win the game. Guess incorrectly, and the Wumpus may get you instead!

The game is highly configurable, and each of the billions of possible mazes is guaranteed to be winnable -- though that doesn't mean it will be easy. Games using the default settings typically take 2-4 minutes.

Recent changes include support for rooms with 5 exits. This makes for very different play than the boards where the rooms have 4 exits or 6 exits, as tunnels can now lead to a dead end. There is also a new "Show Hints" menu option you can use to see if there are any safe moves you may have missed.

Good luck!
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Author's Notes:

I recently ran across a TI-99/4A emulator, and was reminded of the Hunt the Wumpus game I enjoyed playing as a teenager. After that, whenever I wanted a quick strategy game, I would fire it up and see how many times I could correctly guess where the Wumpus was hiding. However, the TI version of the game is dated and has its weaknesses, the biggest of which is that I had to boot up my computer to play it, as there is no easy way to play it on my Android phone.

I though it would be fun to create a version of Hunt the Wumpus that allows for a better game experience, such as changing the size of the board, having the board move with the player (so the player remains centered), and allowing for experiments such as changing the number of Wumpuses or how likely it is that a bat will carry you off. As an Engineer, I love to tinker with how things work, and hopefully some of you will enjoy tweaking the settings and coming up with variations as well. Please post a review or contact me if you find some settings that make for particularly enjoyable or unusual gameplay.

One major difference between my version of Hunt the Wumpus and the older TI version is the hexagonal tiling of the map. I find that I prefer hexagons over the square map tiling, as the board layouts are more interesting to explore. (That is also why I made hexagons the default.) You can, of course, select rooms with 4 exits (instead of 6) in the settings to switch back to square tilings and learn for yourself which way you prefer -- or just to try something different. There is also a new 5-sided (pentagon) tiling you can try, that makes for very different board layouts with winding tunnels and dead-ends. (Pro tip: Take advantage of your large inventory of magic arrows in 5-sided mode, as shots are much less likely to explode next to a Wumpus.)

The format of Hunt the Wumpus is perfect for displaying ads. However, as I don't like ads, I figured you wouldn't either, so the game is ad-free. I also decided to make it free to install and play in hopes that more people would give it a try. If you like it, please post a positive review or tell a friend about it. I'd love for people all around the world to be hunting for Wumpuses!

Enjoy!

Ratings and reviews

Nice little adaptation of the ancient classic game. Gameplay, controls, graphics and options all nicely implemented. One small quibble: lower the volume of the game-loss roar sound. Too ridiculously loud...beyond startling, actually aggravating.

Excellent version of the classic Basic game I played as a kid in the 70s. No ads, actually requires puzzle solving skill, and the roar when I make a careless mistake and get eaten still gives me real startle. Well done!

It was addictive but after the last update I can no longer see any curved tiles (they stay blank as the hunter moves through them). This makes the game much harder to play.

What’s new

Added pinch-to-zoom gesture support.
Fixed the alignment of tiles for exits with 5 rooms with large zoom levels.
Increased the range of allowed screen panning.