Remember Duck Hunt? It's back!

[GracefulRocker]

OK, does anybody 'member the Nintendo game, Duck Hunt? You had a plastic gun and there was a dog and you went duck hunting on your TV. Well, I found a site that has it online.
AND, there's a bonus game where you can shoot the dog that would laugh at you when you missed.

It's really cool! It was like going back into the past.
Anyway, here's the link: http://www.cyberiapc.com/flashgames/duckhunt.htm

[samurai1986]

Thanks!!! This was the first videogame I ever played. I never understood though how the game knew where you were pointing the gun. Anybody else wonder that?

[Lehn]

I still have that game for NES. And it works *awe*

[Lynx]

duckhunt... CLASSIC! yes, i've always wondered how it knew where you were pointing the gun too

[madphilb]

I believe the old light guns worked by flashing a white box where the items where and looking to see if the gun picked up light where it was pointed (for instance, each duck would have a white square where it was flash, and the console would use the light sensor in the gun to see if it sees the white, then go to the next object till it found one).

[Psycho Ann]

I still have the NES game too XD Dunno if it still works though. Heeeeee... I've always shot at the stupid dog when it laughed...

[Mr_Anderson]

i used to play it, it was my first video game ever! i would walk up to the TV and try to hit the ducks, i never got any though -.-; i think i kinda get what you mean phlib, but what if ur NES isn't positioned right.

[shooraijin]

> I believe the old light guns worked by ...

Not quite. Light guns and light pens work by tracing the raster "dot" that updates the TV screen every 60th of a second (50th of a second on PAL-standard). Since the computer's video chip knows what raster line it's drawing and how far along that raster line it is, if the eye of the light gun sees that dot (using a light sensor), then there's a lock, and the computer registers the X-Y position as where the raster dot is at that exact instant. Since you're going to hold the button down much longer than the 1/60th (or even 1/50th) or a second it takes for a full screen pass, sometime in that period the dot will cross the gun's eye, and its position will be noted and the computer will then see if that matches the sprite's.

The white boxes you see in Duck Hunt when you fire the gun are an artifact of the video controller. While they may have something to do with the way raster locking is done on the NES, most likely they're just part of the flash effect when you fire the "gun" and they are definitely not part of how the light gun's position is sensed.

[madphilb]

> I believe the old light guns worked by ...

Not quite.

I knew someone around here would know more than me

Hat off to your exceeding wisdom there Shooby, I seem to recall having heard that once before (I knew it had to be a similar situation to the light pens, but I didn't remember ever seeing such an "artifact" with pens, that would explain it)....

Hmmm... would the light gun work on a LCD display then? I would think it shouldn't, I doubt they work quite the same way since all the LCDs should light up at once and most have a certain amount of "blur" to them.

Oh well, thanks again for clearing that up.

[shooraijin]

Correct, it would not work at all on an LCD display (it's only possible with a CRT). Things like the Wacom Cintiq actually use a touch screen instead of a true light pen.

[Zarn Ishtare]

The Rabid Duckie would die if he new this...

[GracefulRocker]

I think it's rather funny that Duck Hunt was the first game for so many of us. (Yeah, it was my first too! )

But it makes sense, because so many of those early games were violent, blody and just all around gory.
On PC, before Myst came along, almost all games were some form or another of Duke Nuke'em. (Remember that game? You had to go through a maze in building all the while shooting german shepards and guards.)

(Ya know, I don't still have DH any more, but I do still have Zelda. It's a gold colored cartridge, I think.)

[brantelg]

Duck Hunt is awesome

[Bobtheduck]

On PC, before Myst came along, almost all games were some form or another of Duke Nuke'em. (Remember that game? You had to go through a maze in building all the while shooting german shepards and guards.)

I think you're talking about "Wolfenstein." Duke Nukem is about Aliens, I believe, and it existed before the FPS, but it still isn't that old... Wolfenstein is older. Wolfenstein 3d was the first full motion FPS, I believe. Before Myst, there were a bunch of crappier 2d graphics type adventure games that used text to control, and there were less impressive looking point and click games...

[susuki]

heh...not only do I remember it...I have it along with the plastic gun and that annoying sog that laughs at your every mistake. I found it about 2 years ago and I am way better than I used to be..(I can remember all those good times) Hey man thanks for the website, I'm gonna kill that dog!

[noeleon]

when my nes broke i still had the guns.so when my friends came over we would pretend to shot each with the guns.lol

[{Daj}]

Ah...duckhunt. One of the first gun-related games. I've always wanted to kill the dog. Muh old NES wokrs when it feels like it. XD