A downloadable game

Puzzle script project for game design class. 

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The hunt is a simple yet effective hunting game thanks to its rule of randomized movement.  The player begins the game in a wide-open square level.  The first level has 3 prey that remains stationary until the player begins moving(or if the player holds the spacebar).  The movement of the prey is randomized and they move all of the levels as the player tries to chase them down and catch them by intersecting them.  The lack of barriers in the first level makes it fairly easy for the player to catch the prey, but it is immediately evident that the rules of the game do not allow the player to predict the movement of the prey.  This is what makes the game interesting and feel like an actual hunt.   As the predator, you are unsure of where the prey will go.  This rule interacts with the level design in that the prey is restricted to the edges of the level, so a smart predator will try to corner the prey to limit their safe mobility.  As the player progresses through the game, barriers are added in the levels to make it more difficult.  Importantly, the prey can pass through the barriers, but the predator(player) may not.  In this way, the level makes it more difficult to track the prey as they can slow the predator down in their chase.  The goal of the game is simply to catch all of the prey, but that is made difficult through the randomization elements of the rules and through the physical level design.

The hunt, conceptually, is very simple but has a lot of layers to it and seemingly the potential to be developed into a much larger game. At its core, the idea is to navigate your character to capture or hunt down the non-player characters on screen. You have movements and the non-player characters also have movements that they will take as you do and according to your moves. All movements happen at the same time and their objective (presumably) is to escape, while yours is to capture them. Crucially this occurs in a boxed room with no exits so it is impossible for the non-player characters to get too far from the player character. Eventually, the non-player character can be cornered. This isn't a completely unheard-of concept but in the context of puzzle games, it presents a unique opportunity to explore this concept in a different light. Rather than being about simply being fast or being agile, it makes the concept of hunting down fleeing targets to be much more strategic placement and decision making. This creates a decision for the player at every action. Conceptually this puzzle is different because it offers the ability to solve it in very different ways. Most puzzles require to you ton think and plan out your movements and strategies. The hunt does this as well but it also allows the player character to take a more skill-based approach and use speed and agility to run down the non-player characters. These to options seem fairly unique for puzzle games.