Tag: Duck Hunt

Ducklings for cover

This Duck Hunt wall decal is brilliant.

Especially because it’s essentially made of pixels.

As a bonus – courtesy of the designer – is this flash version of the original Duck Hunt.

Rationalising video games

Video games are so unrealistic it’s hard to imagine why there are people out there dedicated to stamping them out on the basis that they cause crime.

Not only is gravity in Mario’s world in an iterative state of flux – it’s completely implausible that an Italian plumber could run around bashing his head into blocks of bricks. Bricks that are suspended by nothing more than skyhooks…

Cracked set its readers the task of bringing reality back to the gaming world.

And ghosts are totally irrational…

No Duck Hunt is complete without a PETA protest…

Eight bit embroidery

This is a terrific Flickr set of eight bit cushions, quilt covers and miscellaneous manchester.

Here are some favourites.

This lot flips over and becomes this lot…

Real life Duck Hunt

Duck Hunt was an awesome game. The zapper was magic (though I found out how it worked) and the little ducks just begged to be plucked from the sky.

If you’ve been missing the NES experience, like I have, you’ll be excited to know you can now pick up a real life version of the game.

Duck Tails

Duck Hunt was way ahead of its time. The mystery was spoiled a little when the magic of the zapper was revealed. But its popularity lives on. Immortalised in shirts like this

And photographic mashups like this Space Invaders photo… well, this is tangentially related…

Zapper mystery zapped

I’ve always wondered how the Nintendo Zapper worked. I was a big fan of Duck Hunt as a child.

We are living in the era of the wii – remotes with in built motion sensors with signals picked up by special peripherals near the TV. But in 1984 (the actual year – not the Orwellian future) these were the things dreams were made of – the 1984 type of dreams (the Orwellian future – not the actual year). 1984 was the year Duck Hunt was released.

Anyway, the Zapper apparently worked like this:

When you shot at one of the ducks in Duck Hunt, the screen would flash for a split second, and the duck would either plummet to Earth like a fallen angel, or continue flying around, oblivious to your vain attempts to destroy it. I always just assumed that the flash was for dramatic effect, but it turns out that it was the key to the Nintendo Zapper’s closely guarded secrets.

Instead of emitting an infrared blast every time the trigger is pulled, the Zapper housed a small sensor that could pick up the flashing screen. If you watched closely you would see that, every time the screen flashed, the duck(s) would be surrounded by a box that was a different color than the background. If the Zapper was pointed at one of the ducks when the trigger was pulled, it would register that the color was different, and thus score a hit. All of this would take place so quickly that, unless you knew what to look for, you would never notice.

Desktop Gaming helps you console yourself

When Desktop Gaming, a website hosting hi-res desktop ready iterations of your favourite gaming classics, was mentioned on Lifehacker demand killed their servers. They’re back online. Level 1-1 of the original Super Mario Bros is now featuring as my desktop background. I did consider this Duck Hunt image. Maybe next week.