Dream Codex : Play Hunt The Wumpus (2025)

Your village has suffered too long from the nocturnal attacks of that horrible beast, the Wumpus. At your coming-of-age ceremony, you vow to do what no other hunter in the village has had the courage to try. Donning an old suit of armor and taking only a torch and a crossbow with a single arrow, you enter the cavernous lair of the Wumpus. The path is unknown, twisting through narrow corridors and forgotten chambers. Ancient pits, built by a dead people for their lost subterranean gods, ooze slime as they wait to claim another explorer. Monstrous bats inhabit the caves, carrying the unaware through the darkness and releasing them again at whim. Most terrible of all is the Wumpus, who slumbers even now in the darkness. Woe to any who come upon the beast in the shadows!

But you have chosen to face these dangers, great as they are. You will free your village or fall in the attempt. Because you alone have chosen to Hunt The Wumpus!

Controls

Hunt The Wumpus uses the keyboard to play. Here are the key controls:

Menu Keys

Ingame Keys

Express MovementExpress movement is a special movement mode which you can activate by holding down the Shift key when you move, or by turning it on under the Options menu. When express movement is active, your character will move quickly through any corridors and only stop when they reach the next room. This can be useful for getting around quicker, since corridors are always safe. But it can also mean rushing into a dangerous room, so use it carefully!

The Game Screen

You begin the game in a relatively safe room in the cavern. All the rest of the cavern is unknown, and as you explore it new rooms (and new dangers) become apparent.

Here are the things you will encounter during your hunt:

Your Character	This is who you'll control in the game.
Cavern Room	This is an open space in the caverns.
Corridors	These run through the caverns and are always safe.
Slimed Room	This room has slime on the walls. That means this room is connected to a slime pit.
Slime Pit	This room is a deep pit filled with slime. Entering a pit room will lead to a fatal fall.
Bloody Room	This room has bloodstains splattered about. That means this room is within two rooms of the Wumpus' lair.
Nasty Room	This room has both slime and bloodstains. That means this room is both immediately connected to a slime pit and within two rooms of the Wumpus.
Bat	One of the bats which lives in the cavern. Each time you enter a room with a bat, there is a chance you will disturb the bat. If you do, it will grab you and carry you to another room of the cavern. It could even carry you to a slime pit or right to the Wumpus!
Wumpus	Your foe. If you see the Wumpus, then it's already too late.
Firing Reticle	You'll see this symbol over your character when you've chosen at last to fire your lone arrow at the Wumpus. You can then press a directional key to fire the arrow in that direction, or any other key to cancel the attack.

How To Play

From the main menu you may select to play a New Game, change the Options, or read the About screen. (In the standalone version of the game, you may also Exit the game here.)

The options screen lets you turn the audio (music and sound effects) on or off. It also lets you toggle express movement.

Once you choose to start a new game, you'll be given the option of three difficulty levels - Easy, Hard, and Pro. Each difficultly level is harder than the previous one, with fewer rooms in the cavern and more aggressive bats. (Even the Easy setting can be difficult at times.)Upon starting a new game, your character will appear in a safe room in the cavern, and the hunt can begin.

Your goal is to move around the cavern, avoiding slime pits and using the bloodstained rooms to track down the location of the Wumpus. Once you think you know where the Wumpus is, you'll enter the room next to it and fire an arrow into the beast's lair. If you're right, you'll slay the Wumpus and win. Otherwise, you'll awaken the Wumpus and your game will end.

You gather clues about the Wumpus' location by studying which rooms have bloodstained floors. Every room that is within two rooms of the Wumpus will have a bloody floor. Note that corridors are not counted as rooms, so any two rooms are considered "next to" each other if they are connected by any amount of corridor. For example, both these pictures show rooms that are considered "next to" each other, in that they are immediately connected.

As far as the game is concerned, both room B and room C in this picture are "next to" room A.

To (hopefully) make things clearer, here is an actual game map. (Click the picture for a larger image.)

As you can see, there are bloodstains on the floors of every room "next to" the Wumpus, regardless of corridors in between, as well as rooms that are "next to" those. (Again, every room that is within two rooms of the Wumpus has bloodied floors.)

You can also detect slime pits this way, except that there is slime only in the rooms that are "next to" the pits. This means less warning than the "two room" blood warning around the Wumpus. If you enter a room with slime in it, take your next step very carefully!

Play a game or two and study the map afterwards. It should all make sense quickly then.

That's it! Hope you enjoy Hunt The Wumpus, and good hunting to you!