Duck Hunt

1984 · Light Gun Shooter · NES

Overview

Duck Hunt (1984) is Nintendo's NES light-gun game, played with the Zapper: shoot ducks or clay pigeons while a dog laughs at every miss.

Deep Dive

Duck Hunt was one of the games that showed off the NES Zapper. Ducks flap out of the grass one or two at a time and the player has three shots to bring them down; a hunting dog retrieves the kills and snickers at the misses. A third mode swaps birds for clay pigeons. The Zapper registers a hit by blanking the screen and flashing white boxes where the targets are, a trick that relies on CRT televisions and does not work on modern flat screens.

Developer Story

Duck Hunt was designed by Nintendo Research & Development 1 and released with the NES in 1985 alongside a Zapper light gun peripheral. The game used the Zapper's light sensor technology to detect when the gun was pointed at the screen during the moment a duck sprite was displayed. The laughing dog — who mocked players who missed — became one of gaming's most divisive characters.

Did You Know?

The laughing dog became so hated by players that when it appeared as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U in 2014, players reported great satisfaction finally being able to defeat it.
The Zapper detected hits by briefly displaying white squares where the targets were — the gun's sensor triggered on the bright flash, not the duck sprite itself.
Clay Shooting mode featured flying discs instead of birds — a calmer alternative that some players preferred.
The NES Zapper does not work on modern flat-screen televisions due to differences in display technology from CRT screens.

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