Can you take down the entire fleet?
The enemy has established a naval blockade and you're the only one that can open up supply lines. Use your mini-sub to destroy enemy ships and clear the blockade. Success will depend on a steady hand and perfect timing. But beware! There are also reported sightings of an experimental enemy sub!
- Navigate tricky minefields
- Tense periscope action!
- Avoid depth charges raining from above
- Damn the torpedoes!
- Top secret submarine boss fight
Classic action
Controls
Arrows / D-Pad = Move submarine
Z / B-button = Action; Shoot forward
X / A-button = Shoot down
Gamepad recommended. Controller mappings will vary.
Credits
- Design + code + art: Brian Vaughn
- Music: Robby Duguay, Brian Follick
- Sound: SFXP
Behind the game
By chance I played Sea Chase by Eddy Fries on the Atari 800 and while it's pretty typical Atari fare, there was enough there to get me thinking, "it would be cool if there was more." Plus, it hit one of my favorite themes that I had yet to venture into: Submarines! Battleships! Underwaterness!
The first level of Steel Hunter borrows straight from Sea Chase with a few changes before heading into a periscope shooting gallery which is my favorite part. Honestly, the periscope thing is what drove this whole project. I wanted to make a game that used that mechanic so I wrapped underwater minefield levels around it to complete the story.
This isn't a long game, it's not a particularly challenging game, and it's not technically impressive. It wasn't really intended to be any of those things and I think that's okay. I was just trying to make a fun little game and scratch my annual itch to make a video game. And FWIW, no magic was used in making this game...just straight, unprocessed code on a single cart.
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thanks to everyone that plays and to all that have supported my games over the years. Please report any bugs or crashes.
Fun mix of mechanics. Gold star. It took a few tries to reach the ending, so not too easy or too hard.
For those having trouble:
Having needed several tries, it would be nice if the mission briefing and surface/submerge animations could be advanced a bit faster.
I'd be fascinated to see someone get good enough at this to speedrun it, since optimal play must involve intentionally running into a few mines to make getting around the mission 1 levels faster.
I never played Sea Chase, but this did remind me a bit of Seafox on the Apple II.
(The video below is hacked to give infinite lives, fuel and torpedoes. In actual play I felt I was good when I reached the start of Mission 4. I never knew there was a final Mission 5.)
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Thanks for playing! Glad you feel it found a good difficulty balance.
I've never seen Seafox before, I'll have to find a version to play. I probably should have made a side-shmup gameplay as level 3, oh well...guess it'll have to wait until Steel Hunter 2 :)
This is great fun! Felt like a good challenge but also very achievable.
I did run into a bug though! I took simultaneous damage from a mine and depth charge that knocked me below 0% damage, and the game just kept going. I was hanging out on the bottom getting hit and taking more damage but couldn't move and the game didn't end. I screenshotted it while my hull was at -175% :)
cute take on the submarine genre - well done!
minor gripe: could intro/mission debrief/.. be skipped on button press?
@2bit - I had that happen when I was testing and changed code and then it never happened again. It was tough to replicate and I just moved on. Hopefully rare enough but I’ll see about a remedy if there’s an update. Thanks for playing!
@freds - Thanks, man! I agree, shoulda put in a skip for cut scenes. It’s on the update list too.
Steel Hunter graced The Homebrewer's Kit section of Retro Gamer magazine issue #262...and it's in good company with other P8 games, Stickyfoot and Tiny Hawk Pico Skater!
I know it's not a feature or even has a screenshot but just getting a shoutout in a good old fashion magazine is pretty neat, if you ask me. I love Retro Gamer and am thankful they not only highlight homebrew games like ours but just that they even continue to publish a physical magazine.
Despite all the easy access to digital gaming news and reviews, I still love having a magazine I can hold and flip through easily without worrying about tiny screens, passwords, or connectivity. Plus, I always know it will be right there waiting for me...it's not going to magically disappear in the unfortunate case the magazine goes away.
The recent deaths of sites and publications like Game Informer which results in decades of articles being magically wiped out has be double-thankful for mags like Retro Gamer (and has me really regretting getting rid of my Nintendo Power mags all those years ago). Making everything digital is convenient but very risky in the name of preservation and history.
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