Can you play Hunt & Score online here?
Not properly. Hunt & Score does not use a joystick. It was made for Atari’s Keyboard Controller, a small keypad with twelve buttons (0–9, * and #), and you choose squares by typing their numbers. The emulator on this page (Javatari) does not emulate the keypad, so the game will load, but you have no way to choose a square. For puzzle and board games that do work here, see the suggestions at the end.
How the game works
The screen shows a grid of numbered squares, either 16 (four by four) or 30. Behind each square hides a simple picture, such as a ladybug, a crab, a flying saucer, a castle or a llama. On your turn you type the number of a square on the keypad and press # to confirm, and the picture behind it appears. Then you pick a second square.
If the two pictures match, the squares disappear, you score and you go again. If they do not match, the numbers come back and the turn passes to the other player. In the one-player game you play against the computer: each wrong guess gives the computer a point, and you keep going. Some games also hide two wild cards, which match any picture and score a point for whoever finds them.
Game variations and switches
There are eight games. Games 1 to 4 use the 16-square grid and games 5 to 8 the 30-square grid. Within each group the odd-numbered games are for two players and the even-numbered ones for a single player, and games 3, 4, 7 and 8 include the wild cards. With the difficulty switch in position B a match is worth two points, in position A one point. The manual calls this the handicap setting.
Tips
- Remember the misses. Every wrong guess still shows you where two pictures are.
- Turn over a new square first. If it matches a picture you have already seen, pick that one second.
History
Hunt & Score (model CX2642) came out in 1978, the year after the console was launched, and is one of only a handful of 2600 cartridges made for the Keyboard Controller. The two-player games need a keypad for each player; solo play uses one in the left port.
Similar games to play next
- Atari Video Cube – a Rubik’s Cube puzzle you solve with the joystick
- Othello – Atari’s version of the classic board game, against the computer or a friend
- 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe – noughts and crosses on a four-layer cube
- Video Checkers – draughts on the 2600, a calm game for any age