Sub Hunt

Overview

Sub Hunt was developed by Tom Loughry at APh Technological Consulting and released for the Intellivision in 1981. In the game, players take command of a fleet of four submarines and engage waves of enemy ships before they can rendezvous at a staging point to attack the player's home base. Success in Sub Hunt typically requires strategy in both the positioning of the player's fleet of subs and the effective battle tactics, utilizing stealth where necessary to avoid losing a submarine to attack.

Gameplay

The player begins Sub Hunt by selecting one of five levels of difficulty, which determines the enemy country's color, along with the power and aggressiveness of their ships.

The game opens on an ocean map screen, with the player's four subs just west of home base, the enemy's staging point to the north, and an advancing enemy wave of ships in the far west. From here, any of the player's submarines can be ordered to move about the map, and will continue to move until ordered to stop or combat ensues. When a sub and an enemy wave collide, combat ensues.

When combat begins, the perspective switches to the submarine engaging the enemy, and gives the player full control of its engines, rudder, depth, and sonar. From here, the player must choose how to take on the wave, which consists of six ships, at least one of which is a high-powered destroyer. If any of the enemy ships spot the player sub, either through visual or by picking up its sonar, they will begin to fire guns or depth charges at it, depending on whether the submarine is on the surface or underwater. The submarines have two torpedo tubes and unlimited torpedoes to fight back, but must get within a close range to take out enemy ships. When the entire enemy wave or the sub sinks, or the enemy wave moves out of range, the game switches back to the ocean map screen.

Three destroyers are stationed at the enemy's staging point, so if three additional ships join them, they will form a final strike fleet, and head towards the player's home base. This fleet is tougher than the initial enemy waves, and letting it reach the home base shores will result in game over.

The enemy will send six waves towards the staging point, for a total of 36 ships. To win the game, all these ships must be destroyed while protecting home base from capture.