Whilst no animals were harmed in the making of Headlong Hunt, my brain certainly was! Headlong Hunt sits somewhere between a Sokoban game and a slider puzzler. The object of each level is to capture a very zippy creature in your trap for scientific research. However, the creature is extremely twitchy and very fast and it’ll bolt in the opposite direction whenever it sees you. So begins a cat and mouse style puzzle game that had my head scratched.
Each level is laid out in squares as you move around them with keyboard or controller. The creature bolts in the opposite direction whenever it gets a clear line of sight of you on the four compass directions and you use this to move the creature around each level. The idea is to jump scare it into various walls or blocks to then manoeuvre the creature into your trap. It can’t bolt through it, the creature has to stop under it and that is a helpful point to know. It was how I was able to reverse engineer many of the levels as that point alone often gives you the final move of a level and you can back pedal from there. If you make a wrong move the creature will either bolt off the map, resulting in game over, or get stuck in a corner that you can’t get out of. Thankfully undo and restart buttons are on hand for a quick remedy.
Headlong Hunt works on a variety of levels. Not only are you pushing the creature around the level, you can use the scenery to either hide from the line of sight to make a move or move scenery around to create new stopping or through way points. There are four worlds in the game, totalling over 100 levels and whilst the initial world introduces you to the general gameplay loop, the grass and ice worlds add complexity. Grass allows you to hide behind it or in it but as soon as you leave the long grass it collapses. The creature can also use grass as a hiding spot and the levels are designed to shunt the creature from grass spot to spot like a slider puzzle. The ice levels I found harder because you can push blocks and put them in the water to create new stepping stones. That can often change the way a level plays out so its can send you down the wrong path. As that meant the levels were harder to reverse engineer (for me anyway), I struggled with these. The fourth world combines elements of the previous three together.
Whilst the game itself is not time bound and quite relaxed, the puzzles are difficult and tricky to complete. To balance this out Headlong Hunt makes many levels optional and often unlocks two or three levels when you complete one so if you get stuck, you can try something else. I liked the overworld map of levels too as you can see all the optional levels off the beaten path and their layouts from the menu. I haven’t completed all the optional levels. It’ll take me a fair few more hours to do so, but the challenge is there for the tough as nails puzzle fiend if you want them.
If anything, the muted presentation that helps you focus on the puzzle probably hinders its commercial marketing pop. This is a quiet and unassuming looking title and in many ways it is. Yet look beyond the simple graphical style and minimalistic vibe and you’ll have some excellent puzzle design that will feel very satisfying to complete.
Review copy provided by developer. Out now on Steam.
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