Jungle Hunt



Jungle Hunt is an arcade video game released in 1982 by Taito Corporation. It began life as Jungle King (which itself began as a prototype named "Jungle Boy"). However, Jungle King's main character bore a very strong resemblance to Tarzan, down to his trademark yell. As a result, Taito was sued by the estate that owned the rights to Tarzan. As a compromise, Taito made cosmetic changes to the game that switched the Tarzan-look-alike into a safari explorer and removed the yell. Just about everything else in the game remained the same.

In Jungle Hunt (or King), the main character's girlfriend has been kidnapped by natives. In order to get her back, the character must endure four trials before he can rescue her. First he must swing on ropes (or vines) over a dangerous jungle floor. Then he must swim through crocodile infested waters, armed with only a knife. Then he must climb a mountain during an avalanche and dodge the falling rocks. Finally he must jump over the somewhat oblivious natives guarding his girlfriend and cut her down from the rope where she hangs over a boiling pot of water.

Jungle Hunt was a minor success (once all of the legal problems were sorted out.) It was actually one of the earliest side scrolling action games, although the action scrolls from right to left. After making one cosmetic revision to the game, Taito tried to pull a hat-trick, and revised the game once more as Pirate Pete, replacing the jungle theme with a pirate theme, but it was made more difficult, and was far less popular. Atari sought to acquire the rights to publish Jungle Hunt on it's home systems, as well as for competing systems through the Atarisoft label. This may have been in response to the tremendous success of Pitfall! by Activision. Jungle Hunt was released in conjunction with Kangaroo as part of the "Atari Safari" marketing campaign.

Story
A leisurely Jungle safari turned into fiasco when your lady friend was kidnapped by two cannibals. They'll turn her into soup if you don't rescue her quickly! To rescue your friend, you'll need to make your way past four obstacles: a jungle where you'll jump from rope to rope, a river filled with open-jawed crocodiles, a landslide of boulders, and a cannibal campsite where your friend hangs suspended over a steaming pot of soup. Rescue her before she becomes the main course.