Space Wumpus

Space Wumpus is a science-fiction reimagining of the venerable Hunt the Wumpus by Andrew Walters, framed as a tense game of hide and seek aboard a doomed exploration vessel. You play a junior crew member of the SS Earhart, stalking a sleeping alien through damaged compartments before the ship plunges into the sun.

Hide and seek in space

The premise inverts the usual shooter: the creature is asleep and you must locate it before stumbling into its room. Rooms are connected in a Wumpus-style topology, so deduction and careful movement matter more than reflexes.

A damaged ship as the board

During an earlier stop the SS Earhart picked up a creature that ate the rest of the crew and trashed the ship while you were cleaning the airlock. The ship's computer is damaged, leaving you only fragmentary information about which compartments are safe.

Hazards beyond the alien

You move room to room avoiding irradiated and burned out areas as well as the alien itself. Walking into the wrong compartment can be just as fatal as tripping over the sleeping creature, so each move requires weighing the limited clues.

Win condition: blast the alien, save the ship

Eliminate the creature by blasting it out into space and you might be able to repair enough of the Earhart to steer away from the sun and signal for rescue. Failure means being eaten or riding the wreck into the star.

System requirements

Space Wumpus needs an 8-bit color display, which made it accessible to most color-capable classic Macs of its era. The game was distributed via Info-Mac by author Andrew Walters.