Hunter

''Strong and quick, with a fierce metabolism requiring a steady diet of meat. But the stomach wont be your only concern, as the path of the hunter is one of extreme peril.''

The Hunter serves as the base game's hard mode, and features several changes which make the game significantly more challenging.

For the main Slugcats page, see Slugcat.



Food
6 food pips are required to hibernate, while up to 3 may be stored for the next cycle.

Opening
The Hunter does not have an intro cutscene, instead playing a short animation before handing control over to the player. Despite that, their story is the most intertwined with the lore of the world out of the base game Slugcats, as their primary mission is to deliver a green neuron to Looks to the Moon, who has collapsed due to Five Pebbles using too much water from their shared source of groundwater. Another iterator, No Significant Harassment (NSH), noticed the lack of rain coming from her can and decided to help by sending a special Green Neuron. This Neuron Fly holds several slag reset keys, which, as the name suggests, would get rid of the slag and allow Moon to function again if given to her. Being unable to make this delivery by themselves due to eroding equipment, NSH sent the Hunter to do it for them.



====Food:           ====

Inventory:

 * The Green Neuron in hand.
 * The Aquamarine Pearl in their stomach, which contains a message from NSH to Moon.
 * A Spear on their back.

Cycles
Unlike every other Slugcat, the Hunter's cycles count down, meaning the player has a limited amount of time to do everything they may wish to. Cycles decrement upon sheltering, and are limited to 19 upon beginning the game. If the player visits Five Pebbles, he rewards the player with 5 extra cycles and acts like an Echo in terms of karma, as opposed to raising it to rank 10. This means that visiting Echoes is required; the player needs to raise their maximum karma four times before passing the Guardians.

At cycle 0 and below, Hunter becomes significantly weaker, suffers seizure-like spasms, and requires more food to survive. The cycle count descends into negative numbers below cycle 0, with each step below zero making the effects of the Hunter's affliction much worse. It is difficult, although not impossible, to survive for some time in negative cycles. Dying or quitting at this point causes the run to immediately end and the final score to be tallied.

General Changes

 * Predators are more common and more difficult.
 * Any dead creature can be eaten for food.
 * A second Spear can be stored on their back.
 * Smaller creatures and plants only fill 1/4th of a food pip.
 * Karma flowers don't spawn, except on a permanent death.
 * Speed, jump height, and damage from spears are all slightly increased.
 * Explosive Spears can rarely replace normal Spears (1/125 chance).
 * Creatures killed by the player have a higher respawn rate (50% per cycle).
 * Passages do not allow for teleportation.

World Changes

 * Unfortunate Development is easier.
 * Fewer Daddy Long Legs appear in the Underhang and Five Pebbles.
 * The lower section of Garbage Wastes is more difficult.
 * Two shelters are unusable:
 * The shelter near the Outskirts gate in Industrial Complex (HI_S03)
 * The shelter next to a scavenger cave in Farm Arrays (LF_S07).
 * Two fewer Bubble Weed appear in the pearl room of Drainage System (DS_D01).
 * This means that Hunter only has one room with Bubble Weed, near the Subterranean gate in Shoreline (SL_D05).
 * Three Blue Fruit do not appear in the room left of Subterranean's ravine (SB_A09).
 * Nine additional Noodlefly Eggs:
 * Three in Outskirts (one in SU_B02 and two in SU_B09).
 * Six in Sky Islands (two each in SI_C07, SI_D03, and SI_D07).
 * Some Popcorn Plants are withered and thus unusable.
 * One extra Popcorn Plant appears in the room left of the ravine in Subterranean (SB_A09).
 * Five additional dead Vulture Grubs:
 * Two in Industrial Complex in the room outside the Outskirts gate (HI_B04).
 * Three in the (now-unusable) shelter next to the scavenger cave in Farm Arrays (LF_S07).
 * Albino Jetfish appear in the water in Subterranean's "Leviathan cave" room (SB_J02).

Trivia

 * Probably due to the same cause that limits Hunter’s time to 20 cycles, upon their final death, unbeknownst to the player, their corpse would morph into something else.
 * This can be seen only when playing as Gourmand if the player has a failed Hunter campaign in the same save slot, and visiting back the very room the Hunter had died.
 * Looks to the Moon also once hinted at this in a very enigmatic way.
 * No Significant Harassment (NSH), the Iterator who sent Hunter in the first place, makes an appearance in the ascension ending.