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.

The Hunter eating from a dead Blue Lizard.

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 structure and decided to help by sending a special Green Neuron. This Neuron Fly holds several slag reset keys, which, as the name suggests, gets rid of the slag and allows Looks to the Moon to function again if given to her. Being unable to make the delivery themselves due to eroding equipment, No Significant Harassment sent the Hunter to do it for them.

Hunter's scripted movements which are performed at the start of a run

Inventory:

• The Green Neuron in hand.
• The Aquamarine Pearl in their stomach, which contains a message from No Significant Harassment to Looks to the 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 wish. 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.

Downpour's Remix option enables the player to select how many cycles the Hunter starts with, as well as how many extra cycles Five Pebbles gives to the player.

General Changes

• 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.
• Hunter is more visible to creatures, is louder and gains a smaller stealth bonus when crouching.

Stats

Lung Capacity	Standard
Throwing Skill[*]	2
Spear Damage	1.25
Run Speed	1.2
Pole Speed	1.25
Mass	1.12
Loudness	1.35
Visibility Bonus	0.1
Crawling Stealth	0.3 (0.6x standard)

[*] Throwing skill affects velocity and trajectory.

World Changes

• Predators are more common and more difficult.
• 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 Karma Gate in Shoreline (SL_D05).
• Three Blue Fruit do not appear in the room left of Subterranean 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 Karma 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

• No Significant Harassment (NSH), the Iterator who sent Hunter in the first place, is speculated to make an appearance in the ascension ending.

SPOILER WARNING: Gourmand
This section contains major plot details from Gourmand. If you have not made significant progress or completed the game as Gourmand, then read no further!

• Probably due to the same cause that limits Hunter’s time to 20 cycles, upon their final death, their corpse becomes something else.
  • This can be seen only when playing as Gourmand if the player has a failed Hunter campaign in the same save slot, at the location of the permadeath.
  • Looks to the Moon also hints at this.

Spoilers end here.

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