Preproduction Begins
Exciting News: Preproduction Begins on a Full Version of Huntsman!
First off, I want to thank everyone who has played, downloaded, and shared feedback on Huntsman. It's officially hit 3.5K downloads! It’s because of your support that I’m excited to announce that I’m officially beginning preproduction on a full version of the game!
What’s Next?
Here are some of the ideas and goals I’m working toward:
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A Larger, More Interactive World – The new version will feature a much bigger level with more to do beyond just collecting items. Expect a more immersive experience.
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More Spider Species – I’d love to expand the variety of spiders in the game. However, this depends on finding the right assets or modelers to help, as I don’t currently have funding. It’s a challenge, but I believe it could take the game to the next level.
Stay Updated
For now, I’ll be posting updates here on the devlog as I work through ideas and development. In the future, I may expand updates to other platforms as well.
Get Huntsman
Huntsman
| Status | Prototype |
| Author | OnTheHouse Gaming |
| Genre | Survival |
| Tags | Horror, Survival Horror, Unreal Engine |
More posts
- 500 Downloads! Thank You All!38 days ago
Comments
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Impressed with this.
The balance is really good at the minute, it'd be easy to knock that off kilter.
The fact you have no weapons is a massive boon, it makes you feel very very vulnerable which is part of what makes this game great.
I think having a gun or axe or whatever to fight the spider would spoil the feeling of it.
Having multiple spiders / species could work well but probably you'd have to make slightly larger levels than we have at the moment. If the level is crowded it'd spoil the feel. One of the real boons of this game at the moment is you can go several minutes without seeing the spider at all, and that really adds to the fear-factor.
The only thing that jumps out at the moment that I wish you could add would be an ability to look at your inventory, there are only four items and the flashlight isn't collectible so it's not the biggest deal, but yeah an ability to briefly check what you've got and what you haven't (or maybe a checklist) would be useful.
A thought: Maybe an ability to turn the flashlight on and off as a mechanic for escaping attention from the spider or something could be good.
The only game-breaking bug (!) I came across several times while I've been playing is there are places (such as the office room in the left front corner as you come in from the corridor) where you can end up trapped in the corner by the spider. The hitbox of the spider is too large to allow the spider in close enough to deliver the killing bite, and you're not able to get up to the spider to let it kill you or past the spider to get out so you're just stuck with the spider treading water trying to sneak up to you. I was expecting to that be what the QuickLoad keybind was for but it didn't do anything then.
One thing that would really improve the QOL of the game would be further refinements of the animation/rigging of the spider to allow it to tranverse obstacles or navigate through the world with less clipping. I've no clue how you'd manage that, but for instance at the moment if you're in the starting office, and the spider passes in the corridor outside, you see its legs clip past through the wall as it passes you. Wall/ceiling walking would be amazing but I can imagine getting it to traverse smoothly between floors and walls (or between floors in the level) is not easy, so I get why that hasn't happened.
I thought the position of the webs was fixed but I've been super impressed by the revelation that the web positions seem to change with each playthrough. I assume there's some mechanism in place that never blocks access to particular areas so the game never becomes unwinnable?
I found the game via Tiktok, seeing people play it. I hate spiders but I had to give it a go, and yeah it really is scary.
I guess I was seeing an earlier build in clips where the spider had a much more... I hesitate to say "comically" but more overtly stalk-y kind of animation when it was sneaking slowly. 100% agree with the decision to change that to a more normal just slow walk on the build I played.
I'm going to keep a very close eye on this, if this ever comes out on PS5, I can't wait for the experience of playing this on a 55 inch TV.
Really well done.
I have arachnophobia and decided to play this game myself for the sake of video content lmao. Terrifying, a great little game my friend. Nice to see this game get more popular because it has a whole lot of potential. Would you consider putting the full version on Steam? Hopefully you get some bigger names stream and play this!
having weapons to defend yourself takes away from the thing that makes this game truly scary. I would keep the game as it is and by adding different spiders it adds a whole new dimension of horror. I have a question for you. Would you be interested in being a guest on my live horror podcast called Whisper of Horror to talk about Huntsman. Would live to talk about how you came about this game. Let me know :)
Hey!
Thanks for the feedback and I will definitely not be adding weapons! I appreciate the support and would love to be a guest! Let me know where we can talk about this further!
Do you have discord or Twitter (X)? Or any social media thar i can privately message you?
Yeah go ahead and message me on my IG account for my game dev - onthehousegaming
Personally, I don’t think FPS mechanics would fit this game. The horror of the game doesn’t come from many enemies with many ways to counter them, but rather only one giant spider, with one way to eliminate it, being the main goal of the game. The more spiders idea is great if not too many and bigger play area, but I think this kind of one-enemy horror has great vibes. (I also support the other’s comment idea of having ways to distract the spider). Also, I think the current game is terrifying, so I think it would be good if this version was kept as a demo later, or just for fun (like how Minecraft keeps its old versions). (Apologies for not the best english:) )
Thank you for the input!! After thinking about it more and your comment as well as others I am going to remove the idea of it being an FPS so thank you for that truly. I will definitely add a way to distract the spider! And yeah this version will always stay as it is on Itch and can definitely be a demo.
Thanks again for the support! Also the English was perfect!
I don't think it would work as well as a shooter, though having some kind of equipment to either distract or deter the spider would add some depth. Giving players something like one use pepper spray canisters or something makes you more willing to take risks, rather than following the same strategy the entire time.
But I think the strength in this is how accurate this feels to seeing a real huntsman, and how it moves and hunts. Having a single, implacable nemesis forces you to learn their behavior and sound cues.
And I would love to see other species. A trapdoor spider or a net casting spider would be goddamned terrifying. Especially if you didn't know what species you were going up against in that run.
Thank you for taking the time to comment and give feedback! So far everyone has the same thoughts you do so I will be taking all of this in and designing around that! Thanks for your support and I hope you had fun playing this version
You bet! It's just such a unique and awesome experience that I can't help but hope for the best.
And you've literally crafted the exact scenario from my worst nightmares, and not only did I actually play it (several times) but I'm genuinely looking forward to more updates.
If that's not a tribute to your talents, I don't know what else is. lol. Thanks for a great game!
Exciting!
Bruh... I think you're doin this out of spite lol....