Matt Soniak
How Did the Duck Hunt Gun Work?
by Matt Soniak - January 14, 2011 - 10:52 PM

If you’re a geek of a certain age, a good portion of your childhood probably revolved around sitting too close to the TV, clutching a plastic safety cone-colored hand gun and blasting waterfowl out of a pixilated sky in Duck Hunt (also, trying to blow that dog’s head off when he laughed at you). The Duck Hunt gun, officially called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Zapper, seems downright primitive next to the Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Kinect, but in the late 80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder. How did that thing work?

Annie get your Zapper

The Zapper’s ancestry goes back to the mid 1930s, when the first so-called “light guns” appeared after the development of light-sensing vacuum tubes. In the first light gun game, Ray-O-Lite (developed in 1936 by Seeburg, a company that made parts and systems for jukeboxes), players shot at small moving targets mounted with light sensors using a gun that emitted a beam of light. When the beam struck a sensor, the targets – ducks, coincidentally – registered the “hit” and a point was scored.

Light guns hit home video game consoles with Shooting Gallery on the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Because the included shotgun-style light gun was only usable on a Magnavox television, the game flopped. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Zapper then fell into the hands of American kids in October 1985, when it was released in a bundle with the NES, a controller and a few games. Early versions of the peripheral were dark gray, but the color of the sci-fi ray gun-inspired Zapper was changed a few years later when a federal regulation required that toy and imitation firearms be “blaze orange” (color #12199, to be exact) so they wouldn’t be mistaken for the real deal.

While there were a number of Zapper-compatible games released for the NES (when I was a kid and my dad worked from home, we wasted plenty of afternoons away playing Hogan’s Alley), most lived in the shadow of the iconic Duck Hunt, the most recognizable and popular Zapper game.

Gone in a Flash

While older light guns like the Ray-O-Lite rifle emitted beams of light, the Zapper and many other recent light guns work by receiving light through a photodiode on or in the barrel and using that light to figure out where on the TV screen you’re aiming.

When you point at a duck and pull the trigger, the computer in the NES blacks out the screen and the Zapper diode begins reception. Then, the computer flashes a solid white block around the targets you’re supposed to be shooting at. The photodiode in the Zapper detects the change in light intensity and tells the computer that it’s pointed at a lit target block — in others words, you should get a point because you hit a target. In the event of multiple targets, a white block is drawn around each potential target one at a time. The diode’s reception of light combined with the sequence of the drawing of the targets lets the computer know that you hit a target and which one it was. Of course, when you’re playing the game, you don’t notice the blackout and the targets flashing because it all happens in a fraction of a second.

This target flashing method helped Nintendo overcome a weakness of older light gun games: cheaters racking up high scores by pointing the gun at a steady light source, like a lamp, and hitting the first target right out of the gate.

If you’re hungry for a more technical depth, check out Nintendo’s 1989 patent on the Zapper technology

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Comments (39)

  1. Also: you can move the ducks with the controller plugged in as player 2. I know.

    posted by ian on 1-14-2011 at 4:19 pm

  2. So, in reality, the TV was shooting something at the gun and not the other way around?

    posted by mark on 1-14-2011 at 4:21 pm

  3. Great article, but you left out the fact that the Zapper will not work on today’s flat-screened TV sets!

    posted by Ell on 1-14-2011 at 4:38 pm

  4. That’s pretty cool! And if you could possibly notice the screen flash, it could be attributed to the gun shot. But, I’m in awe at the engineering involved. :-)

    posted by Cecelia on 1-14-2011 at 4:50 pm

  5. I love this game. I still have my working NES, copy of Duck Hunt, and the gun!

    posted by Kristin on 1-14-2011 at 5:49 pm

  6. I admit, I used to cheat at “Duck Hunt” — after the fifth or sixth time when I SWEAR I’d hit one but it recorded a miss, I’d go right up to the TV and hold the gun against the screen. :)

    posted by MH on 1-14-2011 at 5:50 pm

  7. The light gun was sort of a precursor to the Wii Remote, in the sense that they both turn the traditional remote on its head by putting the sensor in the handheld peripheral, with the light source in a stationary object.

    posted by Stefan on 1-14-2011 at 6:15 pm

  8. Magnavox Odyssey in 1972? Ummmm try 1982 :)

    In 72 we still marveled at how that $100 calculator from Sears-Roebuck worked!

    posted by Mutineer on 1-14-2011 at 6:47 pm

  9. quack quack quack

    posted by The Creature on 1-14-2011 at 6:47 pm

  10. Mutineer — You were missing out in ’72!

    http://www.ign.com/top-25-consoles/25.html

    http://www.magnavox-odyssey.com

    posted by Jason English on 1-14-2011 at 7:05 pm

  11. I only remember they grey guns. I wonder if it’s because of my age or if Canada had different regulations regarding fake guns…

    posted by Sarah in Canada on 1-14-2011 at 7:07 pm

  12. Mutineer, you’re thinking of the Odyssey2. The first Odyssey was in, you bet, 1972.

    posted by Dave on 1-14-2011 at 7:19 pm

  13. I took my gun apart and removed the lense that focused the light. I always hit something after that.

    posted by illy joel on 1-14-2011 at 8:49 pm

  14. I LOVE duckhunt; it is my favorite NES game. I still have a working NES and a top loader NES. The highest I ever got was to level 23. OMG did those ducks move FAST! Plus, I think you can only miss one at that point.

    posted by nihil on 1-15-2011 at 12:16 am

  15. My best friend had a NES and Duck Hunt when we were in college a couple years ago. I played it and was in awe at how the gun worked – it seemed to handle things well for being such primitive technology.

    (er, no offense meant by referring to it as primitive technology…just, when you were born in 1987, it kind of is…)

    posted by Kate on 1-15-2011 at 1:04 am

  16. gd article..

    posted by sushil on 1-15-2011 at 1:44 am

  17. “…..clutching a plastic safety cone-colored hand gun and blasting waterfowl out of a pixilated sky in Duck Hunt (also, trying to blow that dog’s head off when he laughed at you).”

    Damb right!!! Nintendo could have made millions (more) if they would have made it so that after a particularly bad round you *COULD* have shot the blankety-blank dog!

    Not to kill, of course, but just to hear him go “yip-yip-yip” or something other than that cotton-pickin’ snicker….

    -”BB”-

    posted by Bicycle Bill on 1-15-2011 at 4:45 am

  18. Beretta makes a 22 handgun called a NEOS that looks exactly like that.

    posted by David Young on 1-15-2011 at 8:15 am

  19. Finally after 20+ years of waiting the burning question has been answered. Good work Matt.

    posted by JW on 1-15-2011 at 10:43 am

  20. in Japan, the gun looked like a revolver.

    I really gotta get Hogan’s Alley one of these days, I always preferred that to DH.

    posted by Wayne on 1-15-2011 at 8:20 pm

  21. I loved that game! With the new Kinect and other motion based controllers it really seems not that Duck Hunt was way ahead of the curve.

    posted by Tracy on 1-15-2011 at 9:23 pm

  22. Ah, fond memories. My brother and I wasted so much time playing Duck Hunt during our summers.

    posted by Joe on 1-16-2011 at 12:20 am

  23. This person apparently enjoys the games enough to do this:

    http://ugliesttattoos.failblog.org/2011/01/10/funny-tattoos-light-artillery/

    [Somewhat NSFW]

    posted by Tdave on 1-16-2011 at 11:37 am

  24. I’m guessing this technology wouldn’t work on modern HDTV LCD/Plasma sets because of the delay? I’ve discovered a lot of older quick reflex games play badly on flat panel TVs.

    posted by Richie on 1-17-2011 at 12:51 am

  25. I seem to remember that on a select types of TVs, I was always able to point the Zapper at the lower corner of the screen, usually the left side bottom corner, and ALWAYS get the duck(s) in one shot. The weird part is that it didn’t work on EVERY TV, only some models. It worked at my house, but not at my friends no matter how hard we tried. I wonder if there was somethign with the television itself that reflected the light differently or something to allow for this.

    posted by Justin L on 1-17-2011 at 9:58 am

  26. Awesome article – you keep answering questions I’ve always had but never thought to ask. :-) And MH – I’ve totally done the point-blank duck hunting, too.

    posted by Roger on 1-17-2011 at 10:01 am

  27. I remember there was a “sweet spot” that you could shoot in the upper right hand portion of the TV screen that would allow you to hit the ducks no matter where they were. This was on multiple TV’s as both my cousin and I did this if we got frustrated with the game. It took the fun out if it, so I never had the patience to use this cheat to get to the higher levels of the game.

    Does anyone else remember this?

    posted by Lisa on 1-17-2011 at 3:31 pm

  28. In college, I found out that if you turned the contrast either all the way up or all the way down on my roommate’ TV then it would register a hit everytime. I could amaze my friends with my trick shots.

    posted by Richard on 1-18-2011 at 8:46 am

  29. Good to know. I asked about this before in the Etch-a-Sketch article.
    The duck hunt gun really did puzzle me. I thought that maybe the gun recognized the color of the ducks, but the gun would still work when I’d mess with the TV picture’s tint. I also tried not pointing it at the TV, shooting repeatedly to see if there might be some sort of level in the gun thats ‘bubble’ detected the angle of the gun. Though seeing as the gun could shoot ducks even when holding the gun sideways (movie gangsta style), it didn’t make sense.
    I really scratched my head over this one, now knowing the mystery of shooting the gun is a light going off.
    Thanks bunches Matt.

    posted by Anna on 1-18-2011 at 3:01 pm

  30. never found the sweet spot. the gun never seemed to work. i liked the arcade version better.

    i like the contrast trick though.

    posted by mike on 1-19-2011 at 9:56 am

  31. Did the gun for the Sega Master System work the same way? The SMS, in my opinion, had way better gun games than the Nintendo, just not as well remembered. Gangster Alley, Rescue Mission, Safari Hunt, Laser Ghost, etc.

    posted by Ben on 1-25-2011 at 3:43 pm

  32. “Beretta makes a 22 handgun called a NEOS that looks exactly like that.”

    I own a Beretta Neos U22. It doesn’t much look like the zapper at all, save for the grip angle.

    posted by agathis on 1-26-2011 at 5:42 pm

  33. I knew a guy who owned a movie theater back in the day… for his son’s birthday party, they hooked the NES up to a Barco projector and played Duck Hunt on the big screen!!!

    posted by ChuckEye on 1-27-2011 at 3:03 pm

  34. my younger sisters would still cheat by holding the gun directly to the tv set and pulling the trigger repeatedly killing any ducks on the screen… i hated that!

    posted by Lars on 5-9-2011 at 12:26 pm

  35. What, no mention of Wild Gunman?

    posted by indotexan on 10-21-2011 at 1:10 pm

  36. Back in the days when Radio Shack was selling the NES, the store I frequented had Duck Hunt set up for customers to play with. Next to it was another television which, for whatever reason, was on a non-broadcasting channel, and showing “fly races”, “snow”, or whatever your nickname for static was.

    I discovered that if you pointed the gun at the television showing the static on the screen, you could get a hit every time.

    posted by Thriell on 10-21-2011 at 2:18 pm

  37. Several years ago I pulled my NES and (gray) Zapper out of the closet and used frame-advance on my VCR to figure out how the zapper worked. If I recall correctly, when the gun was fired the whole screen was white for one frame, black for one frame, then one all-black frame with a white square around the first duck, and then one with the square around the other duck. In real time it just looked like a flash, but once you knew what to look for you could see the squares. I recall trying to cheat the game by waving the gun back and forth across a light source. I can’t recall whether that worked.

    posted by ReverendTed on 10-23-2011 at 4:01 pm

  38. LOL! That first sentence alone is awesome!

    posted by Christine on 11-16-2011 at 1:50 pm

  39. My uncle had a mirror opposite the TV; you could shoot into the mirror, and hit the ducks every time. Sort of a massive sweet spot

    posted by Ken on 12-31-2011 at 10:45 pm

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