Manhunter – Animated GIFs

In a previous post, I talked about and showed some of the “fan art” (or rather, art edits) I made for my now-defunct website tribute to Sierra’s Manhunter game series. The other thing I made for that site, as well as my own amusement, was a series of animated GIFs using Manhunter sprites. Some recreates moments from the game, while others are “mashups” to create new moments. I hope you enjoy seeing these!

Notes: The “Under Construction” Maintenance Robot one was made for my Manhunter Memories site, back when all websites had an “under construction” gif! The Cargo Robot animations were my creations, and my attempt to figure out how that robot seen in MH:SF could move crates around without any arms or manipulators! The Hunter Robot is, again, my own design created for a top-down “bullet hell” shooter fan game I started by never finished (that’s why it has that tiny top-down sprite here, too).

Manhunter – Fan Art

Way back in 2003, I got the chance to talk with Ken Williams, founder of Sierra On-Line. He was then setting up an online web platform called Talkspot (which shut down in January 2020), that allowed people to create websites with a WYSIWYG-style interface which was quite revolutionary for the time. It was amazing to be able to exchange even a few emails with a man who’s work had been such a huge part of my childhood and influenced much of my adult life. I don’t have many “heroes”, but Ken is one of them.

When I mentioned my love for the oft-neglected Sierra-published Manhunter games, Ken kindly offered me a site on Talkspot as a “shrine” to that game series, especially since there were no other Manhunter websites around (unlike, say, Space Quest, King’s Quest, Quest for Glory or Leisure Suit Larry). I built a small site, but my own time was limited so I didn’t get much done. Eventually, like a lot of my projects, it had to fall by the wayside as “real life” took precedent.

The site – like Talkspot itself – is now gone, but I kept all the graphics I made for it (or intended to use for it). In the interest of preserving these little bits and pieces for the handful of people who still know and love Manhunter, I wanted to post them here.

Note that most are edits of existing Manhunter NY and SF art assets, so credit must go to Dee Dee Murry for her awesome work on the originals!

From my ‘Manhunter Memories’ site on Talkspot:

 

From my planned “Manhunter Visual Guide” (never completed/released):

Note: unlike the others, which use existing assets, the Hunter Robot, Shepherd Robot and Labor Robot were drawn almost entirely from scratch (the latter two based on existing designs in-game that showed them from different angles). The Hunter Robot was entirely my own design, created for a Manhunter “shooter minigame” I made in Gamemaker around the same time (which I will try to post the unfinished demo of, if I can find it).