Posts tagged with “Ninja”

A lot of times flash games have some sort of innovative, but ultimately gimmicky, central mechanic that doesn’t get used especially well. At it’s surface, Enough Plumbers would seem to be one of these games. You star as an overall wearing plumber trying to complete several levels by reaching the flag. The fun twist is that when you get a coin a clone spawns, which functions with the same keyboard controls as all the other plumbers (it feels a bit like Ninja Bros).

What’s impressive about this game is that there is actually a good level progression where the mechanic is explored nicely over 25 levels, and some of the later challenges are pretty damn difficult. It’s also got a lot of nice touches, including fun sound effects and music, cool power ups, and a terrific final boss battle. Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, the entire game is a homage to Mario, which is especially apparent in that boss battle (Miyamoto-Bowser!) Why are you still reading this? Go play it!

Incidentally, one of the guys that made this is Glen Forrester, the nut behind Gnilley.

Conventional wisdom is that the XBox Live Indie Games channel (XBLIG) is generally a grab bag of crap. The games there tend to be lower quality, have worse production value, have short gameplay experiences with little or no replay value, and frequently either lack in originality or are so far off the deep end in terms of creativity that they aren’t even fun. Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that Microsoft made a channel where anyone can create and post games (though I’m annoyed at them co-opting the phrase “indie games” for their own use), and I think that it can be a terrific learning experience for new developers to have to opportunity to commercially release a game to the masses through the channel. But the unfortunate upshot is that most users tend to regard XBLIG as home to garbage.

But there are good games there, if you know where to look! Recently we’ve been playing Ninja Bros at the office. It’s a short and fun puzzle platformer in which you control 2 to 4 ninja brothers in their never ending quest to push buttons, open doors, and then exit the level. The game is quite tricky though, as all the brothers move in unison whenever the left joystick is moved, and all have separate jump buttons. From this simple premise the game developers have crafted some incredibly fun levels that really explore the mechanic, and completing each level is quite rewarding. Add in some simple yet polished and appealing pixel art and you’ve got a real winner of a game.

Ninja Bros cost $1 (only!) and is a real steal. I strongly recommend picking it up and seeing what one of the best games on XBLIG looks like. You’ll have a great time playing!