''Clumsy Ninja'' is an
action-adventure
The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.
Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...
video game for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
Android, developed and published by
NaturalMotion
NaturalMotion is a British video game development company with development offices in London, Brighton and Birmingham. Founded in November 2001 as a spin-out company from Oxford University, NaturalMotion specialises in creating animation techno ...
in 2013. In the game the player trains a
ninja
A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance
In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enem ...
by having them complete tasks in order to gain
experience points
An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experien ...
. Within its first week of release, ''Clumsy Ninja'' was downloaded more than 10 million times.
Story
The story is told from 3rd person perspective by the ninja clue book. The main aim of the game is to save Clumsy Ninja's training partner & friend Kira from Hori-Bull, the antagonist, whose main aim is to find the Dragon Medallion. Kira finds the Dragon Medallion before Hori, but loses it as Hori-Bull weakened her, told in storyline. Hori-Bull had slipped a jelly potion, which makes limbs useless, into Kira's stew at one point, then threw her sword in the river, locked her in a cart, and took the Dragon Medallion. He then traveled to the temple region, bringing Kira with him. Kira managed to write a warning on one of her diary pages and give it to her squirrel friend, who soon brought it to Clumsy and friends. Clumsy Ninja, Lily, the chicken, the squirrel and the Sensei arrive to the temple environment/area to find Kira and save her from Hori-Bull. Clumsy, with the others, also find Kira's sword. They presently unlock the dojo, only to find Kira and Hori-Bull as stone statues. Upon freeing the duo, a fight ensues. Clumsy deflects an attack from Hori-Bull and catches the Dragon Medallion in mid-air, ultimately “leveling up” and becomes the Dragon Medallion Keeper, earning his Master Suit. Additionally, Kira manages to land a hit on Hori-Bull, knocking off his helmet. Hori escapes though, leaving his helmet behind while the others are reuniting.
Gameplay
Gameplay centers around training the ninja and improving their "ninja skills". The player can train the ninja by doing certain activities such as: playing hide and seek, playing on the trampoline, training with a punching bag and many other activities to earn experience (xp). As the ninja improves his skills he earns new belts. Another big part of the game is traveling the country and completing quests, doing so will unlock new items that can be used to further train the ninja, along with more storyline details.
Development
''Clumsy Ninja'' is the first mobile game to use the
Euphoria
Euphoria ( ) is the experience (or affect) of pleasure or excitement and intense feelings of well-being and happiness. Certain natural rewards and social activities, such as aerobic exercise, laughter, listening to or making music and da ...
physics engine. The game was originally announced for 'holiday season' 2012, however it was delayed by almost a year. It eventually appeared worldwide on the App Store on 21 November 2013. On release, ''Clumsy Ninja'' became the first app to be promoted with a video trailer embedded in the App Store.
Reception
The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the
review aggregation
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
.
[ '']TouchArcade
''TouchArcade'' is a mobile video game website that launched in 2008. Arnold Kim of ''MacRumors'' worked on the site and its editor-in-chief was Eli Hodapp from 2009 to 2019.
''TouchArcade'' has been recognized as one of the best mobile game ...
'' said, "NaturalMotion has created something very impressive and they clearly want to show off their little ninja and what he can do..."[
''Clumsy Ninja'' received 10 million downloads as of December 2013.]
See also
*List of ninja video games
The following is an incomplete list of video games which feature ninja, mostly in action and role-playing games, from the early 1980s to the present. It is organized in alphabetical order.
Game series
Visual novel series
Standalone games
Game ...
*Procedural animation
A procedural animation is a type of computer animation, used to automatically generate animations, animation in real-time to allow for a more diverse series of actions than could otherwise be created using predefined animations.
Procedural ani ...
References
{{reflist
2013 video games
Action-adventure games
Android (operating system) games
IOS games
Japan in non-Japanese culture
NaturalMotion games
Video games about ninja
Video games developed in the United Kingdom