Ninjas! Robots! Heck, it’s even got This Product™. Jon’s new indie game, Ninja Robot Winning Gameshow, manages to be simple, challenging and humorous all at the same time. A little while back I posted a video of the gameplay prototype. The game is (mostly) finished and everyone can download and play it now:
Can anyone else say, “About time!”? I’ve had this almost ready to release for quite some time. But I wanted to add some finishing touches to it. There are more finishing touches that I’d like to add, but at least now it’s to a point where I feel like I can let other people download it, play it, and rag on it.
I especially appreciate Jon taking a moment in his announcement to talk about his objectives in making the game, and what tools and libraries he used.
The Good
- The game is easy to learn, but hard to master.
- Dig the background music.
- The ninja robot has a great sense of humor.
- Commercial breaks give you something to laugh about when you keep dying.
- Nice retro look and feel.
The Bad
- Controls are a little tricky – sometimes it isn’t clear whether you are allowed to change gravity or not
- The collision detection with spikes is a little too sensitive. Occasionally it seems off by a pixel or two.
- Commercial breaks are a little too frequent. Also, it would be nice if there were different “ads” that were shown.
- Background music tracks are chosen at random, which is OK, except you often get the same song two times in a row.
- Not much in the way of sound effects other than the robot speech.
The Ugly
- Not being able to play this on the iPhone.
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