[h1]SHORT REVIEW[/h1]
Ninja jump -- yes, the second word in the title is all lower case; I find that more interesting than the game itself! -- is yet another minimal Unity game that, not that long ago, is the sort of game one would only have expected to find as a free download on the website of a novice game programmer. I don't understand why or how these sorts of things have become so prevalent on Steam; without trading cards, surely the developers can't even be recovering the price of entry. Anyway, I received it as a gift from a friend and was horrified to see that the asking price is more than the minimum allowed on Steam.
The goal of the game is to take your little fat ninja dude across the side-scrolling landscape, one minimally animated jump at a time. What you see in the gameplay video is it, or at least seems to be it from the few minutes of my precious spare time I was willing to devote to playing.
The game plays like an extremely simple mobile game: "touch the screen", the player is advised, when the power bar on the left represents the amount of power you want to use. Only, jumping doesn't always work; in my few minutes or so of play I encountered at least half a dozen situations in which the power bar inexplicably dropped to the bottom again just as I pressed the button, sending my ninja silently falling to his death. A few times when I jumped he fell straight through the tower on which he was standing. Good stuff!
Graphics are sort of okay for the style. The background sky changes colour occasionally as if the night is ending, and the stars sort-of twinkle a bit, which is a nice touch.
Sounds are terrible: reminiscent of a bad PC speaker game from the early 1990s. There was no music when I played; the Japanese-sounding tune from the store page video doesn't seem to be included in the game at all. Perhaps the lack of music is meant to draw attention to the sound effects. I hope not.
[h1]PROS AND CONS[/h1]
Pros:
+ The sky looks sort of nice
Cons:
- The game has a single mechanic and it doesn't work reliably
- The price
- Sound effects are terrible
- No music, even though there's some in the gameplay video on the store page
- "Touch the screen ..."
- There seems to be no way to quit from within the game
[h1]CONCLUSION[/h1]
Ninja jump is basically worthless for anything except a demonstration from the developer to a potential employer that he or she is able to make a small game. I can't imagine anyone would buy this for its asking price and not refund it within a few minutes. Actually, regardless of the price I can't think of anyone who would actually want to play it for more than a few minutes anyway; most of my play time is from leaving it idling for long enough to post this review. It's not even worth anything to Achievement hunters, since the developer hasn't included Achievements.
