Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Alec Meer on January 6th, 2009 at 5:11 pm.

It’s shaping up to be an all-indie day for Stone, Parchment, Blunderbuss, so let’s continue this proud trend. Next up is Ten Ton Ninja, concerning a treasure-hunting wee fella who’s too porky to move on his ownsome, but can heroically shunt and swing himself all over the shop thanks to his magic ninja grappling hook.

This puzzle-platformer may seem a little pedestrian after the more experimental fare we’ve already jabbered about today, but it’s definitely cute. I’m going to call it Peggle meets Bionic Commando: the escalating aim-trickiness of the former meets the rope-swinging and trap-dodging of the latter. It’s all about acceleration and momentum – with no direct movement, snatching all the gems on the screen’s a matter of detaching from the scant pieces of grappleable scenery at just the right moment to hurl yourself through a small pile of floating jewels.

On top of that, you’re against a timer and trying to build up NINJA POWER by coolly hooking onto more grappling points before you tumble gracelessly to the ground. As it wears on, it starts dropping the likes of turrets, exploding bricks and rival ninjas on you. Gosh, can’t a ninja collect his floating gems in peace? When your only option is to swing, baby, swing, your dexterity and spatial awareness enjoy quite the challenge. Which is my way of saying “I’m not very good at this, but you lot probably will be.”