Adorably Muderous Ninjas in Sneaky Ninja

[dropcap size=big]S[/dropcap]neaky Ninja is a 2D stealth platforming game that’s found its way onto Kickstarter. Brought to us by Starfall Studios, a newly formed independent game developer based in New Jersey. The game scheduled to released in fall 2015 for both the PC and the Wii U.

Starfall Studios has been approved by Nintendo as a Wii U developer and the game is also approved for Steam as well.

Many have been saying that Sneaky Ninja is a blend of Mario and Mark of the Ninja, featuring a mix between acrobatic precision and well-planned stealth tactics. This is of course all tucked into a package of industry-quality visuals and ninja-inspired soundtracks.

In Sneaky Ninja, you may choose to play as one of four playable character that each have their own unique ability. Taro the Grasshopper for example, is able to disguise himself as a log to avoid death, as he escapes from harm. Sharpshooter Kaida who has the ability to slow time down as you aim your projectiles at the enemies. He can also charge this ability to fire more projectiles! Shoji the sensei can make his appearance that of a bush to deceive enemies and last but not least, there is Miyu who can create distracting decoys that hypnotizes enemies for a brief period of time.

Along with the characters, players will be able to use the standard-ninja weapons one could expect, such as the arrows, shuriken and katanas to stealthily deliver death to your adversaries. Smoke bombs as well as other distractions such as rocks, work well when you leave traps of sticky bombs and sharp tacks to take out the enemy. Of course no ninja game would feel right without the ability to deflect arrows with your sword, so there’s the ability to do that as well!

Blend into your surroundings as you use the environment as your disguise: you can take cover in the trees, bushes, wells or underwater till you gain the upper hand.

Being a ninja is really awesome and as such you’re able to use your nimble agility to reach paths unseen, wall bounce, hang from ledges, swing across the vines, climb ivy and bounce off mushrooms.

Magical powers allow you to do supernatural things such as teleport through walls or into cover, temporarily freeze time and extinguish light sources from distances. This adds a lot of dynamics to give you options to overcome powerful enemies.

Create your own levels. Stealthy Ninja uses a fully featured level editor to create content using the same tools to make the game.

Although, referenced to Mario a lot due to its 2D sidescrolling platforming and character jumping, Sneaky Ninja seems to have added a lot to the mix. Having multiple playable ninja, all with unique abilities, weapons and magical powers gives you an interesting concept for a game.

It’s not every day we see have such a breath of fresh air for us ninja fans out there. Being a fan of both ninja and platforming games, I’m excited for the release of this game. I feel like this game looks promising with what we’ve seen so far and if you’re still not a believer give the video a look and see what you think for youself!  If you’re interested in learning more, be sure to head over to the Sneaky Ninja Kickstarter campaign before it ends on March 12th.