The AppStore is an incredible place for first time developers to learn a lot about the gaming industry. It’s also a wonderful place for gamers to fine incredibly cheap games from first time developers, sometimes finding a gem you’ll love, and a developer you’ll want to support in the future. Alien Worm’s first iOS game, Ninja Pong, is a great first publication, and will probably turn into a game that leads you to follow the future releases of Alien Worm.
In this casual arcade game, you’ll control a paddle while swarms of ninjas jump from one side of the screen to the other. Your goal is to get as many ninjas safely across the middle of the screen gap as you can, either before time runs out, or before you loose a certain amount of ninjas, depending on which game mode you’re playing. While you’re trying to do this, bombs, flaming arrows, coins, and power-ups will be thrown toward the gap as well. If you get hit by a bomb, it’s game over, and if you get hit by a flaming arrow or two (or more) you’ll need to drag your finger back and forth quickly to shake the arrows off of your paddle. Power-ups will either give you extra health, double points, a bigger paddle or an invincible metal paddle, while coins can be collected and spent in the in-game shop.
Yes, there is a shop, which usually means there’s IAPs for coins, or shop items, and it’s no different here with Ninja Pong. Thankfully, the game is not geared towards buying extra items or gold, so it’s more of a “you’ll get these things in return for supporting the developer” set-up of IAPs, which is always nice to see. You can buy 1000 coins for $0.99, 2500 coins for $1.99, or a coin copying machine for $0.99. Aside from the IAPs, there are 10 different accessories that you can dress your ninjas up with, like a Roman helmet, a top hat, sombrero, and more, as well as a few upgrades, like a bomb destroyer, or longer bonus times for your power-ups, like the larger paddle or point multiplier.
There are two different game modes, Arcade, and Endless. Arcade has normal and hard difficulty settings, with the hard setting giving the game more speed. In Arcade Mode, you’ll try and get as many ninjas across the screen as you can in 1 minute. You can miss an unlimited number of ninjas, which comes in handy when trying to avoid the bombs and arrows, or when trying to grab coins or power-ups. In Endless Mode, you’ll get as many ninjas across the screen as you can before dropping 6 of them. In this mode, the difficulty goes up with your skill, and can become pretty challenging fairly quickly.
You’ll be able to choose between 4 different environments, some of which are locked when you first start the game, but do not take long at all to open up. The different environments do not change the gameplay at all, but it is nice being able to choose some different looks for the levels, and helps make replaying the modes seems less repetitive.
The graphics in Ninja Pong are done very well, as everything is very polished, and smooth looking. The animations are also done very nicely, and make the gameplay very smooth, and entertaining. In most of the levels, there are leaves that are scattered all over the screen, blowing in the wind. They don’t distract from the gameplay at all, but once you start looking at them, and noticing how good they look, you’ll start to notice more little details in the levels, like trees moving in the wind and various other things that just make the game graphically stand out in a store that’s full of pretty basic looking cartoony graphics and animations. Coupled with the music and gameplay, all the parts of Ninja Pong come together to create a prime example of what a really good casual game should be.
At $0.99 for the iPod version, and $1.99 for the iPad build (which is on sale for Halloween at the moment, you can grab it for $0.99!), it’s a great buy. 7 GameCenter leader boards, along with 33 hard to get achievements add a ton of replay value to Ninja Pong. It’s clear that Alien Worm have done their research, and know exactly what it takes to make an addictive casual game that’s great for gamers of all ages, while providing a challenge for even the most skilled gaming veteran. Right now, it’s not really a game I can see too many people sitting down and playing for long periods of time, but it’s a great one for those 5 to 15 minute spurts. In the game’s description, it says that more environments, more unlockables, and more features are coming in the future, so hopefully the additions that Alien Worm has in mind will round out the game. But it’s still a title that’s worth buying, and will provide quite a bit of ninja bouncing, arcady fun.
At $0.99 for the iPod version, and $1.99 for the iPad build (which is on sale for Halloween at the moment, you can grab it for $0.99!), it’s a great buy. 7 GameCenter leader boards, along with 33 hard to get achievements add a ton of replay value to Ninja Pong. It’s clear that Alien Worm have done their research, and know exactly what it takes to make an addictive casual game that’s great for gamers of all ages, while providing a challenge for even the most skilled gaming veteran. Right now, it’s not really a game I can see too many people sitting down and playing for long periods of time, but it’s a great one for those 5 to 15 minute spurts. In the game’s description, it says that more environments, more unlockables, and more features are coming in the future, so hopefully the additions that Alien Worm has in mind will round out the game. But it’s still a title that’s worth buying, and will provide quite a bit of ninja bouncing, arcady fun.
Ninja Pong gets a score of 4.5 out of 5.
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