Clumsy Ninja: A virtual friend with so much charm that resistance is futile
I don’t think I really expected to enjoy Clumsy Ninja as much as I have. I’m not really into virtual being simulators, I’ve tried games like Nintendogs on the Nintendo DS, and I didn’t really understand the appeal. Clumsy Ninja really changed the way I thought about these types of games, and most importantly, I’m having a really fun experience with it. There can be moments where the game can be a little slow and repetitive, nevertheless, if you take your time with the game and play it in short bursts, the experience stays fresh and fun. The game also does a very nice job pulling you back in, even if you don’t play it every day. You can allow notifications to remind you to check up on your ninja if you haven’t checked in for awhile. In my experience, the ninja has the tendency to start flying away when I’m not looking.
In Clumsy Ninja, you’re creating a ninja from scratch. He doesn’t really have any talent or coordination when you’re first introduced, it’s up to you to help train him so that he can rescue his friend that had been kidnapped. You teach the ninja to fight, jump from rooftop to rooftop, and use ninja weapons amongst other excersises. When you teach the ninja new skills or complete a training excercise, you’ll gain experience and currency, which can be used to purchase training items or to repair them after you’ve used them for awhile. While the core gameplay mechanic of creating a character and training them from scratch has been used a lot over the years, one of the things that really amazes me about this game, is the responsiveness and the fluidity of movement of your character. This adds a certain charm to the game, that I don’t think would be as impressive if the character had stiff, unresponsive movements. When you finish a training excercise and the Ninja wants you to give him a high-five, you’ll see what I mean.
While the game is very simple, there was some difficulty trying to see what could possibly hold the game back. Sure, this is a freemium game, so of course there are plenty of in-app purchases that can be made, but gaining currency and gems happens regularly just by playing the game, so that doesn’t affect the experience as a whole. Integration with Facebook and Twitter, has been built in, so that you can share your experiences with friends and invite them to play too. It’s difficult to describe this type of gameplay experience, I feel it’s meant to be a little more social. An experience you would talk to people about, and have interesting stories to share. This is a game, that hopefully people will be talking about for a very long time.