You only need one button

Ninja or Dieis a peculiar name for a game, but I took a look at theninja-slaying rogueliteon Steam and I’m intrigued by… all of this. It’s so fast and flashy, I can hardly keep up.

I’ve watched the trailer forNinja or Diea few times now, and I’m still piecing it together; slow-mo helps, but I doubt it will fully click until we’ve tried playing it.

Ninja or Die

Nao Games and Marvelous Europe are hoping to blend “hardcore action” with “simple controls,” and I’m curious to see how that will pan out once the training wheels are off. Specifically,Ninja or Dieuses one-button controls. “Jump to where you point, eviscerate the enemy by dashing through them, and hold to attack with greater power.”

The setup is that you’re a secret agent in a “ninja-eat-ninja world” with bosses to bring down and hordes of smaller creeps to cut through. As a roguelite experience, death is a part of the deal and you’ll accumulate perma-upgrades as well as alternate characters. You can power up your stats back at the village or “pay the back-alley doctor.”

Ninja or Die screenshot

As opposed to some recent roguelites,Ninja or Dieseems to emphasize high scores and replayability over a loop-based format that’s servicinga larger story. On that note, levels are “a mix” of procedural and hand-crafted, and there’s an Infinite Watchtower to run.

The pieces might not all add up in the end, but the strangeness appeals to me. I just hope that when I’m the one leaping around Japan like a madman, I have a better sense of my busy surroundings. From the outside looking in, readability is a concern.

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As luck would have it,there’s a browser-based demoto get a feel for it.

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