Tips & Tricks

pdallago on 2006/09/19 15:00 of Saturday Night Ninja - the disappearing clothes

A few tips for our game:

If you're playing for the tenth time, and you don't want to see the cutscenes yet again, you can skip them by pressing Escape
The game requires a little patience, but if you still want to play rambo, all hope is not lost. If you're quick enough and press F10 anytime during the level before the "game over" screen appears, you can move on to the next one. You won't be getting any points, though.
But don't be too quick to skip level 10, or you'll miss a little surprise. (Hint: it has something to do with today's date)

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Comments

bishop on 2006/09/22 11:08:

It's a nice game, and the team seems to have come together well to produce all the bonus material. One thing puzzled me, though: sometimes, the player is walking along apparently nowhere near the other ninjas (or at least obscured by walls) and suddenly the danger symbols appear and he commits seppuku. Why does that happen? Did I miss an important part of the gameplay?

Phil on 2006/09/22 12:01:

I believe that it's because the game has "true" line of sight, irrespective of the square walls. That means that he can be sighted from quite a bit further away than you might think at first blush.

pdallago on 2006/09/22 19:51:

The line of sight can be a bit tricky (the README warns you about this). This is an effect of the projection we used. Sometimes, walls which on the screen appear to protect you from a guard don't actually affect him at all. Let's try explaining with a bit of ASCII art:

A map:
 _________________
|   o    _____  o |
|_________________|

The screen:
#######################
#  o      #####     o #
###^#######^########^##
   |       |        |
  you    walls    enemy

The walls on the screen that appear to be between you and the guard are actually the upper walls of lower squares. (Of course, the effect is much more subtle with real graphics). While you get used to this after a while, we added the warning sign as an additional safety measure. Don't walk into those squares! ;)

What Phil said is also true: the guards can see from a long distance. However, we made it so that they can't see you from outside the screen, as that would be very unfair.

Trivia for bishop: Also, our resident expert in Japanese culture commented during the making of the game that when the ninja dies, it's not seppuku but simple hara-kiri. seppuku, I've been told, is a much longer and complicated ritual.

bishop on 2006/09/24 16:36:

That'll teach me not to casually use Japanese words I picked up from "Shogun". ;-)