Shotgun Ninja

By: Derek Yu

On: January 29th, 2008

Another week, another game from the almighty cactus! This time you play as an angry, gun-toting ninja, trying to get his money back from his conniving accountant. Run, jump, gun, and grenade through 8 short-but-sweet levels. Getting used to wall-jumping and wall-climbing takes a little while, but once you do, it’s a blast. Ceiling kills for the win!

Add to that an online high score list (can you guess who’s number one?), and you’ve got a really addictive little platformer.

I love the graphics and sound… this could be one of my favorite cactus games yet!

(Source: Tim, via The Indie Games Blog)

Posted in Freeware, Highly Recommended, Platformers, Windows | Tags: cactus

http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

Thats pretty sick! Its got a real nice feel to it, in terms of the platforming/shooting mechanics.
Lorne Whiting

Fuck’n A, pretty awesome.
Riegel

Very addicting, Cactus is becoming one of my favorite game makers
wormguy

Cactus makes games faster than rabbits breed.

They’re good games, too. Like this one.
Splinter of Chaos

If this keeps up, I think we should dedicate a whole blog to him and only post ESPECIALLY noteworthy titles here.
Bobo

This is a good one. Nice, simple and fun. But, I gotta ask, where is Brave Kabuki Warriors!?
zomgzomgzomg

shotgun != shuriken
Pyrrhon

The ceiling-move is awesome! I really like no-projectile/instakill shotgun and grenades. Actually, the players movements and actions are superb. If only the leveldesign and enemydesign was a little more interesting!
http://www.distractionware.com Terry

Excellent!

I seem to have hit a ceiling with my score though. Any tips on how you managed yours? :)
lecarl

I GOTS HIGH SCORE!
lecarl

I AM SUPREME HIGH SCORE CHAMPION AGAIN!
Melly

Love the graphics, sounds, music, style, and gameplay. Definitely a great little gem.

If there is one bit of criticism I can give is that the levels, which are often very well designed, sometimes rely on jumping down very deep holes which you can’t see the bottom of, which can prove slightly frustrating the first times through. Oh, and the final boss is piss easy once you figure out how to kill him. I wish there was a lot more challenge to it (besides figuring out how to beat him). Other than those, a very good, if small, game.
Monchichi

Man. Is it just me that’s having problems playing his games with a dual-monitor setup?
Smithy

Most realistic ninja simulation EVER!
Eclipse

i think Cactus hasn’t seen a C64 in his life, because this game feels more like a prehistorical Atari one… C64 was full of great games that rapes that game anally for graphics and sound :P also.. what the enemies are? I was not able to find an human form on what i was shooting O.o

It also lacks of a good level game design, it’s plenty of situations were simple you need to jump without knowing what you will find below you when the monitor will scroll :

It’s a shame because it have a very nice shooting and fast-paced controls.

Ok, that last two words reminds me that i need to finish Quake 1 another time this week.
Eclipse

also no air attacks in a ninja game makes me feel sick :(
Zaphos

Did he say it was emulating the look of a C64 game?

Anyway, it’s a great little game! Love the control and the dialog in the beginning :)
Fishy Boy

Eclipse, you do know that you can scroll the camera down by pressing down, right? Anyhoo, I loved how the game let you go about the levels in different ways. I think the non-linear choose your own style kind of system makes games MUCH more replayable. Although I have to agree with Eclipse that no air attacks when you’re a ninja is ridiculous.
Pragma

While I completely suck at playing this one, I like the execution. But I’d have to agree with Eclipse: this one smells more of Atari than Commodore.

Besides, I’m pretty sure there’s a rule that any c64 homage game needs to have a trainer/cracktro when it starts up. ;)
cactus

Yeah, the only thing from the c64 which I was using was a palette I found on google. Even that’s probably not a real one, but oh well. I liked the colors :)
Eclipse

the palette is okay, altrought the old commodore monitors gave much brilliant colors. cactus if you already haven’t played them, I think you must try Jeff Minter’s c64 games, expecially Batalyx (a collection of various games where you can find an awesome side-scrolling shooter with giant jumping camels… oh and you can also warp back and forth the levels entering hyperspace with your ship!) and Sheep in Space (were you’re a sheep in deep space blasting aliens and eating grass from asteroids). I think this kind of games can inspire you :)

Graphically, try out Creatures 1 and 2 and expecially Monster in Mayhem, it have a stunning 8bit graphic that pwns all the nes games to shame and a very smooth scrolling
Benzido

This is just totally amazing. This is the kind of game I want to make. The control is just incredible.

You could make it pop a lot more by simulating an old NTSC monitor. Just blur it a bit differently in each channel – ideally in YUV rather than RGB.
ZeHa

I loved it, the gameplay is very good and the music rocks! The only real tough part were the “jumping upwards” sections, I was very close to giving up sometimes ;)

The coolest thing is the animation of the enemies :D looks like they’re doing some serious dancin’
Cenix

First of all I have to say I love Cactus’ games and this idea is great too, but because this game isn’t polished, it’s not REALLY fun to play.
It’s very obvious that Cactus wanted to make a Nikujin-like platformer (it’s one of his favourite games, so I’ve read), but this one just lacks some finishing touches.
First of all, the wall jumps are awful to perform. Nikujin did this way better (and even that wasn’t perfect, but it was right).
The music sometimes gets really anoying. I like the music overall and the retro sound, but the high notes are really a pain in the ass and forced me to put off my headphones, which is something you don’t want as a composer.
The difficulty level very often depends on the way the enemies move (which is randomly, unannounced). I think that’s not really something what should make a game difficult. This is just simply annoying if you ask me.

Don’t get me wrong: I know Cactus makes his games very quickly and often they are ment as experiments, but I think it’s a pitty he doesn’t polish them further.

Psychosomnium still remains my favourite, but this was definitely interesting.
cactus

Actually, this was kind of a remake of a very old unfinished game I made (my first platformer in fact). I had no intention to duplicate Nikujin, although I kind of stole the roof hanging from it.

The wall jumps may be awful but there’s very few parts in the game where you actually need to use them. They’re meant to be a skill that you have to work for to learn before you’re able to use them proficiently.
Monty

Its a good game…made simply.