Game Design

The Ninja Way

Handled level design and UI for a mobile remodel of The Ninja Way, formerly known as NinjaRun, a 2D platformer where players navigate increasingly challenging landscapes, battle enemies, and fight epic bosses.
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Mobile UI

Unity

Level Design

Platformer

Play Game ->

Role

Game Engineer

Duration

5 weeks

Tools

Unity

Team

3 engineers

Game Content

Overview

The game "The Ninja Way" is a 2D platformer where the player needs to traverse harsh landscapes, battle unrelenting enemies, and defeat evil bosses. The levels only get more difficult as the ninja progresses, starting with the tutorial and ending with a final boss fight.

This version is a continuation off of the original, pc-based game found here (https://paul0718.itch.io/the-ninja-way). The goal of this version was to retouch, debug, and add to the original to create a more polished model. New sprites were added in the form of new block types, enemies, and bosses. This version is also based on android with interactive ui to allow for seamless gameplay.

The main focus of the game is to help the ninja travel around the land in order to reach the temple and defeat the evil that has been lurking there. The ninja must be careful, however, as falling off of platforms, getting caught in traps, and being struck by enemies will cause harm, and possibly even death. The player will die if their health reaches zero. They will only lose health when attacked or hurt by traps. Falling into water, lava, mud, or the like will simply reset them to the start of the level.

Some levels allow for the player to pick a path to travel on, all having varying amounts of traps, enemies, and parkour hurdles, while other levels are linear either horizontally, vertically, or both. There is also a working menu system to allow players the option to replay previous levels.

Level Design Sketches

Sprites

Final Product

Trailer

Reflection and Next Steps

Summary

I joined the project team for The Ninja Way after the development for desktop and assisted in designing and adapting the game to mobile interfaces. It was very fun to be apart of this team and I loved every second of it. I hope you enjoy the trailer and gameplay as much as I do.

Iteration

With the way we ended the game and the menu we put in place, we intended to be able to go back in and create new missions for the ninja to complete and new storylines to explore. We barely scratched the surface of the different levels the ninja could explore, so if we were to continue, we would want to add those in, as well as new enemies, bosses, traps, and abilities. After learning how to change the weapons, we would want to also add in new weapon power ups, more weapon variations, and special skills as well. Overall, there's a lot more to be done on this game and hopefully we get the chance to continue it in the future, or pass it on to a new team of devs to add to the influx of ideas and expand as far as we can.