NinJump

Summary

Imagine just for second that you have to get to the top of a skyscraper. Taking the elevator is out of the questions because that’s what boring people do. Climbing up the stairs is just too uncool. This leaves with no other option than to run straight up the side of the building avoiding barriers along the way.

That’s what the life of a real ninja is like in NinJump.
 

The basic game concept is very simple. You’re a nifty little ninja trying to get to the top of a tall skyscraper. This wouldn’t be a game if there weren’t all sorts of things blocking your run to the top.

During your rapid ascent, you’ll have to avoid protruding building blocks, falling (and apparently aggressive) ninjas, birds, squirrels and throwing stars (thrown by evil men in black).

It’s not all dangers and risks: your ninja can also collect valuable boosts along the way (similar to the propeller hats and rockets in Doodle Jump). With these boots you can jump across three objects in one jump.

Aside from the short boots, there are also blue protection shields that significantly improve your health, allowing you to hit enemies and objects head-on without any major damage.

The higher up you go, the more challenging the game gets. Instead of stars, the ninjas start throwing dynamite that splinter off into multiple ninja stars. Things get progressively so difficult and fast that even I had a problem keeping up with the action. At some point the game just gets so difficult that it’s just too frustrating to play. Unfortunately, there’s only one difficulty level and I’m afraid even the most ardent gamers will get annoyed with the game after a while.

Unlike Angry Birds, the game is not divided into levels, but is more like Doodle Jump and Paper Toss where the aim of the game is to increase your highscore.

To wrap things up:

NinJump is a great game for short term fun and earns my utmost respect. It definitely deserves a place next to the greats of Android gaming: Angry Birds and Doodle Jump. A point of criticism for me would be the game’s level of difficulty and the 9MB installation size – a big issue for people with a small internal memory. All in all though, NinJump is a perfect game to play on the bus, subway or on a park bench.

Although the game is definitely loads of fun, there haven’t been any updates in a very long time with new improvements and more content.
 

NinJump’s menu is fast and very well laid out. The little ninja does everything he’s told and is very responsive. Unfortunately, the game isn’t as fun to play on small screens as opposed to tablets and bigger smartphones. Playing the game on a smaller screen definitely makes the whole experience much less appealing.

The graphics are great for this type of game and makes the entire game more pleasant to the eye.
 

To my complete surprise, NinJump didn’t run smoothly on my HTC Desire and I experienced some serious lags during gameplay. Game speed problems really ruined the fun of playing an otherwise good game (please share your experiences in the comments).

On the bright side, there wasn’t a single crash.
 

NinJump can be downloaded for free from the Google Market.