Ninja

Ninja is a beat 'em up game developed by Sculptured Software and released by Mastertronic in 1986 for the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum, then in 1987 for the Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS. An arcade version of the game was released in 1987 for Mastertronic's Arcadia Systems which is based on Amiga hardware. The Amiga, Atari ST, and Arcade versions were released as Ninja Mission. As a Ninja, the player attacks a fortress made of individual fixed screens which can be explored non-linearly. Ninja was written by Steve Coleman, who previously created the Atari 8-bit games Rainbow Walker and The Pharaoh's Curse. Gameplay The player controls a ninja who has to penetrate a Japanese fortress by fighting enemy ninjas with karate moves and by throwing shurikens and daggers. On his way, he has to collect all of the idols. The fortress is a series of horizontal, flip-screen segments that are stacked vertically. The player is not forced along a specific route, but can explore both sides of a branching path and also backtrack to earlier screens.