Mark of the Ninja ships next Friday on XBLA. I’m pretty excited about this.
I was the writer on the game, and I’ve been playing builds since last September. I had the opportunity to help show it at GDC (in a casual, sitting-on-the-floor-in-Moscone-West capacity) and at PAX East. So I’m very familiar with the game, and I’ve seen some early reactions to it – but of course, I don’t know what the public will think, or the reviews. So I’m nervous! But not too nervous, because – and factor in my bias – I think it’s a terrific game.
When we announced the game last winter, we posted a text adventure to lead into the first trailer. Now we’ve posted the second half of that adventure, which complete’s the Ninja’s mission, introduces Master Azai, and provides a prologue to the game. Click here to play part one and part two. These games were a hoot to work on. They also contain some of the grossest stuff I’ve ever written.
Part two also introduces our latest trailer, which showcases more of the animation and scenes from levels that we haven’t revealed before. You can watch it by beating the game – but if you just want to skip ahead, you can also watch it below.
After we ship, I’ll probably post once or twice about the writing process, the sources I used, and some of the references in the names and audio logs. For now, I’m just going to hole up, keep checking my alerts and Tweetdeck for previews and early reactions, and bite my nails until the thing ships.
Nice work! The pacing in both of these was great.
Dude thanks so much! They were really fun – I can’t remember, have you ever played with Undum? If you ever want to make a simple branching text game, I highly recommend it!
Came across your blog here after just Googling for more information about Mark of the Ninja. I have to say, I’m quite impressed. I’ve been playing it pretty non-stop since I purchased it and its very well done. I curse my job for keeping me away from home so I can try and get through another level unseen. The story for this game is compelling, which is rare for an XBLA game. Great job.
Thanks so much! And thanks for swinging by to say that – it means a lot.