The Ninja Warriors

Disk streaming on Atari ST/Amiga

The background of the arcade original didn't features tiled blocks, but large drawn graphics, which is a huge technical problem converting to the home computers because of the limited memory. The programmers from Sales Curve solved this on the Atari ST and Amiga by streaming the data from floppy disk during play. That means graphics are loaded while the player plays the game. This worked, as both computers are featuring DMA floppy access, that means the floppy controller can write to memory without slowing the main processor. Using this feature was widely adopted in the demo scene, but very rarely in game productions.

German index

On September 28, 1991, The Ninja Warriors was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

Unusual cheat modes

In addition to the usual "infinite lives" cheat modes the game featured a number of strange modes implemented by the programmers during testing while they were waiting for new bug lists. A few of these modes included: * Snow white - the Ninja Warriors were displayed minus their torso so that they became dwarves. * Exterminate - the screen changed to a "negative" effect palette similar to the cheapo fx used in Doctor Who when the Daleks were killing people. * Casablanca - black and white display * One small step - moon gravity made all jumps 5 times larger and falling much slower. * Kylie - the music is played out of tune * Upside down - the screen is displayed upside down

In total there were 16 of these different cheat modes.

Awards

• ST Format
  • January 1990 (issue #06) - Included in the list 50 Games of the Year

Information also contributed by Xoleras