Clumsy Ninja is a Mobile Phone Game developed by NaturalMotion for iOS and Android devices. It was first released on November 21, 2013, and has seen subsequent updates since that date.
In the game, you take control of a ninja named Clumsy Ninja, who's rather clumsy and is in search of his training partner Kira. To aid in his search, you must train Clumsy and interact with him in various ways so he can overcome his clumsiness and travel across the land. He is also accompanied by Sensei, who gives quests for training the Ninja, and a chicken and squirrel, both of which produce coins, give quests, and can be interacted with, too. Later updates added a second playable character, Lily (Kira’s sister), and a “Ninja Book” that puts the plot of the game in greater detail.
Clumsy Ninja provides examples of:
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: While the first items you buy are relatively cheap and can be paid with using coins from training items and other coin-producing objects, later items tend to soar to ridiculous prices, especially the kick dummies. (compare the Emerald Dragon punching bag unlocked at level 35, which costs 28,000 coins, with the White Shadow kick dummy unlocked 2 levels later, which costs 79,000 coins.) This can be evaded by using gems instead of coins, but that would likely mean having to purchase them with real money.
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: The Dragon Medallion gives whoever possesses it great power and the ability to use as many Ninja Moves as they would like.
- Artificial Gravity: The Anti-Gravity Potion will disable gravity for your ninja and make them float around in the air.
- Art Shift: Clumsy's photo of him and Kira changes to a 2D animated art style instead of the 3D graphics of the game.
- Big Bad: Hori-Bull, a True Ninja who kidnapped Kira so he could get the Dragon Medallion for himself. The main focus of the game besides training your ninja is stop him and rescue Kira.
- Big Damn Heroes: Clumsy and Kira get their moments in the end of the main story: the former for successfully retrieving the Dragon Medallion from Hori-Bull, and the latter for coming in at that last second and kicking the evil Ninja's helmet off.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Your ninja, Sensei, the chicken, and the squirrel will all speak to you directly when giving quests.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: For varying amounts of real-world cash, you can pay for gems, which save you the trouble of having to save up coins for expensive items and allow you to earn items at earlier levels and may also be used to skip some quests. You may also earn them from putting your ninja to sleep or levelling up sometimes, but this takes much longer to do than buying the gems in one piece.
- Character Level: By levelling up, your ninja will get less and less clumsier and much stronger as they continue on with their training. To accommodate this, later levels may introduce stronger, tougher, and more durable items.
- Christmas Episode: The Winter Market is a snowy version of the regular Market that contains various Christmas decorations.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first versions of the game, Clumsy was the only playable character. There was no Lily, and Kira was only mentioned and seen in the Ninja Photo (where her belt was dark purple instead of the violet-magenta color it has now). Hori-Bull's full appearance wasn't revealed either. The Ninja Book wasn't present, and instead players had to rely on the photo and the quests for info. on the game's story. There was also a "free video a day" feature where you could watch a certain amount of videos every day to earn gems, but that was removed in later updates.
- Edible Ammunition: The "Pop Gun" and "The Business" ball guns fire lemons (or a kind of nut) and coconuts, respectively.
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: The final throwing ball, the Rainbawl, is decorated in a rainbow pattern. Because it is the last throwing ball, the rainbow color is used to signify its skill level compared to the other balls.
- Experience Booster: For each suit you buy for your ninja, the amount of experience you earn from training items increases by 10%. This doesn't work on any other items, though.
- Flashback: Tapping the photo of Clumsy and Kira leads you to an animated sequence depicting what life was for Clumsy before Kira vanished, and what happened immediately after the disappearance.
- Forest of Perpetual Autumn: The Hills area always appears to be in autumn, despite surrounding areas looking different.
- Gravity Is Purple: The liquid inside the Anti-Gravity Potion is violet.
- The Klutz: Both Clumsy and Lily are prone to falling and tripping even over the slightest poke. Later levels downplay this, as while they both still fall down occasionally, they slip up much less frequently.
- Made of Iron: You can throw your ninja around, make them fall from great heights, throw objects at them, and poke them all you want, and they'll just get up like nothing happened.
- Mentor Archetype: Sensei acts as a mentor to Clumsy and Lily, and he oversees their work and gives them belts when they've proved strong enough.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The name of the main antagonist is Hori-Bull. Pronounce his name, and you'll end up describing how he's like.
- Ninja: Clumsy and Lily are ninjas, if it wasn't already cleared up by the title of the game. Hori-Bull is also a ninja, though his armor makes him look like a Samurai.
- No Name Given: The chicken and squirrel are called by their species name, though the latter is called "Fluffy" once by Kira.
- The Paralyzer: The Freeze and Jelly potions. The former freezes your ninja in place, while the latter disables their limb movements, causing them to remain sitting on the floor.
- Play Every Day: If you put your ninja to sleep every day, you will earn varying amounts of coins and even gems (though gems will replace coins as rewards after around 3 weeks or so). Not doing so will send the counter back to the beginning.
- The Player Is the Most Important Resource: In the final portion of the game, it is revealed that only a true sensei can free Kira and Hori-Bull from being trapped in stone, and you happen to be that sensei, as you've controlled and helped your ninja throughout their training.
- Psycho Serum: The Rage Potion makes your ninja fly into a rage and attack all items nearby.
- Punny Name: Hori-Bull, which is a pun on "horrible". It fits his nature well.
- Ragdoll Physics: You can poke, throw, and toss your ninja around like a ragdoll, and their limbs will sometimes move in crazy ways, often due to glitches. Of course, they're fine in the end, and they'll just pick themselves up from the ground.
- Rule of Three:
- There are 3 Ninja Moves you must unlock to master a training item, each of which adds a star to that item in the menu.
- There are 3 playable characters: Clumsy, Lily, and Kira.
- You can access three main worlds (excluding the Winter Market, which is optional): the Town, the Hills, and the Temple.
- You can upgrade a coin-producing item a total of 3 times until it produces the maximum amount of coins.
- Screen Tap: Sometimes, your ninja will tap on the screen.
- Shout-Out:
- The description of the Bouncer trampoline: "Bounce higher, better, faster, stronger!"
- Hori-Bull looks an awful lot like Shredder.
- Smoke Out: If you're playing as Kira, she vanishes in a puff of smoke if you switch to another character.
- Special Attack: The Ninja Moves, which are unique movements that are unlocked one at a time and are randomly interspersed between regular moves during training sessions.
- Spin Attack: Some of the Ninja Moves allow the Ninja to spin, like the spinning leg move for the Ninjakitty kick dummy.
- Talking Animal: The chicken and squirrel speak to you and the other characters. However, they don't speak actual voice lines, as the entire game is devoid of spoken dialogue.
- Taken for Granite: When Clumsy and his friends finally open the doors to the dojo in The Temple, they discover Kira and Hori-Bull having been turned to stone by the Temple's spells. Thankfully, they're freed soon after.
- Unlockable Content: Once you reach level 52, you will unlock Kira. She can use all the Ninja Moves and is generally more skilled than the other two playable ninjas.
