Ninja Theory
Developer Jack tells us about his spiritual successor to Shinobi
We go behind the scenes of this lovely tribute to Shinobi and other arcade classics
Sega’s Shinobi certainly left a big impression on the coder known only as Jack. It’s taken him five long years and a failed venture on Kickstarter, but his spiritual successor to Sega’s hit arcade game is now reaching the finish line and should be available to play on Steam right now. Here he tells us how Shadow Gangs came to be.
Five years is a long time! How come it’s taken that long?
I worked on it every day for five years in my spare time. I think it also had to do with us being a small team, working on an ambitious project.
Were you concerned when the Kickstarter didn’t reach its £28,500 goal back in 2016?
To be honest, not really. It would’ve helped a lot financially, but I was determined to finish the game anyway.
How many people have been involved in the project?
Many people came and went. In the end, the complete game is the work of five people: myself (programming, level design and financing); one musician, Naim Soufiane; one artist, Jericho Benavente, who did all the sprites and backgrounds (Evgenij Khomenko did the special effects); and one illustrator (Mansik Yang) for the game cover and loading screens.
The boss on level four looks like the late Freddie Mercury…
The idea came from some Eurogamer forum members. I made a post there early in the game’s development, and Dan (Shadow Gang’s hero) was wearing tight shorts like Jean-claude Van Damme in the Blood Sports movie. I don’t remember how but Freddie Mercury’s name came up and someone suggested for him to be a boss. I like Queen, I love Freddie and thought, ‘Why not?’
Were there other suggestions from the public?
Someone suggested David
Hasselhoff on the English Amiga Board forum, but in the end only a Freddie Mercury lookalike made it into the game. Dan’s ninja transformation was also an idea from a Mameworld forum member. People’s remarks and ideas had a huge impact on the game, and I would sincerely thank everyone for their input. This game would not have been the way it is without them.
Did you encounter any significant technical challenges when making Shadow Gangs?
The biggest problem was finding a good artist, and keeping him drawing. I wanted a high-definition game, but I didn’t understand the
implications of that at first. The game art was finished in the end, but it was a difficult and rather painful journey.
I don’t remember how but Freddie Mercury’s name came up and someone suggested for him to be a boss Jack
One thing that has stood out to us is the fantastic music, can you tell us a bit about it?
I had the music in mind before starting the game. The musician is a friend of mine, I met him at my first job after university. He had already made a music track for a 2008 unreleased game of mine, so I knew who to look for to make Shadow Gangs’ music. I asked him to make the best music he could. It took him five years to finish all the game’s tracks. He would send me a music track, and I’d send him back a list of remarks. Most tracks got changed again and again, and took months to actually get to their final version. I put some of these early versions and some complete unused tracks as unlockable content for people who finish the game. The music of Shadow Gangs is one of the main things that kept me going and motivated me.
There’s a lot more exploration than Sega’s Shinobi games, was this intentional?
Some levels are nonlinear, but only to a degree. I wanted to add some Castlevania-style exploration but this didn’t really work. The game is action-oriented and fast-paced, and my early experiments with an exploration-style gameplay were negative. The levels are, however, larger than in Shinobi and resulted in the addition of a checkpoint system.
Even easy mode offers a high challenge, how much tweaking has been done to the difficulty?
I designed the game around the ‘Crimson Ninja’ difficulty. I knew I would need to devise two other less-difficult modes, so they were thought of from the start and tweaked while in beta testing. The easy mode has a unique feature in that Dan has a health bar, and not a one hit/death like in the normal and Crimson Ninja modes. I recommend most players to play it in easy mode first, only start playing in normal or Crimson Ninja mode if you either finished the game in easy, or if you are a Shinobi arcade game player.
It must be quite a relief knowing Shadow Gangs is now finished. What’s next for you?
If the game is a success on Steam, I would like to make console conversions of it. There is a big demand for a Dreamcast port from the Dreamcast community and the console’s fans, which are some of the biggest supporters of the game. But first I have Playstation, Xbox and Switch versions in mind. Before finishing, I would like to thank my lovely wife, as the game would not have materialised without her support and patience; as well as my child, brothers and friends who helped me in one way or another on this adventure.