Release Date: 30/10/2015
Played On: Win
Available On: Lin / Mac / Win
Time Played: 4h 30m
Progress: Completed multiple runs
Developer: Disparity Games
Publisher: Disparity Games
Remember the good old days when the dream of kickstarting a niche game meant that you'd be supporting independent developers working on their passion projects? I do. It was years ago, before the big budget meltdowns and financial mis-management that lead to Kickstarter being a synonym for scam. Although, before I burned out on crowd funding big ideas from small game makers, I backed a local Australian family working on a game about delivering pizza, and bullying.
Ninja Pizza Girl is one of those ideas that exemplifies why I still get a pang of hype over funding a little project with a dream. The game is great, but one thing I always remember fondly about backing this team, was the fulfillment of promises and the delivery of that initial concept. For that I can never thank the developers enough. I thought it was a given at the time, but after many failed projects and straight up rip-offs where lazy developers have taken the money and run, it needs to be said that this was one project using crowd-funding honestly and transparently.
Plus, a game about a girl delivering pizza, using a 2D platforming/parkour system, while exploring themes around bullying is perhaps one of the most niche summaries I can think of. It's precisely why I like crowd-funding, as it allows for someone's weird idea to get enough support to be made, and I love seeing creative ideas become reality.
The basic loop of Ninja Pizza Girl is that you are tasked with running across the rooftops of a city to reach a destination within a time limit. You're Gemma, delivering pizza's for your family's pizza business, and you need to get that pizza delivered before it goes cold! Along the way are huge jumps, tricky obstacles to overcome, and a bunch of jerks who get in your way and call you names.
We'll get to the jerks in a bit, but first the platforming, which is a genre I've never been too keen on. It would seem that there are so many ways to program a character jumping around, that it's really easy to find a way that feels bad. Thankfully though, the running and jumping in Ninja Pizza Girl feels straight forward and fluid, as it opts for a combination of simple controls and well-designed levels.
The focus is on maintaining momentum and pulling off a continuous run, much like the parkour system in Mirror's Edge. Whenever you have to slow down, or are stopped by an obstacle, the flow of the motion grinds to a halt, and it takes a few seconds of smooth running to get back up to speed.
Maintaining the flow is as simple as hitting the correct buttons at the right time. Holding the jump button launches you further, followed by another press when you land to go into a slick roll and continue moving. Obstacles can be surmounted by jumping over, or sliding under, while walls can be held onto for a controlled fall, or vaulted from to get height from a wall-jump.
These basic controls rely on contextual elements in each stage, but ultimately connect with each other to form a complete package. After the first few levels it becomes second nature and you can focus on finding different paths and optimal routes, instead of worrying if you're going to make it over the next gap.
Each level has more than one way to get from start to finish, with different tiers and openings available to explore. They often hide different collectibles, so the incentive is certainly there to explore every nook and cranny, long after completing the first run. Thankfully collectibles aren't affected by the clock constantly counting down, so it's possible to spend some time scouring the more out of the way paths.
This is where the level design comes into its own, as there is always more than one effective path through each section. The first time through, I followed my gut and took the obvious jumps and turns, but on successive runs different options caught my eye and I found myself exploring without even meaning to.
It makes sense to think that getting from one rooftop to another will require some running and jumping, but the world of Ninja Pizza Girl also features conveniently placed trampolines and poles to get you further. Interestingly enough, these very 'video game' conceits rarely took me out of the action, as I was always sucked into the flow-state of keeping the motion going. It didn't matter that everyone suddenly bought a trampoline and placed it on their balcony, I was using it to go places and look cool at the same time.
Mechanically speaking Ninja Pizza Girl is tight and functions as well as I would want it to. The movement system and level design work well together to make for an enjoyable platformer with a nice enough soundtrack pumping away and keeping it all moving. For me to enjoy such a platformer is an achievement in itself, but then there's the other side of the game, which attempts to tackle some serious themes of harassment and bullying.
What's really refreshing about Ninja Pizza Girl, is that these themes haven't just been slapped on for the sake of it. Instead of being limited to the story, they end up weaving their way into the game mechanics. It would be one thing to tell a decent story with a lesson, but I was happily surprised to feel the game carry its message through all of its interactions.
I mentioned the jerks that you can run into on the rooftops, which are possibly the most overt representation of the theme meeting the mechanics. They will throw things at you as you run by, and shove you to the ground, all the while calling you names and teasing you. When you're still learning the controls and struggling against the clock, it can be super demoralising to get shoved and harassed over and over again.
This is the real beauty of Ninja Pizza Girl, as it manages to accomplish the difficult task of creating a visceral bond between the player and the game. We spend the whole time controlling Gemma and making her run and jump around the place delivering pizzas, but then we're asked to take care of her emotionally and it starts to mean something else. It gives Gemma an identity of her own, which isn't something I tend to bother with in other games, but it's hard to avoid here.
Namely because you're directly tasked with making choices that will affect her mood, as she continues to face adversity throughout the game. What's more, as well as the jerks along the way that knock her down and call her names, there are the creeps answering the door when you hand over their pizza. From old school friends and enemies, to weirdos in their underwear; all contribute to bring Gemma down. You're then tied directly to her mood, as youcan spend collectables on ways to cheer Gemma up, otherwise she won't parkour to the best of her abilities.
It really does a lot to tell the player that you are in control, but Gemma's going to feel how she's going to feel. Instead of making you responsible for saving her, Ninja Pizza Girl asks you for support and when you help Gemma overcome low self-esteem and self-doubt, you're rewarded with some bad-ass action.
However, it's not as black and white as all that and in one of my favourite scenes in the game, we're shown how bullying isn't just something received. It's not always as clear as a victim and a perpetrator, as in reality we know it's more complex than a simple binary relationship. Most games would stop at "see? Bullying is bad right?", but with one character in particular, Ninja Pizza Girl turns the mirror on our protagonist, who teases someone else for being vulnerable and insecure. It just so happens that Gemma is fearless in the face of running and jumping over buildings, so it tore me up inside when she started giving another character grief for being afraid of heights.
Thankfully lessons are eventually learned and resolutions are found, but I always think about that moment when I think of the game, as it shows an honest understanding of bullying that is often overlooked. One of the hardest things to admit to ourselves is the fact that we often take out our issues on others without even realising. I mean, it's basically why bullying exists in the first place, as the perpetrator is often more insecure than their victims. What's rarely talked about though, is how a victim can perpetrate the same behaviour as a way of dealing with their own issues.
In the real world we have good reasons to avoid blaming victims for their behaviour, but that doesn't mean that bad behaviour can be excused. This is why that moment in Ninja Pizza Girl really stood out to me, as it felt like one of the most honest depictions of low self-esteem I've seen in a game. Then again, perhaps it's just a moment that I manage to relate to, while it could pass others by. That's the risk of including mental health themes in your video game, as the lived experience differs from person to person, but I think there's something everyone can get out of this game.
After all, when you look at Ninja Pizza Girl as a whole, it's pretty satisfying to see how these themes and the gameplay loop sit comfortably together. Running and jumping around the rooftops is liberating and awesome, but it only takes one asshole shoving you to the ground and calling you a loser to break that flow with a bang.
I think that's the real success story of this game, as it's rare to find a game that's mechanically enjoyable and emotionally moving outside of corny power fantasies and sentimentality. On paper Ninja Pizza Girl sounds like a mess of disparate parts being forced together into an artsy indie title that must be endured. Except when you fire it up and play through the story, you find that this game is a marriage of meaningful design and understanding that really needs to be felt and experienced.
This is the kind of art that pushes gaming forward and makes me fall in love with gaming and its possibilities all over again. More and more we're seeing developers focus on emotional aspects of this interactive medium, and I am one hundred percent on board for whatever comes next.
I may not be a fan of kickstarting potential train wrecks anymore, but I'm pretty stoked I was part of making a gem like this game happen. It just goes to show that weird little niche ideas can turn into important creative works.
Even if they're about delivering pizza… and made in Queensland!