How to play
Ninja Alley
Walk the street with your friends, beat the bad guys, and clear three stages and the Dojo Master together.
At a glance
- Players
- 1–4 at once
- Ages
- 6 and up
- Round
- Minutes — a sit-down game
- In the packs
- Party, Arena, Big Kids
Controls
The stick and button 1 are enough to play. The rest add moves for the older kids.
| What you press | What it does |
|---|---|
| Stick | move along the street, and up and down it |
| Button 1 — the big button | attack — press in rhythm for punch, punch, kick; in the air it is a jump kick; hold it beside a fallen friend to pick them up |
| Button 2 | jump |
| Button 3 | ki spin — clears the ring around you; costs half the ki bar |
| Button 4 | grab a stunned enemy, a crate or an item, then throw it |
How a round goes
Three stages — the alley at dusk, the rooftops at sunset, the dojo — each three waves and then a boss. The camera moves only once the wave on screen is beaten; until then an invisible wall holds the group at the right edge, and a GO arrow flashes when it lifts. That is what keeps four children on one television.
Button 1 in rhythm is a three-hit combo: two punches that land on the nearest enemy in front of you and a kick that sweeps everything in reach. Mashing faster buys nothing. Every hit fills the ki bar, and button 3 spends half of it on a spin that knocks down everything around you. Jumping is never required, but at the top of the arc nothing can touch you.
Crates break open; coins, pizza, scrolls and a staff lie about, and you pick them up by walking over them. Pizza heals, and one slice between four ninjas is a race. Clearing a stage gives everyone standing a heart back and helps anyone on the floor up.
Three hearts each. When a ninja goes down, a teammate stands beside them and holds button 1 for a second or so to pick them up; left alone, they get up by themselves after ten seconds. The run ends only when every ninja is down at the same time — one ninja still standing is a run that can still be rescued. Alone, you get back up twice; the third time down ends the run.
Scoring and winning
Co-op: the squad clears the Dojo or falls together. Points are personal — damage dealt, bounties on enemies and bosses, coins, crates, and 400 for a revive, more than three grunts. The card names the top scorer when the Dojo is clear, and the stage you fell on when it is not. Alone, your score goes to the leaderboard.
Tips
- The kid who stops fighting to pick a friend up must finish ahead of the kid who kept swinging. That is the whole design in one number.
- Punch, punch, kick, in rhythm. Eight presses a second buys nothing four does not.
- The street gets kinder when the squad is hurting: pizza turns up twice as often once somebody is on their last heart or on the floor.