Shadow Ninja: Ink Wash Dodge

Do not dodge. Graze.

Shadow Ninja is a one-handed ink wash action roguelike. This is not a ninja game about avoiding blades; it is an action game about passing as close to them as you dare.

■ The closer you cut it, the stronger you get
The nearer a blade passes to your heart, the more score and ink it gives you, and every graze in a row raises your multiplier. Back away in fear and the gauge stalls while the stages speed up, and you die with nothing. The only way to survive is to dance right in front of death. The game rewards the player who grazes narrowly, not the one who dodges safely.

■ Ink Burst
Fill the ink gauge and Ink Burst fires for six seconds, doubling your multiplier while blades rain down more often. How much you graze during it decides the ceiling of a run.

■ Bank it, or go deeper
Every cleared gate presents a choice: end the run and bank your score, or descend to a deeper gate. Going deeper restores a heart and raises your score rate from 1.35x to 1.6x and then 2x. If you fall, only 40 percent of your unbanked score survives. That single decision creates the tension of an entire run.

■ A three-card skill draft
Each time you go deeper you pick one of three techniques from a pool of 12 and build your own combination. Assassin widens the graze window, Blunt Blade slows blades and doubles graze value, Greedy Ink ramps the multiplier and Narrow Heart shrinks your hitbox. Deeper gates offer rarer techniques, and some only unlock once your deepest gate reaches 5, 8 or 12. Every run takes a genuinely different shape. It is a real roguelike, not a difficulty slider.

■ What is in it
• Eight blade types, from shuriken, homing kunai, scythe-blades and crescents to a seal talisman that takes two hits to break
• 18 stages, from bamboo groves and waterfall cliffs to snow ridges, moonlit duels and a chaos dimension
• Eight ninjas, including Shadow, Vermilion and Snowwind, each with a distinct art
• Abilities such as a phoenix revival, shuriken-burning lightning and unbreakable momentum
• Ninjas fight back with shuriken, boomerangs or a laser, and every blade they break adds to your score
• Three pets that boost coins, widen grazes or slow falling blades
• Daily rewards and missions that yield shards for summoning ninjas

■ A screen drawn in ink wash
The visuals are built from ink and empty space. Instead of the effect noise common to modern action games, the black-and-white presentation keeps the arc of a single blade perfectly legible. The screen has to be quiet for the graze to land.

■ Runs are short
This ninja game plays with one hand and works offline. Fall and you start a fresh run, but a run is short enough that restarting costs nothing emotionally. You can pick any stage you have unlocked, and every run ends with a grade from S down to D based on your score.

■ Languages
Available in English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and German.

One graze is a score. One lapse is death. Step into the ink wash storm.

Recent changes:
You can now leave a rating from inside the app when you are enjoying it.