Vietnamese game developer Dong Nguyen, who came under international spotlight in 2014 with his record-setting mobile game Flappy Bird, has just launched a new game developed in collaboration with a Japanese firm.

His latest game, named Ninja Spinki Challenges, pays homage to Dong’s trademark formula for addiction that launched Flappy Bird into tremendous success: insane difficulty, 8-bit design, precise touchscreen maneuvers and ridiculously unrealistic physics.

The game features a rookie ninja protagonist who is tasked with completing a number of different challenges as part of his training, ranging from avoiding bouncing cats, cannon fire and rolling fruits to hitting targets with shurikens.

The player clears a stage by keeping their character alive over a given amount of time indicated by an on-screen countdown clock.

The challenges gets increasingly challenging as the player progresses through the stages, with each cleared stage unlocking a harder version of that challenge. An endless mode of a challenge is also available after the player clears the easiest stage of that challenge.

An in-game screenshot of Ninja Spinki Challenges. Photo: OBOKAIDEM

An in-game screenshot of Ninja Spinki Challenges. Photo: OBOKAIDEM

Ninja Spinki Challenges is co-developed by the Hanoi-based programmer’s game studio .GEARS and Japanese game developing brand OBOKAIDEM, who announced their collaboration last year, referring to the game under the codename ‘N Project.’

Founded just last year, OBOKAIDEM is operated by Tokyo-based Media Koba and has released several apps aimed at the Japanese and global market, such as arcade game Pick-Xell.

“It was a nice experience to come to Japan and work with local developer OBOKAIDEM there to make a ninja game,” Dong wrote on a Facebook post on Friday announcing the game’s release. “Finally, it’s done and released. Many thanks!”

Ninja Spinki Challenges is available for free with in-app advertisements on iOS through the App Store and on Android through Google Play.

File photo of Dong Nguyen. Photo: AFP

Dong Nguyen released the addictive Flappy Bird on May 24, 2013, but the game did not become a global sensation until January 2014, by the end of which month it was already the most downloaded free game on App Store.

During this period, its developer claimed that Flappy Bird was earning US$50,000 a day from in-app advertising as well as sales.

The 30-year-old developer removed Flappy Bird from both App Store and Google Play on February 10, 2014, citing guilt over what he considered to be its addictive nature and overuse.

The removal also came as it became debatable whether Dong should pay taxes for the huge earnings his app generated.

In August 2014, Dong resurrected the game and renamed it Flappy Birds Family, but it was only available for download from the Android app store and could be played solely on Amazon Fire TV, a digital media player that allows users to play video games with the included remote control, through a mobile app, or with a game controller.

Later that same month the Vietnamese developer introduced Swing Copters, considered another Flappy Bird sequel. The new game was expected to be Dong’s second hit of 2014, but it failed to find fame.

In late 2015, Dong released Swing Copters 2, which went on to be more successful than its predecessor.

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