Game summary:
A game for 2 players
Play time around 10-15 minutes per player
Designer: Ryan Leininger
Artist: Yela Gatchalian-David, Paola Tuazon
Publisher: 2niverse Games
Tiny Ninjas, I have never seen a game that’s so well designed that you can take it everywhere you want. It’s designed for travel, so you can play it in the train, plain, car (oké, not when you’re the driver) but just name it and you can play this game.
Tiny Ninja is a 2-payer dice-throwing card game. You can set it up in few minutes, just shuffle the cards and the first player is ready to start attacking the other player. This theme is something I like, in the old days I really loved the movies American Ninja or Karate kid. Yeah I’m a bit old but in my younger years these were the movies you had to watch.
What’s in the box?
This tiny travel box, got some nice components in it:
– 1 Transforming Gamebox
– 2 Connector walls
– 2 Health Dials (1-10)
– 4 Sensei Markers
– 1 Kunai Dice
– 1 Shuriken Dice
– 58 Ninja Cards
– 2 Reference cards
– 1 Rulebook
Let’s get it to the table
Open the box, place the 2 connectors on both side of the landscape. Your dice area is ready now.
Then both players choose 1 ninja, there are 4 ninjas where you can choose from:
red ninja: Before attacking the other ninja, you can add +1 damage to a red attack;
purple ninja: Heal 1 health, you can use this any time when you’re the attacker;
blue ninja: Before attacking the other ninja, you can add +1 damage to a blue attack
green ninja: Defend 1 damage, you can use this any time when you’re the defender.
I had the most success with the green defender, sometimes you don’t got the type of defend cards that you needed en this helped me on those moments.
When both players has chosen their ninjas, you can place them on the Connector walls, then place the Health Dials also on the Connector walls and set it on 10 health.
Then both players get 5 cards each and then decide who is going to start. Before starting, I have to say one important thing! The attacking player only can take new cards when he or she is going to be the attacking player again, so not when you’re the defender. But the defender can take up to 5 cards again before he starts attacking the other player. So don’t use all of your cards when you’re the attacker, only do it if you know you can destroy the other ninja.
The first attacking ninja choses one of his cards and attacks the other ninja. That player continues till he ends his turn and then the other player starts. The other player picks up to 5 cards in his hand and attacks the other player. This continues till one of the player has 0 health points.
How does an attack work?
The attacking player choses to attack with a red or blue attack, the defender can only defends the same color or defends with a yellow defends. Yellow is for defending both colors. The attackers says out lout with what colors he attacks, the defenders choses what he’s going to do, if he defends then the attacker starts with rolling one of the dices and then the defenders also throw a dice or not (when he didn’t chose to defend). On the card you can see with what dice you have to throw, if it’s white or black then you pick the Kunai dice, when you see colors then you throw the Shuriken die.
A red battle, on the left you’ll see the attacking Ninja and on the right the defending Ninja. As you can see, both has black and white so they have to use the Kunai Die. The attacking Ninja has to throw black for attacking with 2, while the defender has to throw white for defending with 1 of black to defend with 3.
A blue battle, on the left you’ll see the attacking Ninja and on the right the defending Ninja. The attacking Ninja need the Shuriken Die and the defending NInja the Kunai Die.
The attacking Ninja has to throw one of the colors and that color matches the attacking power, while the defender ‘just’ has to throw black for defending with 3 power.
A blue attack with a yellow defence, on the left you’ll see the attacking Ninja and on the right the defending Ninja. The attacking Ninja need the Shuriken Die and the defending NInja the Kunai Die.
The attacking Ninja has to throw one of the colors and that color matches the attacking power, while the defender has to throw 1, 2 or 3 icons for the defending power.
Final Conclusion & rating:
Weight: 1/ 5
My rating: 9 out of 10 dices
This is definitely a game that I’ll take with me when I go on holiday or when I want to play a quick 2-player game. The graphics are really nice and funny, the ninja theme is well designed into the whole game. You can start to play the game in the simple mode or in the ‘extreme’ mode, but I’ll prefer to play the game in the extreme mode. The reason why is because I like most of the extreme cards, some of them are really nice. For example, a Grim card where you can move cards from your opponent to the arena (discard pile) when throwing with the Kunai Die, 1 result is 1 card, 2 is 0 cards but 3 is 2 cards and your opponent cannot take any new cards. Another nice example of a card is where you can combine dice combats together so you can attack with more power. This is sometimes really fun, sometimes when I had these cards I didn’t throw enough to destroy the other ninja. Instead I attacked with 1.
If I have to say some a few minors what I prefer that could be better and that is the rulebook, I really missed everything how you had to start. Also the theme on the outside of the rulebook could be more into the Ninja theme. I really loved that they also used reference cards, they only had to put a number on it for the Shuriken dice (that could make it sometimes a bit easier.
I want to thank 2niverse Games for letting me review this tiny awesome game! Check http://www.tinyninjas.ca/ to see more about Tiny Ninjas
