You probably don’t remember Clumsy Ninja, a totally unknown game that Apple chose to debut alongside the iPhone 5. The game was supposed to be out in 2012, but was delayed for mysterious reasons for a full year, without a word of explanation.
But Clumsy Ninja is finally here. And it debuts a new App Store feature along with it.
In case you don’t remember Clumsy Ninja, here’s the demo from Apple’s iPhone 5 launch event:
Debuting yesterday on the iTunes App Store, Clumsy Ninja finally came to the App Store, but with a major “gimme” from Apple: not only is it Featured in the App Store, but it comes with the App Store’s first embedded gameplay video.
Federico Viticii at MacStories explains:
The big news is, of course, the fact that Apple is embedding a video in the App Store, which has historically only allowed developers to include up to five static screenshots for their apps. Clumsy Ninja’s video opens the built-in iOS media player in portrait mode, and it features music playing in the background with no voiceover or custom App Store branding. It is, effectively, a game trailer on the App Store; right now, it’s only available in the special Featured page for the app, as the app’s regular App Store page doesn’t show the trailer.
We’ll have to see if this becomes an option for more App Store apps, though I would certainly think and hope so: video is a great way, especially for games, to show off the aspects of the experience that can’t be conveyed through static images.
If you want to download Clumsy Ninja, it’s a free download.
Source: iTunes
