Kunai is a tablet-powered side-scrolling ninja parkour hack-and-slash open-world Metroidvania, and when I say "tablet-powered" I don't mean that it's played on a tablet. (This is PC Gamer, after all.) I mean that the lead character, for reasons I don't fully (or even begin to) understand, is literally a tablet.
Tabby, as our touchscreen warrior is properly named, must save what remains of humanity from extinction at the hands of an out-of-control AI by running, jumping, grappling, and chopping an assortment of evil consumer electronics into small component bits. Players will unlock and upgrade special abilities, weapons, and "kickass ninja tricks," and traverse a world filled with secrets and strange characters.
The action looks plentiful—the sort of high-speed, fast-reflex nonsense I am terrible at—but it's also very cute, which is what caught my eye: The washed-out colors nicely emphasize Kunai's retro visual style, and Tabby has a warm, lovable smile (when he's not, you know, murdering things). There's no release date yet but I would expect something relatively soon, as Kunai (which, by the way, is a Japanese farming tool from the Tensho Era that was later adopted as a weapon most commonly associated with ninja) will be playable next week at GDC, and then the week after that at PAX East. For those who aren't attending either, it's listed on Steam and there's a website up at kunaigame.com.
