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The arcade coin-op display is 3 normal screens wide. Was it an obvious decision to make a full width game with a very short height to keep the aspect ratio similar? Or did you contemplate making it a lot taller?

If we had changed the aspect ratio of the screen, we would have changed the game play. If I remember correctly, the Amiga version has an aspect equivalent to two screens side by side. The arcade has three, so it was a compromise. But just as importantly, the reduced screen height helped performance. Smaller sprites to draw, and the 32-color mode makes the CPU run slower, so a shorter screen reduces the impact.

How did Ned feel about having all those extra colours compared to Silkworm?

The graphics for Silkworm were all recreated by Ned, merely by watching the arcade machine. But Taito gave us the graphics files for The Ninja Warriors. I wrote a program to reduce the size and the number of colors. Then Ned fixed them up where needed. But compared to Silkworm, his involvement was much reduced.

Ninja Warriors doesn't seem to be using sprites at all. Was that due to the 32 colour palette not repeating like Silkworm/SWIV? I thought maybe the shurikens would have been done with sprites.

We couldn't use hardware sprites because of the way they share colors with the 32-color screen. And in any case, we did not need as many projectiles as in Silkworm, so drawing a few extra small software sprites was not a big deal.

The arcade features a layer of parallax scrolling. Did you intend do add that in or it didn't add anything to the gameplay so was never going to be included?

We used hardware scrolling. Parallax scrolling in Silkworm was achieved by a copper driven screen split. But parallax scrolling of the kind that was used in The Ninja Warriors arcade machine would have had to be done by the blitter. We didn't think it was worth the performance cost.

Was there any fancy mapping tool used in the game or was it simple 16x16 (or whatever) blocks?

It was a simple tiled background, converted from the arcade machine data.

The Amiga version seems incredibly difficult compared to the C64 version, especially if you accidentally fire ninja stars instead of the normal attack and end up fighting the end of level guardians without a decent weapon! Were you guys able to play through the entire game easily?

Yeah. But we're hard core! :)

As far as the music was concerned, did it have to be re-created from scratch by listening to it or was the music data able to be lifted from the original?

Taito provided us with the sheet music and some of the instrument samples. I recreated the wave data for missing instrument sounds with a simple FM synthesizer that I wrote for the Amiga. The same one, by the way, that I used for Saint Dragon, Rodland, and Qbic. I converted the sheet music to numbers, by hand. The music driver uses dynamic voice allocation to give the illusion (perhaps not entirely successfully) of more than 4 channels.

By the way I was, and still am, in awe of the Zuntata score. Daddy Mulk is an awesome tune! I love Japanese techno pop.

Do you recall how long did the music took you?

I don't quite remember. Probably a couple of weeks.

Was the game a lot simpler to write than Silkworm due to your knowledge of the Amiga at that stage and the sprites, smaller display area etc?

The programming was a lot more sophisticated. The Ninja Warriors uses a preemptive multitasking system and dynamic memory allocation, which were new to us. In hindsight, it was probably a little over-engineered.

Were there any difficulties creating the game?

We didn't have much time for it! The biggest difficulty was that we entered into a crunch period pretty much from the start.

Presumably since it was pre-SWIV, this was still developed without a hard drive?

I think we had hard drives by that time. But we were still developing on the Amiga itself, no PC.

When converting a game like this, is there a point where you just become sick of it and want it finished compared with an original game like SWIV where you can develop new things as you go along?

We were talking about SWIV throughout development of The Ninja Warriors. And yeah, we were looking forward to starting that.

Did you ever download cracked versions to see how the hackers defeated the copy-protection?

No. But let me tell you a little story. The Ninja Warriors had so much graphics data, that even using compression and a custom disk format, we needed two floppies. It also had several layers of protection. A couple of days after release, not only was it cracked and all over the bulletin boards, but it was now in a standard disk format, and they had fit it on one floppy. The hackers had actually improved the program!

Any other interesting things you recall about the development?

We ran out of room in the Sales Curve offices. Jane had just bought a new home, but not moved in yet. She set us up with our computers in her unfinished living room!