Ninjabread Man 2 – What’s Cooking?

After the critical and commercial success of Ninjabread Man, a press release was issued on 8th of February 2008 announcing the sequel, Ninjabread Man: Blades of Fury for Wii. More than 4 years have passed, and we still haven’t seen any screenshots or had any update on its release. Will it be a Wii U launch title? 3DS eShop game? Or will it still come out for Wii and compete with Dragon Quest X? We did some investigating and got more than we bargained for.

Our first venture was to the official website of the Popcorn Arcade brand of games. Yes, this is their official site: not even hosted on a proper domain. This was the first warning sign, but looking at their robust catalog, they’re probably just too busy making great games to maintain the website. The last update includes video footage of them having a party to celebrate the release of Farmyard Party: Featuring the Olympigs!

“It’s all fun and games down at DDI development studio based in Stourbridge, England. The in-house development team working on DDI’s most bonkers game to date ‘Farmyard Party’ decided to have a day out in the park away from all the number-crunching and play-testing. It was all going well until a nasty butcher turned up with pork on his mind………”

This is their last known location. Farmyard Party was released in April 2009 and DDI hasn’t been seen since. The last update on the site of the actual developer is from August 2009, about how proud they are that Kidz Sports features MotionPlus.

Concerned and confused, RABicle sent them an e-mail seeking clarification.

“The following message was undeliverable.
The reason for the problem:5.1.0 – Unknown address error 550-‘This domain is not hosted here'”

Oh, crap! He tried another from their “website” – same message. Did they do a runner? Have they FLED THE INTERNET? Or did they simply go bust? A quick search of companies confirmed the worst: they had gone into Liquidation.

Whichever one they are, that’s not good. There is one slight ray of hope left on Data Design Interactive’s website. Down the very bottom of the page it says “2012 Data Design Interactive”, indicating a hint of life! How did they update this if they’re out of business? Did they go out of business this year or 3 years ago? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Furthermore, how could this happen after the huge sales success of their first 4 titles?

“The company intends to release 14 Nintendo Wii titles on their Popcorn arcade label before Christmas via their UK distributor Koch Media.”

This could explain it. Did they bite off more than they could chew? Time will tell how will this will affect the fate of Ninjabread Man 2. My mouth waters at the prospect of a 4 year development cycle; this could be a huge killer app if the developers have been working on it non-stop. Gingerbread Men could become as popular as Vampires in pop-culture circles.

Is it time for another kickstarter?