Shinobi Art of Vengeance's Frederic Vincent discusses Ankou Rifts, fixing pacing issues, favorite level, and more [Exclusive]

Shinobi Art of Vengeance is easily one of my favorite games of 2025, and after its launch, I had a chance to speak with Frédéric Vincent, Lead Game Designer on the hit action platformerby Lizardcube

. Challenging, without feeling punishing or unfair, the game has some of the most interesting stage designs I’ve seen in a 2D platformer. Some stages were linear, and others were vast puzzles that needed to be sorted out before you could proceed.

I spoke with Frederic Vincent about the general design of the stages in Shinobi Art of Vengeance, as well as his favorites, some of the more challenging things, and certain interesting design choices that were made. It was a real thrill to pick his brain about such a fun, intense action game. As a long-time Shinobi fan, this game was a pleasure to play from start to finish.

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Frederic Vincent opens up about level design and more in Shinobi Art of Vengeance

Q. While Shinobi Art of Vengeance very much has amazing map designs, I do appreciate that you have to occasionally backtrack if you want everything, making it also kind of feel like a Metroidvania. Was that the original intent, to force players to solve these puzzles and come back with more ninja tools at their disposal?

Frederic Vincent: The core idea was to have a simple structure, easy to follow, and also to be generous in terms of content and challenge to complete. The main path is linear, but the big difficulty spikes are hidden in the secret areas of the stages, requiring some backtracking. Any player can reach the end of the game, but for those wanting to really dig into the game mechanics and secrets, there’s plenty of stuff to do.

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Q. What I do appreciate is that not every stage is the same. Sure, Mad Train’s pretty straightforward, making it easy to find and see everything, but then you have intense maze-like areas such as Neo City. Which map was your favorite to make and why?

Frederic Vincent: My personal favorite is the “Assault,” when you must go through a battlefield to reach Ruse’s castle. I love the art style, the music, and the fact that it's the combination of a linear first part, leading to a more open final area. The very first stage of the game has the same structure: The first part is action-oriented, and the second one brings some variety by breaking the pacing, asking the player to explore a little.

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Q. While Shinobi Art of Vengeance is a decently challenging game, one thing that I think makes it approachable is that the “normal” route through a stage is typically pretty reasonable. However, the optional parts of the map feature some of the most bone-shattering, frustrating movement puzzles I’ve ever seen. In particular, I’d like to highlight The Kaiju stage’s Max Health Boost Unlock (Upper Cavity). If you don’t have picture-perfect movement, you’re going back to the start. What went into this movement puzzle, and others like it?

Frederic Vincent: In Shinobi Art of Vengeance, platforming and combat are two sides of the same coin. We needed the player to be challenged on both of these aspects. We tried to go as far as possible, while staying fair. In retrospect, we probably underestimated the difficulty of some of its challenges.

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Q. If you want to unlock the Black Katana in Shinobi Art of Vengeance, you need to complete some truly harrowing movement puzzles and battle gauntlets. These felt to me like tutorials, in a way, to see if players were able to master the various movement styles in Shinobi. Was that the feeling with the development team?

Frederic Vincent: The level designer behind those short stages wanted them to be the “Shinobi” final test. He only used ingredients and mechanics you could find in the game to create patterns and obstacles requiring a perfect mastery of Joe’s abilities. A lot of platformer games have that kind of content, and we wanted to deliver our own version of it.

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Q. On that note, the final Ankou Rift was easily the most difficult gauntlet available in the game. While excruciatingly difficult in general, I appreciate how you can approach these challenges. What exactly went into that final marathon in The Kaiju?

Frederic Vincent: A vast majority of Ankou Rifts are built around a specific gameplay mechanic, related to the “Ningi” you find in the corresponding stage. For example, you find the “Ninja Hook” in Neo City, and the Rift of the city has a lot of platforming sections using the Hook.

Because it’s one of the last stages, “The Kaiju” asks players to use all the Ningis they have acquired. You’re forced to use everything you learnt before. In the same way, The Kaiju’s Ankou Rift is like a big finale: you must overcome a large variety of obstacles, using almost everything you could find in the game.

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Q. There were so many varied and fun stages in Shinobi Art of Vengeance. What would you say is your favorite idea that came up while creating a stage? Something that made you rightly think you had something special on your hands?

Frederic Vincent: We have an ingredient we call “Dash Booster”; when you make contact with it, Joe is propelled, performing some kind of “Super Dash.” It came a bit late during development, so it’s a bit underused. I had trouble with the rooftop part of the “Lantern Festival” stage; pacing was not feeling right, and players felt that the platforming sections were repetitive.

At first, I was not supposed to, but I decided to introduce the “Dash Booster” ingredient in this stage – it was a perfect fit, fixing the pacing issues I had before.