Shadow Bug is a ninja striking from the darkness, a silhouette of death who eviscerates all in his path with a lightning-fast strike that cuts through all who stand in his way.  He’s also, as the name implies, a bug.  But a deadly one, capable of taking down enemies many times his mass with a single well-timed slash of his twin blades.  Darting from one enemy to the next in flurry of sword strikes, he makes his way through spiky death mazes at top speed, unless he lands on spikes, misses a strike, gets dismembered by saw blades, or (less violently) gets distracted by shiny collectibles along the way.  Shadow Bug is a speed/score-run semi-platformer with multiple objectives for each level, and very well tuned to touch-screen controls.

The level start is usually pretty safe, and touching left or right on the screen gets the bug moving in that direction.  Walking is fairly slow, even at ninja speed, but when an enemy appears you can tap it to do a rapid dash that not only covers ground at great speed but also ignores walls and other non-deadly obstacles, and enemies are common enough that most levels are still spent primarily in mid-air even without a jump button.  Spinning saw blades and fireballs are best avoided no matter how ninja-y the bug is feeling, but otherwise the dash is free sword-swinging invulnerability.  Dashing and combo-ing from one enemy to the next covers the level at top speed, and the level is rated by completion, score, time, and finding the bonus item hidden in the maze.  It’s honestly fairly standard speed-run platforming but nicely responsive and very playable.  The levels are big enough to have a good number of challenges but small enough to have target times under a minute, although beating that goal is going to take several tries to put together the perfect run.  Check out the video to see the bug in action, tearing through creatures and being as ninja as a bug can be.