12 Video Games Created By Accident
11. Ninjabread Man
In Ninjabread Man, our crumbly hero must protect his tasty homeland from a horde of evil (but delicious) cupcake monsters.
On the surface, Data Design's game looks like a cute little platformer. But save for the witty title, Ninjabread Man is irredeemably awful. Because it suffers from relentless glitches, unresponsive controls, and an unbearable frame-rate, it's borderline unplayable. Also, you can beat the whole thing in 15 minutes! The developers put so little effort into Ninjabread Man, you'd swear they didn't want to make it.
Technically, that's kinda true. Ninjabread Man started off as the third instalment in Zool - a 2D platformer for the Amiga. Though this gremlin from the Nth dimension was once regarded as Sonic's rival, he quickly vanished into obscurity.
Hoping to revitalising the property, Data Design showed a tech demo of Zool to Zoo Digital Publishing, who own the rights for the character. Zoo wasn't impressed by the pitch, urging them to reject Data Design's offer.
Since the project was too far into development to pull the plug, the developers reworked Zool 3 into a new IP, Ninjabread Man.