Bubblegum brawler Ninjala borrows from Splatoon with open beta.

Similarities don’t stop there.

Adding to a rather barren market, Ninjala will join the Nintendo Switch line-up as a take on Splatoon‘s arena team battle action, albeit in a free-to-play package.

The game invites comparisons to Splatoon with everything from its toothy, stylish avatars to its neon colouring to its combat. The whole package certainly has the appearance on a squid-riff, albeit one that is focused on melee combat, opposed to Splatoon’s heavy focus on ranged combat. Heck, Emma looks like an Inkling,.

In Ninjala, match flow appears to focus on beating up floating-apple-shaped-drones to be able to upgrade your weapon into the aptly named “Big Weapon”. From there players attempt to lay the smack down on one another with their big sticks or try to land a coveted “IPPON”…a special state where you knock attach your opponent to the wall in a blast of bubblegum or defeat them in a 1-on-1 directional sword fight.

The whole thing is wrapped in a bubblegum veneer that vaguely reminds me of The World Ends With You‘s pins complete with skulls and flames and every other punk aesthetic you can think of. Each available weapon is the product of a different ball of bubblegum with the hammer and yo-yo as the first revealed additional weapons. Don’t overthink it.

If you want to try it out you can pre-load Ninjala now and try out its test fire, er, open beta, sometime next week.