Ninja Links, shown in the game as Naruto Links, is a six-degrees puzzle for Naruto fans. You get a starting character and a target character and travel between them one relationship at a time, through family, teammates, mentors, rivals, allies and romances. The shortest possible route is called par, and matching it earns all three stars.

It rewards knowing how the Naruto world fits together rather than who is strongest. A route from a Hidden Mist swordsman to a Konoha genin might run through a rival, a sensei and a teammate, and there is almost always more than one way through. Each era has its own daily pair, chosen so the shortest route is between three and five steps.

The current character's connections are shown as cards, each tagged with its relationship: Family, Mentor, Teammate, Rival, Ally or Romance. Tap one to travel there. Every tap counts as one step, and characters you have already visited are marked. When a character has more connections than fit on screen, use the search box to find the one you want.

Took a wrong turn? Undo removes your last step with no penalty. When you reach the target the puzzle ends and awards stars: three for matching par, two for finishing within two steps of it, and one for anything longer.

If you give up, which takes two taps to confirm, the game shows a shortest route. The daily leaderboard ranks players by fewest steps, with ties broken by the fastest time, and a new pair appears at midnight UTC.

Work backwards from the target. Before your first tap, think about who the target is directly linked to: their sensei, their parents, their teammates, their great rival. Then look for a path from the start into any of those characters instead of wandering toward the target's village and hoping.

Use hubs, but do not rely on them. Characters like Naruto, Jiraiya, Kakashi, Hiruzen and Orochimaru connect to huge parts of the cast, so they are reliable stepping stones when you are lost. A direct family or team link is often a step shorter, though, and par is usually built from those tighter connections.

Undo is free, so explore. Step into a character to see their connections, and if nothing useful appears, undo and try another branch; it costs nothing. Time only breaks ties on the leaderboard, so a careful three-step route always beats a hasty four-step one.