What do you do when you feel like a greedy ninja who has the average life expectancy that is lower than a horsefly’s? Well, you play N++!
Metanet’s “N++” is very simple in its design, but masterful in its execution. You play as a ninja, and you need to make sure your craving for gold is regularly appropriately answered. As a ninja, you like jumping around, doing stunts, and running around so fast that you are able to escape the hands of Death, which follow you with a delay of one minute and a half. So far everything that needs to be told story-wise.
By now, the attentive reader has probably figured out that this is a puzzle game with a strict set of rules. Although you might think that in its simplicity, N++ is just like any other puzzler out there, this is one of the freshest games I have come across recently. The reason for this is that the strict set of rules – run, jump around, evade obstacles, collect gold – really enabled the developer to focus more on the level design of the game. After all, what do you do with a limited set of tools? Well, you try to be as creative as possible!
Speaking of creativity, the game is divided into ‘episodes’ that contain 5 stages each. Each stage has to be completed, and you have to play through the 5 stages in one sitting before you can complete an episode. Just to show you how crazy the team at Metanet actually is, let me tell you that each stage is hand-crafted. HAND-CRAFTED. Not generated by an AI. Also, there are about 2,360 hand-made stages. Yes. 2,360 of them. No wonder this game has been in development for over 12 years!
How does it play though? Well, at first, I felt quite frustrated. I’m not much of a rhythm guy, you know, but guess what you absolutely need to play this games? Yes! Eyes! And also a sense of rhythm! The entire game revolves around doing the correct action at the correct time, building up momentum, and avoiding hesitation. This means that sometimes, you have to play through the same episode multiple times because you can’t manage to get through that final stage. Luckily, you can reset each episode if you are not entirely happy with your progress. Resetting often can be quite frustrating, but the sense of accomplishment is so good it makes you want to jump around and high-five the nearest elderly person! Huzaah!
For players that manage to get through all the levels – a mission that will take at least a couple of weeks of your life – there’s also a level design-mode in which you can create your own episodes, and share them with the online community. There’s also leader boards, records to be set and broken, a co-op mode, and more! There are plenty of ways to enjoy this game. Just don’t stress out too much if you don’t succeed at first. After all, mastering the ways of the digital ninja on speed is not something that happens overnight…
| The good | The bad |
| + Very creative / Excellent level design | – Sometimes frustrating |
| + Addictive | |
| + Huge database of levels |
Final Score: 4/5
