A platformer with one-screen levels where you control a stick figure to flip a switch to open an exit door sounds like the least exciting game ever offered on Live Arcade. That is exactly what N+ is, and it is exactly why it works so well. The game is really a revamped port of an online Flash game, simply titled N, that has been available to eat up your lunch hours for the last three years. Conventional wisdom looks at the 800 MS Point price tag and giggles, but N+ is the insanely addictive exception to just about every rule of what you expect in a good XBLA title.
The game's single-screen layout is pleasantly reminiscent of Lode Runner. Similarly, you are in control of a non-descript stick figure, although draped in all black with a red scarf flailing about as you run. If you look for it, the game does provide a brief, unnecessary backstory in the form of a paragraph or two of text; the basic idea is that you are a ninja racing against time to clear through various rooms. The game offers fifty-one single player episodes, each comprised of five levels. This game does not skimp on content. Each episode starts with a set amount of time on the yellow timer-bar at the top of the screen. The goal is to make it through all five levels of the episode before the timer runs to zero. While making your way through each level in search of the switch to open its door, you can add time to the yellow timer bar by collecting the gold dots strewn throughout. If it sounds very simple, it is; at least for the first few episodes.
The game quickly introduces you to various objects in the levels designed to send your limbs flying in opposite directions. Some levels contain red dots that serve as mines. Hit one and your turn is over, leaving your legs and arms scattering across the level. Some levels attempt to slow your progress with machine gun turrets or heat-seeking missiles, both equally as damaging the mines. Some levels include various electrified bots that zip through the level mindlessly, zapping you to death upon touch. On most levels, evading incoming enemies or projectiles is nearly as hard as reaching the switch to open the door.
Deadliest of all the obstacles you face in N+ is good ol' gravity. Learning exactly how far you can fall and survive will greatly increase your chances of making it through levels, although you will still die…. a lot. Learning what falls you can live through and which will send you into a crumpled heap is extremely difficult, thanks to the vast amount of angled surfaces and long jumps you make throughout the game. The game's unique physics are part of the fun, giving you great deal of control over your little stick figure ninja, and making for some entertaining deaths along the way.
The game's steep learning curve and increasingly difficult puzzles make for the kind of challenges that would normally make you bust a controller or two. The game is tough to the point where it acknowledges the aggravation with a wink and an achievement for 1,000 deaths, which you should get without problem by the halfway point. Somehow, the goofy ways your ninja fails makes all the deaths ok. There is just something funny about seeing your severed leg rolling into a mine, and then exploding. It has the rare ability to make you love it more with each passing death.
Although it features some incredibly simplistic gameplay, N+ offers a robust set of modes. The offline portion of the game offers gamers the chance to blast through a massive amount of brilliantly conceived levels, and then create their own when done. The slick level editor allows creative gamers to design their own ninja-worthy levels. The only slight chink in the armor of this addictive platformer is the inability to share user created maps. While you can create and save as many of your own maps as your hard drive can handle, you cannot share them with friends or the rest of the community.
