The Incredible Journey From N+ to N++

Hi! I’m one of the two developers that make up Metanet Software. You may have heard of us thanks to a fun little Xbox Live Arcade game we released way back in 2008 called N+. Today I’m excited to announce that the sequel to N+, N++, is available now on Xbox One!

For those of you who are new to the world of N, it’s a physics-based parkour platformer: you control a ninja with a ton of momentum, darting around obstacles, narrowly evading robotic enemies and collecting gold in a beautiful minimalist landscape. You know, traditional ninja stuff.

Succeeding in N++ is all about learning how to master the nuances of the ninja’s movement; this is hard to convey with words, or even video. N++ is all about the unique game feel of controlling your ninja, and the magic that happens in your brain and fingers as you play. This feeling of pure gameplay is something we’ve spent over a decade refining and polishing until it was buttery smooth and pinpoint precise.

In N++, a large part of the buttery smoothness comes from our bespoke vector rendering system, which we’re proud of — it’s the first time that this sort of graphics technology has been used in a game! In most 2D games, graphics are represented as sprites — rectangular blocks of pixels that move around. The problem with representing graphics as pixels is that there’s no such thing as half a pixel: these limit how smooth the game can feel since objects can only move by stepping across the screen in whole-pixel increments.

In contrast, the graphics in N++ aren’t represented as sprites or polygons, but instead as pure mathematics: each game entity is described as a geometric distance field that’s calculated on the fly by pixel shaders, producing the equivalent of 256x multi-sample anti-aliasing! This gives us nearly infinite precision — objects can move by tiny fractions of a pixel, and you can feel this thanks to the feedback provided by the gorgeously smooth anti-aliased vector graphics. For N++ we were dedicated to the pursuit of platforming perfection, right down to fractions of a pixel.

N++ features a ton of other improvements that elevate it beyond the typical run-and-jump experience: from the 4,340 hand-crafted levels (N++ is a startling 10x bigger than N+ was, and represents hundreds of hours of gameplay!) across 4 modes of play (including 2 local multiplayer!) , to the over 100 different funlockable color schemes you can use to customize the look of the game, to the 63 licensed songs on the soundtrack (over 6 hours of intense electronic music to get you into the ninja groove) — we think that you’ll be able to appreciate how our obsessive attention to detail has helped to create a thrilling platforming experience that feels like no other game. We hope you enjoy it!