Prepare To Die: N++ Coming To PC
Double-plus ninjas
N [official site], as I discovered this morning, is still a hole I'm more than happy to fall down. Along with Spelunky and ADOM, it's one of the few games that has a permanent place on my hard drive. If you haven't played it, you should go and do that right now. It's free. Caution is advised, however, because N might consume you. It's hard as nails but every time you die, you'll recognise the error that lead to your doom.
N++ [official site] is a double-plus super upgraded version of the game, originally released on PS4. Despite some hitches in the porting process, it's coming to PC.
N is one of the best games I've ever played, its brutal simplicity and elegance a towering monument of minimalist design. N++ is the biggest version of the game, with 2360 levels and six hours of glorious music. The music is important. Listen to it.
The PS4 release last year was not the grand success developers Metanet had hoped it would be. Raigan Burns, one of the three-person team, took to Neogaf to express his frustration following the release.
"Possibly we were also a bit idealistic, we figured that everyone would be able to see that N++ was something special, a game with a very high level of craftpersonship put into it; we figured that with only 3 people, we would rather put all our energy into making the game exceptional and hope that this would make it stand out and attract attention, but sadly a lot of people seem to be dismissing it as "essentially N+"."
One of the team left after the release, which delayed the port but a month of work has now been completed and N++ will arrive in a few months, along with all of the "planned post-launch update stuff".
"The good news: we've found a new programmer, and they've been working on porting N++ to Steam for the past month or so. There are still a few more months of work -- we want to add all of the planned post-launch-update stuff that got put on hold when our team imploded -- but we will definitely be bringing N++ to Steam. We're still looking at other platforms too."
It's been a long wait but it'll all be worthwhile in the end. In fact, it's already been worthwhile because when I spotted the news this morning I played N for the first time this year. It continues to fascinate me.