A Look Back at the 2015 Platformer Classic

People say it about most years, but 2015 really was an incredible year for video games. With GOTY contenders like The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, it was hard to go wrong with any of the year’s best. My absolute favorite game of the year, however, has never gotten the same amount of attention.

N++ is, at a glance, unassuming. While hardcore 3D platformers like Super Meat Boy and Celeste boast detailed, colorful worlds, N++ skips the textures and backgrounds. Each level is nothing more than a one-screen room with a small selection of gold squares to pick up and a larger array of hazards. Each level is also a masterpiece, and the news that N++ is getting more of them is music to my ears.

Before N++, N Was A Trailblazing Flash Game

Momentum Is Key

My history with N actually started more than a decade ago. Before N++, or even N+, there was a free flash game called N. Released in 2004, N predated foundational hardcore platformers like I Wanna Be The Guy and Super Meat Boy by years. With a stick figure protagonist and a vague ninja theme, it also feels like the template for many casual flash games of the era.

The games that followed N, however, were rarely as elegant. Stripped down to the fundamentals of platforming, N provides a gameplay experience like no other. The fluid movement and generous momentum never loses its underlying pinpoint precision, and in N, every nanosecond counts. As you leap over mines and outrun homing missiles, you’ll have to optimize each wall jump and pivot in the mandatory pursuit of perfection.

My initial fascination with N was largely one of circumstance. For a period of time, my high school had a pretty ironclad firewall blocking any website with games on it. I eventually came up with a workaround, but before I did, a local copy of N was the perfect computer lab solution. My friend and I would race to clear levels in the back of the lab, an electrifying alternative to being diligent students.

I never had N+, and I wasn’t able to get N++ right when it came out. It was a PS4 exclusive for a little over a year, and I didn’t have the console at the time. The day it launched on Steam, though, I grabbed it, and it could very well be the best $11.99 I ever spent.

N++ Is Getting A 10-Year Anniversary Update

TEN++ Is A Welcome Surprise

N++ does virtually everything the original N did, and then some. That’s quite literal, as it includes the majority of N levels along with a dizzying number of new additions. N++ launched with 2,360 levels, which expanded to 4,340 thanks to a free update in 2017. It also boasts local co-op, leaderboards, a level editor, tons of color themes, and an expansive soundtrack of driving synth beats. Short of online multiplayer, N++ essentially has itall.

Somehow, though, N++ developer Metanet Software still has more to give. On October 16, Metanet announced the TEN++ update, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the original PS4 release. That means more levels, yet again, along with more color schemes and some bugfixes. In the Steam post about the update, Metanet jokes that some levels are hard enough to warrant ten more years of playing. If they’re hard by N standards, that might be a serious threat.

While there was a bit of an initial hangup regarding the update’s rollout, my Steam copy has now received a 419 megabyte patch, so I’m pretty certain those new levels have arrived. I typically dedicate October to horror gaming, but I think I’ll be making an exception this weekend. Maybe it’s fitting, anyway. What’s scarier than confronting the limits of your abilities in a game that proudly claims it has “no skill ceiling”?

N++ Is As Good As Platformers Get

A Challenge That’s Worth All The Sweat

To loop back to the hook, I really am serious about N++ being my favorite game of 2015. I’ll go one step further and say that it’s probably the best 2D platformer of all time. It might not have the whimsy of Super Mario Bros. 3 or the storytelling of Celeste, but in terms of raw, unadorned platforming, it’s hard to beat.

A lot of N++‘s excellence lies in the way it both demands and encourages perfection. There’s no denying that it can be vindictive and cruel, but on some level, no hard game has ever been more fair. In its stripped-down environments, N++ presents every threat and every possibility with the utmost clarity.

N++‘s “no skill ceiling” claim comes from its PlayStation launch trailer, which also advertised the lack of hitpoints, checkpoints, ammo, or XP. As the list goes on, it becomes more abstract. No alienation. No condescension. No gender. No exclusion. And finally, “Nothing else like it.”

10 years later, that’s still true. There’s nothing else like N++. There never will be. But there is TEN++, which is more N++. For the next 10 years, that should be exactly what I need.