My thumbs are raw. My pulse is elevated. My regrets are many. Nestled in a corner of this weekend's Summer Game Fest Play Days event in Los Angeles is, I suspect, a perfect videogame in the making.
N+ Infinity Times Two is a floaty ninja platformer—the latest in a series that started over 20 years ago as a browser game. Then came the Xbox Live Arcade darling N+ in 2008, followed by N++ in 2015. Canadian developer Metanet has awoken once more for N+ Infinity Times Two, a multiplayer-focused sequel that had this writer yelling in a roomful of strangers.
The beauty of N+ is that you could map its controls to an NES gamepad: Move, jump, and sometimes become a missile. The full game will have five modes, but Metanet was only showing off two this weekend:
Race: A mad dash through bespoke 2D tracks that's all about dodging hazards and harnessing your ninja's exaggerated momentum. When you cross the finish line, you transform into a steerable missile that can blow up the competition.
Tag: A 2v2 game of keep away between ninjas and hunters. If a hunter touches a ninja, they're dead. The team that survives longest as ninjas wins. Also, the hunters can turn into missiles whenever they want.
Both are simple, but genius. Our first few races were casual and gentlemanly, but eventually the room got wise to a few strategies. You can deliberately hang back in the middle of the pack, placing a bet that the lead ninja will hit a trap and make your life easier. Or you can go for the gold pickups placed along the outskirts of the stage—bonus points that can turn second place into first place if you're quick. No matter what, the quickest still gets the major advantage of not having to dodge player-controlled missiles. I'd like to say this was me, but more often than not I was the overzealous frontrunner who showed everyone where not to jump by immediately blowing up.
Tag is where things got a little heated. Were this Mario or Super Meat Boy, I don't think platforming at each other would be all that thrilling or even challenging, but N+'s uniquely floaty, expressive gymnastics are the perfect fit for a PvP environment. It's as if Metanet somehow designed N all those years ago with PvP tag in mind. Tracking down ninjas takes a level of anticipation—reading their movements, routes, and cutting them off where you believe momentum will carry them.
One showdown at the top of a spire played out like an interpretive dance, fidgeting in place to be hard to read, bouncing up walls, and picking up speed on anything that qualifies as a ramp. It's like playing tag on the moon, except there's laser mines and the fall damage is brutal.
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N+ Infinity has all the ingredients of a party game that my friends will obsess over, and frankly, it's been way too long since one of those came along. You know the type—the TowerFalls, Nidhoggs, and Samurai Gunns of the world. This sort of low-barrier, high-skill-ceiling game had a moment in the early 2010s, but they disappeared around the same time the Jackbox Party Pack was born. As much as I enjoy a Jackbox night, we've kind of burnt out on the endless improv and silly drawings. The last time I had everyone over, I fired up TowerFall for the first time in probably 10 years, and the room immediately locked in for sweaty arrow flinging.
That sort of timeless game design is rare, and with Metanet's track record of perfectly precise platformers, I believe they're capable of the same here. I can't wait to play the full thing, which will also include co-op levels that play like traditional N+, sometime in 2027.
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