More than a decade after the release of one of the best action platformers ever made, N Plus Infinity Times Two is the next ninja parkour movement sim from Canada’s Metanet Software.
If you love N++ I know what you’re probably thinking: decade old or not, that game has over 4,000 levels, and it got a massive free expansion just last year. Why does N Plus Infinity Times Two need to exist? Well, because the Metanet duo of Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard have kinda turned N into Smash Brothers. And also, kinda, Rocket League. Other games mentioned during a presentation last week include Counter-Strike, Towerfall, and It Takes Two.
“We don’t think we can substantially improve upon [N++] in terms of being a hardcore single player platformer,” Burns said. “So for this new project we’re trying to go a bit perpendicular, and we’re trying to apply the same basic process [we did] to N+.”
To recap: N released in 2004 as browser-based freeware. In 2008, N+ released as an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive, and like all XBLA games it needed to have an online component. Thus, N+ added some neat multiplayer modes to a format that had previously been entirely singleplayer focused.
In other words, N Plus Infinity Times Two is to N++ what N+ was to N.
“For N Plus Infinity Times Two, we’re kind of setting out to make the ultimate version of that initial foray into multiplayer platforming,” Burns said, “this time bringing to bear two decades of learning and knowledge and development of our craft to help us make a significantly better experience for everyone.”
Enthusiasts and pedants will point out that N++ did have multiplayer, but it only supported local play. N Plus Infinity Times Two will support both online and local multiplayer for up to four players, and it’ll boast five main game modes across cooperative and competitive. You can play it by yourself, but multiplayer is very much baked into N Plus Infinity Times Two’s design.
Of the five modes, Metanet showed two: Racing is, as the name implies, a race to the exit, with each character collecting as much gold as possible on the way and setting off traps to hinder opponents. Whoever reaches the exit is automatically equipped with a rocket launcher, all the better to slay dawdling opponents. One nice visual touch here is that each player leaves behind a color-coded trail, making it much easier—in theory—to follow the movement of your stick thin avatar on a busy screen.
Tag Team was also shown: Sheppard said “It plays kinda like if you turned Counter-Strike surfing into melee only deathmatch”, though here is where Rocket League was a major inspiration too. It pits two ninjas against two hunters:the former must survive while the latter hunts them with traps and contact damage. Oh, and the hunters can turn into rockets. Anyone who knows N games knows how dangerous rockets are.
Other modes include co-op, one-up, and trials.
(Image credit: Metanet)
(Image credit: Metanet)
(Image credit: Metanet)
(Image credit: Metanet)
Burns said that part of the motive for making N Plus Infinity Times Two was to try to explore possibilities in the 2D platformer that aren’t done (to death) elsewhere. “A big source of inspiration for N Plus Infinity Times Two was to go back to the source,” he said. “[Shigeru] Miyamoto himself never referred to the original Mario games as platformers, he used the term athletic games.
“We’ve always thought that that’s a very inspiring way to think about platforming as a sort of virtual athletics,” he went on. “So the concept for the new game is basically just that soccer is more fun than track and field, and in the context of platforming, there’s an entire world of new possibilities once you change the core conversation from the single-player context of, like, it’s a level designer and a player conversing, to a multiplayer context where it’s players conversing together, and the level design becomes more of a conversation starter rather than the focus.”
But, for those who are averse to the concept of a multiplayer focused N game and have also finished the thousands of levels in N++, there will be a full singleplayer campaign, and the multiplayer modes will each have a solo practice component.
“We recognize [singleplayer] is what people love and what they will be expecting,” Sheppard said. “And we love it too, even if we are maybe ever so slightly bored of that. We think we’ve done it really well up to this point and there are still lots of ideas to explore.”
N Plus Infinity Times Two will release in 2027.
