GGL Wire

Everybody does indy game reviews nowadays. Some of the best and brightest designers are working outside the Gaming-Industrial Complex, creating smaller games for Flash, Windows and other platforms. GGLWire’s Indy Game of the Week only goes to the best indy games — the ones really worth checking out. So come back each Monday to find out what everyone around the GGL offices is playing this week.

The first ever Indy Game of the Week is N, a free flash platformer reminiscent of the old Donkey-Kong/Dig-Dug school of side non-scrolling arcade games. In N, you control a tiny ninja who must escape from increasingly comples series of platform levels before the time runs out and he drops dead.

What makes N fascinating is the physics of the game. The ninja character can gain and lose momentum, and must use his momentum to jump, climb walls, and scale obstacles. The ninja experiences friction against walls, which can help you jump-climb up the surface — if you timing is right. Collecting power-ups will extend the time clock; and you’ll need the time to figure out the best strategy to unlock the exit and complete the level.N is one of those games in which the apparently simplicity belies the underlying complexity. The key to success to develop an innate understanding of the game’s physics. Then you’ll become a Master of N.

Players can register their high scores online, to compare their progress against other players. There is a built-in editor to create your own levels, which can be shared online. You can access other player-designed levels right from inside the game.

I spoke with Mare Sheppard, one of the designers of N.

Who are you and how did you get into game design?

Metanet is composed of two individuals, Raigan Burns and [myself]. We have bachelor’s degrees from the University of Toronto, and spent our time there in various art, design, interface, computer science, sociology, philosophy and cinema studies courses. We met in a programming class, and immediately decided to join forces and develop video games.

We both have interests outside of programming which are complementary to game development and design, so it seemed like we could handle all the aspects required for successful game design.

Our career histories are both pretty boring, as we just worked whatever day jobs we could find, and spent most of our time doing freelance web and database programming. This led to several awesome contracts for flash games, which was great at the time.

Tell me about your company.

Metanet Software was created by Raigan and Mare in 2001, and incorporated in 2004. We also work with Heather Neville, who helps us manage our schedules. She’s awesome. Aside from N, we have created a number of small games, and several web games.

What was the inspiration for N?

All sorts of classic old games like Lode Runner, Dark Castle, Super Mario Bros., etc. as well as indy games such as Zone Runner, Soldat, Super Bubble Blob, [and] Puchiwara No Bouken.

If you look at the in-game credits in N, there are links to some of these games.

Mostly the inspiration was old, tile-based run-and-jump games — we wanted to take what was great about them (simple, immediate, fun) and add more modern game technology (like improved collision detection and physics).

How did you develop the physics of the game? In what specific ways do they vary from real world physics, and why?

The ragdoll is based on a legendary presentation by Thomas Jakobsen called “Advanced Character Physics.” For the player movement, we just kept trying experimenting until things felt right.. we spent a lot of time programming the movement of the player — as much as we did on all of the enemies combined!

Some differences from real-world physics include:
-jumping “adds on” to your velocity if you’re moving upwards; if you’re moving downwards, your velocity is reset to 0 before the jump is applied.
-gravity is reduced while jumping.
-ninjas can’t really jump straight up a wall ;)

The problem with real-world physics is that not only are they not fun, they’re not what people expect.

For instance: jumping. Initially we tried to be realistic — jumping was modeled as a small upward push. The problem with this is that when you were moving downward quite fast, the jump would be very low — in some cases you wouldn’t even move up, you’d simply move downward at a slower rate!
This may have been more realistic (if you’re running down a steep hill, suddenly jumping straight up would be impossible, or would break your legs, etc.) but kind of sucked in terms of fun.

Mostly we just changed things until they worked the way we thought they should work, from a player’s perspective — when you jump, you expect to move up!

How has the response been to the game?

Phenomenal. We’re really happy that so many people “get” the fact that it’s very pure and simple — all game, no window-dressing. These days it seems like most developers/publishers don’t think that people like that sort of thing.. but they’re wrong! Maybe their problem is that it’s harder to market “fun to play” rather than “fancy photorealistic 3D” — N’s screenshots aren’t that interesting, you have to actually play the game to see what’s fun about it.

What is next for N, and for your company?

We’re making commercial versions of N called N+, for Xbox 360 Live Arcade, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP.

After those are done, we’ll be able to return to our in-progress game called Robotology – you can check out our blog for some demos and other info about it.

The idea is sort of a logical extension of the physics-based movement of N — make it much more sophisticated, and apply it to the entire world rather than just the player.

Maybe in a few years we’ll revisit N, but for now we have several other game ideas we need to work on.

Link to Metanet website.