Today we're thrilled to have @RaiganBurns & @MareSheppard from Metanet Software. They'll be here, answering questions about N++ and beyond, starting at 1pm PT today! Feel free to get your questions in now. I'll start:
1) Where was the original N idea born? Were the big identifying characteristics (difficulty, the art style and the physics) a major part, or did the evolve from something else?
2) You've made seemingly thousands of N levels over the years. How did you manage to not drive yourselves insane with N++? What keeps the creativity tap flowing for you?
3) What's your testing process like? How do you know when a level is too hard or too easy?
4) The soundtrack in N++ is stellar and fits the gameplay perfectly. How did that come together?
5) Any plans to bring N++ to other platforms?
@russfrushtick
1. When we made N, we had been playing with a lot of little experiments based on papers and algorithms we liked the ideas behind, eg Jakobsen's Advanced Character Physics. We cobbled together a ragdoll simulation, collision detection, some movement physics and some basic AI, and set out to make a stealth game -- but then we discovered it was so much more fun to run around at top speed pulling off acrobatic moves, and N was born.
The minimalist art style came from an appreciation of that aesthetic, and also as a reaction to the developing trend towards realistic graphics over stylized ones, and heavily decorated over functional. We cut back, to highlight the gameplay and really let it take centre stage, which is what we found most appealing. We love games in which the controls feel really GOOD.
The difficulty was similarly a reaction: back in 2002-4 casual games were really becoming popular, and we longed for the days where to win a game you needed to be skilled, rather than good at clicking a mouse fast. So that's what N is: a little reactionary time capsule ;) But it turned out to be pretty fun, and we're glad we kept pursuing the more refined design and aesthetic that is N++.
@russfrushtick
2. well, to be honest, we've definitely been burnt out on N and N+ for a while -- that's why it took so long to make N++: for a while we wanted nothing else to do with the series. But we knew we could do it better, and Nick Suttner from Sony really loved N+ and wanted a version for PlayStation, and one day we found ourselves making levels again for fun and enjoying it, and then we knew what we had to do.
It was 2010, and after 6 years, much of the low-hanging fruit (eg easy ideas) was gone, so we had to really try to be inventive. Coming up with a handful of new enemies for N++ helped -- lots of the new ones like the Boost Pads and Shove Thwumps have opportunities for use in multiplayer, as well as Solo, which burgeoning level designers should love -- we forced ourselves to think about the game in a different way to figure out new enemies that didn't feel gimmicky, and then to use them creatively and in interesting ways.
The Evil Ninja is my fave, a glitchy parallel world version of you that copies your every move, 2s after you make it, and will kill you if you touch it. Psychologically thrilling!
And we had some fun designing Race levels -- Race existed in N+, but like the rest of the game we basically rewrote it from the ground up, trying to make the rules make sense, for both party-game-players and for serious competition. If you get to the exit before other players, you get to become a rocket and fly around taking out the others, which is probably the most fun new thing N++ has to offer: it's amazing. So satisfying when you succeed in blowing someone up! Anyway that caused us to design levels around the idea that players could be controlling rockets at some point, which is something brand new we'd never considered.
So there were lots of ways we were able to keep things interesting.
@russfrushtick whoops, sorry, I replied to #5 in the main thread.. oh, noobs.
Anyway, #4: Thank you! The soundtrack, like most of the rest of the game, was the result of a long and arduous process of gradually figuring out what we should do, and then struggling to do it :)
For the first 2 years of development, we didn't really know what we would do music-wise: we thought maybe we wouldn't have any (to make it as minimal as possible), or it might be just ambient sound, etc.
Unfortunately, when we tried ambient music, it was too boring -- it really undercut the tension and ruined the fun of the game. So we tried more intense music.. but that was too intense, and made the stress unbearably and not fun at all!
Eventually we realized we had to stop navigating based on genre and evaluate each song individually; so, we spent a lot of our free time for a few months going through soundcloud to find new interesting music.
Then we took those hundreds of songs and listened to them while playing the game, and decided which we thought could work.
Then, we spent about 3 months emailing and preparing contracts and doing all of the other stuff required to license the music.. that wasn't very fun. Thankfully we had some great advice from other developers who we reached out to -- Alex from Loud On Planet X and Simon from Olli Olli both graciously answered our noob questions about music licensing, and that really helped us to plan the logistics. (example: each transaction has a certain overhead in terms of admin work, so for maximum efficiency always try to license more than 1 song from a given artist/label)
@russfrushtick
3. you kind of get a sense for when a level is too hard or too easy, just like you get a sense for whether or not a certain jump is possible. You get to know your and your ninja's limits. But that said, as we've gotten better at the game, it's harder to know how new players will react to levels, and it's harder for us to be challenged or inspired by easier levels. The hardest thing to do is to make an easy level that is still interesting. We really tried to do a good job of it this time though, because teaching players the skills they need to really get good at N++ is so important -- so we made 125 levels in the Intro section specifically focusing on one small skill or one enemy, to help players focus.
Playtesting has been instrumental -- it's always great to see people get their hands on the game, and they always have trouble with or really love things we never expect, so even though we really make games for our own palates, it's crucial to see the game through someone else's eyes, since we hope that others like it as well :)
Hopefully N++ has enough for players of all skill levels to get into -- we tried to design it so that even with pretty basic skills, you'll be able to play through at least 500 levels, which means you'll definitely get your money's worth, and hopefully will have a good sense of what this game is. If Solo is too hard, you can play with 2 players, as well -- you're ineligible for highscores, but you'll have a good time playing, and either way for us that's a win.
We ultimately tried to build N++ so that players have the flexibility to choose their own experience. they can take it slow, or move quickly. They can play Solo or with friends, or they can make their own levels. We tried to support noobs, speedrunners, eSports players, N fans, N+ fans, design fans, and fans of platformers in general. And us, of course :) and we're very happy with how it came out! It's a niche game, and not for everyone, but we really tried to make N++ as approachable and rewarding as possible.
Can you talk a bit about the different DIY marketing campaigns you've done for the game? I'm thinking Motion++, naming levels after other games, the Enemy Spotlight videos …
@andreaszecher Sure!
About the level names, this is actually something we've always done, naming levels based on movies/music/books/games that we like, or that we're watching/listening/reading/playing while developing, or that remind us of the level.
But, a month or so ago, we realized that this time -- since social media actually exists -- we could directly show the people the levels they inspired! So yesterday I frantically took a lot of screenshots ;)
(note: like most of our marketing, we're not entirely sure if this is effective, but it's something that we think is fun that we want to do, so we're trying it)
@andreaszecher About the enemy spotlight videos, this was Mare's idea, based on a sort of mash-up of the intro animation of Wipeout 3 (i.e cool motion graphics) and the "Meet the X" series that Valve did for TF2.
We were really lucky to be able to work with Richard, who completely understood exactly what we were going for and did an amazing job of putting together the videos.
Again, it's hard to say whether they translated directly into sales, but it was a really fun cool project that we wanted to exist, so we thought we should seize the opportunity to try it :)
@andreaszecher For Motion++, I wanted to try to express what it feels like to play the game. So the photos are all of motion, of speed, grace, agility and beauty, which is what N++ is to me. There's always been a dance-like component to the game, especially when you're evading rockets, but it seems to us that people might not necessarily put the two together, since it's generally described as a "twitch platformer" or "stick figure flash game' :o so we wanted to show what else the game is, and to help people talk about and think about games in a different way.
Also, I love how creative projects are generally a compilation of experiences, likes, dislikes, thought and inspirations -- I wanted to show the influence of dance, fashion, movement and art on me, and by proxy, on our little platformer, which people might not previously have been aware of.
Plus I love the idea that that is our ad campaign for N++: in stark contrast to the typical ad campaign of the game world. We see things a bit differently, and we are so proud of that.
hey @RaiganBurns & @MareSheppard! So awesome. 1 question :). What were some of the larger technical hurdles you all ran into when designing the game? 😃
@mscccc there is a lot of serious programming work in N++, by Shawn McGrath (who made Dyad); the vector rendering system is something we developed in-house, and (since no one has used this sort of technology before in games, just the demoscene AFAIK) it took a long time to figure out. I think Shawn's going to do a presentation about it later this year, and he's working on a new graphics library that builds on those ideas :)
Also, the UI in general took a lot of technical work: there is no latency, meaning you can navigate the menus with your eyes closed and they will always work, because your input is never delayed or ignored -- we think that little touches like this are so important for the experience of interactive software, even if no one notices them conciously, they still feel them and are happier when things are responsive.
The online level sharing was also a bit of a nightmare to be honest.. it took 8-9 months but was initially estimated at 1-2!!
Shawn really put everything he had into programming N++ (just like we did with the design), and we think that it really shows. He's @sssmcgrath on twitter if you want to follow him :)
@raiganburns & @maresheppard Were there any levels that you had to flat-out toss in the garbage because of difficulty or is it pretty easy to adjust using level design?
@corleyh we definitely throw out a lot of levels -- or, more accurately, we throw them back into the "in progress" pool (currently at about 10k levels) and maybe later will revisit them to try and fix them.
However, if it's just a matter of difficulty, we tend to solve this by rearranging things -- this is sort of like a jig-saw puzzle, if you move a level later in the game it can be harder without problems, but.. for every level you move backwards, you have to bring another one forwards, so it gets complicated ;)
I'll answer Russ's #5: "Any plans to bring N++ to other platforms?"
We don't have any plans yet, but we definitely want to bring N++ to as many platforms as we can; since we only have 3 people on the team (and only 1 programmer, who has to do most of the porting work), we have to be a bit strategic and only work on one platform at a time though.
So, it's a matter of how well N++ sells on PS4, as well as technical problems (we're still only 50/50 on whether or not we can get the vector rendering system to work on Vita, for instance -- currently N++ uses about 3x more graphics memory than Vita's total amount of memory!!; there is no way it will run on 3DS or WiiU unfortunately), as well as the platforms themselves: it's a lot easier now, but it's still not a fait accompli to be accepted for distribution.
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N+ was a great game with an often overlooked, killer co-op experience. Looking forward to the insane difficulty returning in the sequel.
@rewphus thank you! We've learned a lot since then, I think the co-op maps are even better this time -- we did cheat a bit, since the new enemies were designed with an eye towards co-op ;)
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