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[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

due to the way memory isn't exact but sort of impressionist..

Yeah, this is why with all of our "retro" games, we always aim to make them a bit better than the actual retro experience. A few purists may complain, but for the most part, if you want to tap into that 16-bit nostalgia feeling, you gotta make an "18-bit" game so to speak because most people remember things better than they actually were. Even Shovel Knight fudged a few things here and there and that's a game that tried to be more authentic than the vast majority of neo-retro games.

 

[mare]

I just wanted to say, thanks so much for listening to my horrible complaints and discussing stuff with me (again, this is Raigan talking), I feel a bit better. Sorry about being a bit ranty! :/

I realize that a large part of the blame rests with us: we were too idealistic. We made several decisions based purely on what we wanted to be the case -- what we thought *should* be the case -- without actually considering objective facts. (eg refusing to pay big twitch names to stream the game, which apparently is very common these days.. to us it feels a bit dirty, we would like people to stream it because they want to stream it, not because they want money)

This is sort of how we prefer to operate -- it's hard to be motivated to do your best if you're not doing what you believe in. We want to go our own way.. we were just hoping that we could convince a larger amount of people to come with us.

But, I'm hopeful that we can figure out a way to slowly build an audience. We definitely agree with those of you who have pointed out that the audience is there, we just need to figure out how to reach them.. this thread has made me a bit more optimistic about doing that.

Thanks everyone -- you rock

 

[mare]

Is this intended for analog stick or D-Pad controls? I played and liked N+ but it's been so long since I played it I don't remember which was better. I'm really not a fan of the PS4 D-Pad though so if this has digital controls I'd rather wait for a (hopeful) PC version.

It's a huge bummer how the launch went down, hopefully it can recover later with sales and ports or whatever. It's terrifying how small of a "press bubble" an small game without a marketing behemoth behind it has in 2015, seems like launching a game now is like playing russian roulette with 4 bullets.

We prefer the d-pad but a lot of N+ veterans swear by the stick -- both work though

 

[mare]

Yeah, this is why with all of our "retro" games, we always aim to make them a bit better than the actual retro experience. A few purists may complain, but for the most part, if you want to tap into that 16-bit nostalgia feeling, you gotta make an "18-bit" game so to speak because most people remember things better than they actually were. Even Shovel Knight fudged a few things here and there and that's a game that tried to be more authentic than the vast majority of neo-retro games.

Yeah, I wish we had realized that sooner! Not that I really know what we could have changed, but... alas.

 

[cyba89]

It's a bummer to see this game performed below expectations, but I can understand most points why this game might not be so easy to sell. I also thought twice about buying this when I saw the price point. I mean when you just look at the screenshots in the store this looks mostly like the game I played 7 years ago for half the price. And when you read there are over 2000 level, you maybe worry that this is just quantity over quality because it really sounds a bit overkill.
Turns out that these levels are indeed all really good designed and this game is totally worth the price, but you can't know that unless you played the game or read impressions from others.

But I think it's not too late yet. As long as the quality is there (and that's the case here) I believe that there is a chance for this game to find its audience. There are a lot of people who like hardcore 2D-platformers and there is not that much competition yet on the PS4 in that genre. It's "just" a matter of communication.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

If only there was some way for members of the mainstream gaming press to have seen that N++ was coming out soon and then available on PSN with their own eyes.

I did see KindaFunny play the game when it came out, at least. Those guys must just be with it. Good on them.

 

[dugdug]

If only there was some way for members of the mainstream gaming press to have seen that N++ was coming out soon and then available on PSN with their own eyes.

This is what drives me nuts about it. A lot of critics saw Raigan's post, and, are tweeting about somehow not being aware of the game. Sure, dude. You knew about all the other PSN Play games, but this one.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

This is what drives me nuts about it. A lot of critics saw Raigan's post, and, are tweeting about somehow not being aware of the game. Sure, dude. You knew about all the other PSN Play games, but this one.

That's what drew me to the post. Saw an RT on my timeline contextualizing it as them "admitting" to not contacting the press about it. They can "see" a random post among hundreds of thousands on GAF, but not "see" a game that's being actively promoted by Sony for the summer.

Good opportunity to point towards the importance of your job and the tastemaker power you have as a correspondent, I suppose.

 

[MrS]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh finally unlocked the Expert row! E-19 was an ordeal.

 

[hawk2025]

we don't know yet, we haven't had a stable PC build in 2 years.. mostly we're scared of angry people tanking our ratings. (as they did on metacritic due to no online)

Whoa, whoa, I hadn't realized that 3-4 reviews had been posted as 0's in Metacritic and that this is tanking the average.

I will make sure to post a review, and I encourage other people in this thread to add their honest assessments to Metacritic.

What little we can do to help, having already bought the game, we should IMO.

 

[bfrye26]

N++ is having a fantastic reception right now via Metacritic. It seems most people that do review it love it! I know our publication really enjoyed it and I myself find it a great way to spend the price of admission! I agree with the price point also, 20$ is very fair for the title as it is now!

 

[*Splinter]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh finally unlocked the Expert row! E-19 was an ordeal.

Yay congrats

 

[MrS]

Yay congrats

Thanks man. Celebratin' outchea. How tough are the expert levels you've been playing?

 

[*Splinter]

They start out really tough but don't seem to get any worse. If anything they might start to get slightly easier after the first few. You do get the occasional level that's crazy hard though.

X-15 I just did and it's a weirdly easy one

 

[gururoji]

Also, honestly there would be no way to break even at $10. This is mostly a function of how much time and money we sunk into development, because we wanted to make sure we could never make a better version of N.. and I think we largely succeeded! But sadly this was a pretty big constraint on the pricing since at $10 we would have to literally sell twice as much, which seemed quite risky. In hindsight, maybe that was a bad call.

Thanks for your reply! It makes sense that $10 would have been too little, I wouldn't expect that for this game in this day and age.

An honest question here...what portion of development time was in sheer number of levels? Like, if you could have developed everything else about the game to the standard of polish that you did, but included only half the levels, would it have lowered the feasible break-even-price to $15?

It truly saddens me the more I think about all of this that you guys might not recoup costs. I feel like in the digital content era the price of content has fallen too far. It's a weird thing to say as a consumer, as it would benefit me directly if all things were very cheap. But if the standard expectations of prices have fallen so low that it can't support development at the quality level that I desire, then that's problematic indeed. I'm a musician and feel like that problem has occurred in a different but similarly problematic way in my field. So much music is given away for next to nothing that it makes it hard to charge enough to recoup the costs of making it. But like with video games, there's also no "accounting for taste" either.

 

[gururoji]

But I think it's not too late yet. As long as the quality is there (and that's the case here) I believe that there is a chance for this game to find its audience. There are a lot of people who like hardcore 2D-platformers and there is not that much competition yet on the PS4 in that genre. It's "just" a matter of communication.

I really agree with this. Hang in there Metanet! Let's all push to make your game a success!

 

[overcast]

So wait, I know it has been asked multiple times but if I buy it now do I still get the add on content (when it comes out) free?

I read the first few pages and came out confused.

 

[mare]

An honest question here...what portion of development time was in sheer number of levels? Like, if you could have developed everything else about the game to the standard of polish that you did, but included only half the levels, would it have lowered the feasible break-even-price to $15?

This is a good idea, but unfortunately the limiting factor was programming -- we have a single programmer, Shawn, and while he is literally legendary (N++ has almost as many lines of code as the Witness, a game which has been in development for 1-2 more years with a team of ~4 programmers IIRC) even he has limits.

(We were working on levels up until the very end, actually all of the secret stuff was added in a huge push from March to June of this year, because it took us a long time to finally crystallize the ideas in a way that worked properly. But technically we could have shipped the levels sooner, they just wouldn't be nearly as good)

To be fair, we definitely could have cut features or corners, and we did to a certain extent, but Shawn has very high standards which meant that there was only so much we could cut.

For example. the way that there is no latency anywhere in the game or menus (i.e each frame you can press a button and the game will respond, it never ignores your input or blocks it while animating), the way there is no loading even if you scroll through hundreds of user levels, these things all seem simple and often go unnoticed, but they required a lot of up-front effort to design the systems for this sort of performance.

This took a tremendous engineering effort on Shawn's part. However, all of us felt very strongly that we wanted to make something that was the very best thing we could make, which lead to a huge engineering burden.

(and also, all of the animation in N++ is 100% procedural, i.e driven by code (well, except for the ninja's animations).. which means that Shawn wrote it all. ditto the graphics, it's all math. So, he was *very* busy)

We did actually end up cutting a lot of stuff, most of which (the good stuff anyway) will be added in future updates.

(We've actually made about 4000 levels at this point; however, making the levels is less than half of the effort required, after that there is a lot of polish, checking all-gold and secrets, rearranging/sequencing the episodes, etc. So again, we weren't able to get it all done in time, but we'll be finishing up all the remaining level work over the next year)

So, to wrap up this incredibly long-winded answer to your simple question, the levels were mostly done about a year ago, and then we just poured time into refining them (eg designing the all-gold routes and secret challenges, ordering them, etc) while Shawn finished programming. Not sure if that's a yes or no

 

[mare]

So wait, I know it has been asked multiple times but if I buy it now do I still get the add on content (when it comes out) free?

I read the first few pages and came out confused.

Yes, our plan is to just add to the game, so that if you already have it you'll just get all the new stuff for free

 

[hawk2025]

So wait, I know it has been asked multiple times but if I buy it now do I still get the add on content (when it comes out) free?

I read the first few pages and came out confused.

You'll get everything

Please buy it

 

[Bifford P. Worthington]

This is something that we're really frustrated with -- we just expected that, since (IMO) the game is pretty decent/significant/interesting, we would be reviewed by everyone. But it appears that these days, unless you know someone at the publication, they're not necessarily going to review your game! :/

Unfortunately, this is sort of a by-product of the rush we had at the end -- our plan was to finish the game, then spend a month contacting press. Sadly we were all-hands-on-deck trying to finish the game right up until launch (we cut the launch trailer literally the day before launch) which means we didn't have any time to contact press.

Possibly we were also a bit idealistic, we figured that everyone would be able to see that N++ was something special, a game with a very high level of craftpersonship put into it; we figured that with only 3 people, we would rather put all our energy into making the game exceptional and hope that this would make it stand out and attract attention, but sadly a lot of people seem to be dismissing it as "essentially N+".

(we are sadly competing in a market where some indie devs spend literally half of their budget on marketing; IMO this is a sick and sad degenerate strategy to pursue, but O guess that's just life under post-capitalism)

Anyway, the net result has been that the game isn't selling very well; if we're lucky then lifetime sales on PS4 will let us break even, but this is a stretch (it would require us to sell about 5x as much as we have thus far, not impossible but not easy either).

We would really appreciate it if anyone willing would write to Kotaku/Polygon/Edge/IGN/etc. to ask them to please review this damn game! It's a bit horrifying that we've spent so long making something that we think is quite special, only to have it fall on mostly deaf ears

(don't get me wrong -- we're really happy that our fans like it, it has been wonderful watching streams, but we know for a fact that there are literally hundreds of thousands of N+ fans out there, and so far our sales results indicate that almost none of them know that N++ exists!)

Sorry if this reply is a bit negative, it has been a difficult couple of weeks; thank you so much to everyone for caring enough about our game to discuss it like this, it's really awesome

p.s - for the record, this is Raigan rather than Mare; I haven't been able to get an approved NeoGAF account so I'm sharing Mare's

Did you consider releasing the stick man game that could run on any hardware made in the past ten or fifteen years on systems other than the PS4?

 

[hawk2025]

Did you consider releasing the stick man game that could run on any hardware made in the past ten or fifteen years on systems other than the PS4?

Did you consider not running your mouth on things you don't understand?

 

[mare]

Did you consider releasing the stick man game that could run on any hardware made in the past ten or fifteen years on systems other than the PS4?

This is sadly something we hear quite a bit; unfortunately, it's not obvious, but "simple" and "easy" are actually often two different things.

In the case of N++ the presentation makes everything seem simple, but it actually took quite a bit of effort (on our part, as well as the hardware when it's running) to achieve this result! It's using about 1GB of video memory, for example.. we hope to optimize it somewhat but fundamentally it's a modern game that requires modern hardware, because we designed it that way, to use all available resources on PS4.

But also, we chose PS4 for several reasons other than technical, primarily business (Pub Fund meant we could spend more money than we otherwise could afford to, to make the game better) as well as logistical (with only 1 programmer, a single fixed platform was a lot easier to target; PCs require a huge amount of testing in comparison, and it's often easier to develop for a single fixed hardware target and then port later once the game is done).

Finally, Nick Suttner from Sony was a big fan of N+ and really wanted to work with us; if another platform had approached us we might have gone there instead, but Sony were the only ones that asked!

I'm sorry that you're angry that you can't play N++ yet, I would be too -- we hope to bring it to more platforms in the future.

 

[MidianGTX]

I'm enjoying the hell out of the game on PS4, but I do wonder if things might have turned out a little differently had the game been released on Steam. At the very least, it seems like PC gamers are more accustomed to picking up "odd-looking" and minimalistic indie titles than your average PlayStation owner who probably bought his/her console for the blockbuster titles. Plus, new Steam games simply appear to be more visible than games on console marketplaces; even the crappy ones get some time on the front page. Then your product page is backed up by user reviews and an auto-playing video, whereas on PSN you get... a blurb? If memory serves, even that requires clicking on before you can read the whole thing. With Steam there's a direct link to a community which will quickly and efficiently answer any questions a potential buyer might have and if your game is being sold through other outlets too, they can lower the price at their own discretion without taking money away from Metanet.

On top of all that, it seems like the big names covering indie games on YouTube tend to favour PC titles. The right positive remark from them is as good as a handful of 10/10 reviews from multinational media corporations these days.

Oh, and I'd be able to gift the game to my friends!

 

[hawk2025]

I'm enjoying the hell out of the game on PS4, but I do wonder if things might have turned out a little differently had the game been released on Steam. At the very least, it seems like PC gamers are more accustomed to picking up "odd-looking" and minimalistic indie titles than your average PlayStation owner who probably bought his/her console for the blockbuster titles. Plus, new Steam games simply appear to be more visible than games on console marketplaces; even the crappy ones get some time on the front page. Then your product page is backed up by user reviews and an auto-playing video, whereas on PSN you get... a blurb? With Steam there's a direct link to a community which will quickly and efficiently answer any questions a potential buyer might have and if your game is being sold through other outlets too, they can lower the price at their own discretion without taking money away from Metanet.

On top of all that, it seems like the big names covering indie games on YouTube tend to favour PC titles. The right positive remark from them is as good as a handful of 10/10 reviews from multinational media corporations these days.

First, I don't think that's true anymore for the PS4. Many indie games have been very successful in the platform.

Second, signing up for the PLAY promotion got N++ tons of exposure on the store. It was at the top of the splash page for the full period leading up to its release, it had multiple videos and blog posts featuring it, and more.

You may be right that perhaps the exposure would have been larger on Steam due to the larger userbase. But it also faces larger competition, no extra funds (Pub Fund), and no additional marketing that releasing on the PS4 gave them.

I personally think it's a wash, maybe with a slight edge towards going PS4, especially for such a small team. I do heavily encourage them to release a Steam version eventually, though. I think they will find great success there.



...but c'mon Sony, implement gifting already. I have three people I wanted to gift the game to and I had to buy them $20 PSN Cards...

 

[ghelter]

I just wanted to say great work on the game, I've been playing all day on my friends PS4 and can't put it down. I'll definitely be grabbing it the day it goes up on Steam!

 

[*Splinter]

For example. the way that there is no latency anywhere in the game or menus (i.e each frame you can press a button and the game will respond, it never ignores your input or blocks it while animating),

This might seem like a minor point but it's SO FREAKING ANNOYING when it's ignored in a game that needs quick retries - and that happens way too often. Futuridium is a recent example, I enjoyed it a lot but basically every mistake needs a restart, which was 6 or 7 button presses through the worlds laggiest pause menu.

 

[archagon]

Hey, just wanted to chime in as a long-time N fan. I've been eagerly awaiting the chance to play a next-gen version of N ever since first hearing about N+. Back in the day, I fell in love with the original (via the pirated Flash version — sorry guys!). I beat practically all the levels and even made one myself. I had a ton of fun exploring the community maps and DDA Rube Goldberg machines. I never owned any consoles, but I knew that eventually, after any possible exclusivity agreements wore off, N+ would surely return to its forever home on the PC and I would be able to play it in its smooth, beautiful glory. I mean, it had to happen! Right?

Years went by and I lost hope, returning to the original every so often to polish off the few remaining levels.

When I first heard about N++, I got as excited as I had back in the day. I followed your blog immediately. I loved reading your occasional updates; looking at the beautiful artwork and wondering how the game would play; finally watching the gameplay footage and having all my fears assuaged. But given today's market — indie being so big on the PC, weird games constantly getting buzz, and so many stories of unsuccessful XBLA devs suddenly finding tons of sales on Steam — I kind of assumed from the start that it was coming to PC, especially given all the talk about this being the ultimate, final version. So I was very surprised and saddened when I read your comment that a PC port would only be considered if sales on PS3 were good. I guess it's back to waiting for me.

I really think there's a large market for N++ on Steam. I would drop $20 on the game in an instant, and I think many other people would too. There's been a dearth of skill-based platformers lately, and minimalist graphics are kind of in. Plus, it's so easy to try and play weird little games on PC for short periods of time. When you sit down in front of a console, it's a commitment; whereas I love playing games like N and SMB in short bursts, or in a meditative sort of state while doing something else. (Also works well with bullet-hell shooters.)

I'm sorry to hear about your poor sales, but I hope you reconsider your decision to port to PC! I'm happy to spend a few more years crossing my fingers.

 

[MrMette]

First, I don't think that's true anymore for the PS4. Many indie games have been very successful in the platform.

Second, signing up for the PLAY promotion got N++ tons of exposure on the store. It was at the top of the splash page for the full period leading up to its release, it had multiple videos and blog posts featuring it, and more.

You may be right that perhaps the exposure would have been larger on Steam due to the larger userbase. But it also faces larger competition, no extra funds (Pub Fund), and no additional marketing that releasing on the PS4 gave them.

I personally think it's a wash, maybe with a slight edge towards going PS4, especially for such a small team. I do heavily encourage them to release a Steam version eventually, though. I think they will find great success there.



...but c'mon Sony, implement gifting already. I have three people I wanted to gift the game to and I had to buy them $20 PSN Cards...

The whole PLAY promotion wasn't even there in Europe unfortunately as far as I am aware (and I follow the Playstation blog quite a bit).
I remember 1 or 2 pieces about N++ on the Playstation EU blog and that's it.

Also, I tried to search N++ on the Playstation store on my PS4 itself and it wasn't even showing when searching for the letter N. I had to scroll all the way down.

I bought it weeks ago on the website, but even there. When searching for N++ on a lot of websites (eg. metacritic) you get weird results as they omit the ++ in the search fields.

An other unfortunate thing is that a lot of people (especially on consoles) the last few years are beginning to "despise" (I am not sure if this is too strong of a word, I am not a native English speaker) indie titles in general because they get bombarded with them on PS+ (which is not a bad thing in my opinion) and they want shiny AAA titles and in their mind "you could have played these types of games on the NES".

I don't agree with this at all and I love N++, but unfortunately I think this is the world we are in right now.

I also think it would have done better on N++ (although I am very happy it is on PS4 as I tend to not play that many games on PC).

I have played N since the flash game as well and I have played N+, so I knew I loved the gameplay, but was originally waiting for a pricedrop as well.

Not because I think N++ isn't worth it, but because we are so accustomed by price drops or free PS+ games (especially indie titles) that a lot of people tend to wait.
Steam sales and PS+/PSN/Xbox Live sales have changed that a lot.

I made the decision to buy the game after reading it would become more expensive and you get the updates for free if you buy right now (I have it for some weeks now), but I think that fact went over a lot of peoples heads.

I really wish the best for the team as I find it heartbreaking that the game does not do as well as they hoped for. Hopefully a demo will indeed help out as I think playing it (hopefully people want to try it) helps a lot in making you addicted to the gameplay.

 

[SparkTR]

Thank you

We're definitely going to make a demo, I really wish we had been able to have one at launch, but it was impossible -- as it was we barely got the game done.

We will hopefully be on PC at some point. My main concern is that so many people dismiss the graphics as simple, when in fact they require a fairly modern GPU.. which I'm guessing is going to make a lot of PC gamers really angry.

(We're looking into making a lower-quality renderer for Vita/PC, however this is no small task and given the weak sales it's sort of hard to justify spending several more months of Shawn's time, but I'm hopeful we can figure out a clever solution)

Didn't you guys already have an established audience on PC with the flash game? I remember N being pretty popular back in the day anecdotally (at my school) but also online. I'm assuming people will recognize the name and give it a fair go on Steam because of that.

 

[Supernorn]

Press is incredibly important, and is never something you should leave to the last minute or just pass on entirely.

Even if you do contact press, there's a chance that you still won't get the coverage you need. It can be a cruel mistress sometimes.

 

[Talka]

I'm sorry, but I simply cannot get over how annoyed I am by the music is in this game.

For starters, I am not a techno guy. And since the entire soundtrack is techno... that's not great for me, personally. However, even if I liked techno, I certainly wouldn't have chosen it for a game where players are often attempting the same 30-second level 300+ times, getting more and more frustrated by each death. Yeah, let's lay some repetitive, grinding, atonal music over that.

But worst of all? Many of the songs sound exactly like sound effects from the game, oftentimes confusing the gameplay and directly causing misjumps and deaths! For me, it's the single most baffling design decision I've witnessed over the past few years.

Here's the most egregious example. Does this not sound exactly like a countdown timer to anyone else?

https://soundcloud.com/origamisound/volor-flex-outlaw#t=1:40

Whyyyyyy? I know I can change the songs as they come up, but the bad design decision kills me every time this song comes on.

 

[*Splinter]

But... there is no countdown timer sound in this game?

I've seen this complaint before in this thread and I honestly don't get it. There aren't that many enemies in the game and they all make loud, distinct sounds, and nothing in any of the tracks sounds like any of them... So I can't understand this complaint unless people literally aren't watching the screen as they play.

Also I think you can mute the music in options if you don't like it? I'm not generally a fan of techno but think it fits this game perfectly. If I really didn't want it I'd mute it and play my own music, I guess

 

[wanderjahr]

Did you consider not running your mouth on things you don't understand?

Seems like he has a fair and honest question if not an obvious one.

 

[Lé Blade Runner]

But... there is no countdown timer sound in this game?

I've seen this complaint before in this thread and I honestly don't get it. There aren't that many enemies in the game and they all make loud, distinct sounds, and nothing in any of the tracks sounds like any of them... So I can't understand this complaint unless people literally aren't watching the screen as they play.

Also I think you can mute the music in options if you don't like it? I'm not generally a fan of techno but think it fits this game perfectly. If I really didn't want it I'd mute it and play my own music, I guess

I don't get it either. It is completely visual with its cues - taking into consideration that you can see the whole level at once.

The soundtrack, though, is amazing as far as I am concerned.

It's literally a perfect game, by the way. For what it is, it couldn't be better. Let's hope it picks up in sales, as it really deserves to succeed.

 

[samn]

So you released
N on PC
N+ on 360, PSP and DS
N++ on PS4

Each time you are starting from scratch, bringing very little of the old fanbase with you.

 

[MrMette]

I'm sorry, but I simply cannot get over how annoyed I am by the music is in this game.

For starters, I am not a techno guy. And since the entire soundtrack is techno... that's not great for me, personally. However, even if I liked techno, I certainly wouldn't have chosen it for a game where players are often attempting the same 30-second level 300+ times, getting more and more frustrated by each death. Yeah, let's lay some repetitive, grinding, atonal music over that.

But worst of all? Many of the songs sound exactly like sound effects from the game, oftentimes confusing the gameplay and directly causing misjumps and deaths! For me, it's the single most baffling design decision I've witnessed over the past few years.

Here's the most egregious example. Does this not sound exactly like a countdown timer to anyone else?

https://soundcloud.com/origamisound/volor-flex-outlaw#t=1:40

Whyyyyyy? I know I can change the songs as they come up, but the bad design decision kills me every time this song comes on.

I am not a techno guy either. I do like some electronica/IDM however (and I do like glitchy percussion). I am quite open in the styles of music I like, but I mainly listen to metal. I do think the soundtrack is perfect for this game (although I am not the biggest fan of the 4/4 beat stuff in there, It does work sometimes for the game as most of the soundtrack puts me in some sort of trance when I keep trying to beat a level). I even went to check out some of the artist on their bandcamp/soundcloud pages.

I never had any problems with confusing sounds (I have played it with a 5.1 speaker set and with headphones). I think you hear the enemies perfectly fine. Also you can go to the options menu and set the music lower or completely off (and you can disable tracks you really don't like).

I understand the music is not for everybody (although I do listen to a LOT of styles, there are some where I can not stand most of the tracks), but I don't think it is possible to create a soundtrack which everybody loves either.
I guess it is personal taste.

 

[MrMette]

Seems like he has a fair and honest question if not an obvious one.

Because of this:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/05/14/n-on-ps4-graphics/
It is quite taxing on the hardware.

The part starting from "Potentially boring probably inaccurate technical aside" and the part after that explain what they are doing and why it is taxing on the hardware.

 

[Crab Milk Mickey]

Shame that N++ is selling below expectations. I don't have much to add to the discussion other than prioritizing a Steam version if/when the funds are there for a port; bloated as that marketplace may be as of late, it still has the largest userbase by far out of all digital distribution services and as mentioned by others, there's generally more acceptance for hardcore / minimalistic platformers than elsewhere. It's also bound to be more lucrative in terms of (long-term) income than a Vita version - even if N++ would perfectly fit on a handheld - but I admittedly have no idea whether one hypothetical version would require far less coding effort to get running on its respective platform than the other. Maybe Early Access could also be used to help offset aforementioned concerns regarding potential performance issues, but the pros and cons behind such an initiative are an entirely different discussion.

But worst of all? Many of the songs sound exactly like sound effects from the game, oftentimes confusing the gameplay and directly causing misjumps and deaths! For me, it's the single most baffling design decision I've witnessed over the past few years.

As a sound-reliant person myself for timing et al, I haven't struggled in the slightest with any audio overlap. Not that me saying that particularly helps you out.

 

[TunaMarshmallow]

I loved N+ so much. Man. I wish this was on Vita, as I'd buy it yesterday. Heh.

I'm planning on getting PS4 next time there's a price drop, and I'll be getting N++ as soon as I grab the console.

 

[TM94]

Absolutely gutted the game isn't selling well.

N++ is a perfect evolution of the series, it excels at everything it attempts to do.

The thing that's impressed me the most about it is how everything has came together so effortlessly, the electronic music, the snappy menus, incredible level design and to the vibrant color scheme.

This will be a game I'll always dip back into.

Thanks to the devs for their tireless work over the years to make this game in my eyes at least, perfect.

I hope sales pick up soon, you deserve it.

 

[thelatestmodel]

So you released
N on PC
N+ on 360, PSP and DS
N++ on PS4

Each time you are starting from scratch, bringing very little of the old fanbase with you.

This is a really good point. I would call myself a fan of the first two but can't play the new one.

 

[WGMBY]

Absolutely gutted the game isn't selling well.

I see a lot of people on various forums saying "$20 is too much for a sequel to a browser game". But this game has a crazy amount of content. I played co-op with a friend for hours and we didn't even complete the intro set of levels. $20 might be a bit steep for a downloadable title, but I feel like I definitely got my money's worth.

 

[RoadHazard]

Sorry to hear that the sales have been disappointing. I hope they pick up (maybe once you get that demo out), as I really do think you have pretty much created a flawless product here (except for the save data corruption issue - that needs to be fixed unless it already has been and I missed it). Sure, it lacks online play, but for what the game actually is it's just about perfect in every way. It's extremely rare to see a game this polished, and on top of that it's just shock-full of content.

But I suppose I can also see why $20 might seem a bit high for people who don't already "get it". I mean, stick figures jumping around small, mostly static 2D levels in what looks like a Flash game? That's obviously an extremely shallow description of the game, but it might be what it looks like at first glance to people who don't know about N.

Hopefully it can be turned around, you guys deserve it!

 

[mare]

So you released
N on PC
N+ on 360, PSP and DS
N++ on PS4

Each time you are starting from scratch, bringing very little of the old fanbase with you.

I'm going to try to explain our thinking, because this (and, related, "why not launch on Steam?") comes up a *lot*. I'll try to be thorough so that hopefully you can understand, and there will be a permanent record we can point people to when this inevitably comes up again (we've written at length about this several times on our blog already, eg: http://www.metanetsoftware.com/blog/2013/the-road-to-n, it's a common complaint).

While we are constantly thinking of the fans when designing each game -- our primary goal was "anyone who liked N/N+ should *love* N++" -- your point assumes that we could freely choose which platform to develop for. Sadly, this isn't really accurate.

We have been aware each time that by changing platforms we were moving away from our fan base, but we have been constrained so that we really had no choice about what hardware to release the game on.

For one thing, as with N++, the initial spark which started the project wasn't from us, but from the platform itself -- Ross Erickson at XBLA was a fan of N and asked us if we would be interested in making a version for the 360. Without this there would never have been an N+ at all!

Additionally, we *wanted* to move into new territory and try to show AAA console gamers what indie games were about; at the time it was a new thing and we wanted to try and get people to realize that games are a vast spectrum and not just photorealistic FPS, RTS, RPG.

Finally, we had zero money when we made N+ (actually, negative money/debt; we were poor students who had released a free game), so we had to borrow the entirety of the budget (about $150-200k IIRC) from the Canadian government; they wanted some sort of guarantee that their money would be used on a project that had commercial potential so that we could repay them, and frankly XBLA was pretty much the only place where we could conceivably make money at that point in time.

Back in 2006-2007 Steam was not as big a market as it is now, and more importantly it was utterly out of reach to a team with zero industry connections and no way to get a precious slot in their system. There was no way the government would sign off on a loan if we told them "well, maybe if we get lucky we'll be able to release the game on Steam"; the Letter of Intent from Microsoft was what secured the loan.

The handheld versions happened because we ran out of money mid-way through making N+ XBLA (it took about 6 months longer than we had planned) so we needed some way to raise additional money; the only thing we could think of was to license the handheld rights to Atari (for, IIRC, $50k). Unfortunately the developer didn't listen to our feedback, and as a result the handheld versions don't feel right -- and also, we ended up having to make all the levels, essentially for free, because the levels they were making were terrible and we didn't want fans to be disappointed.. anyway, that's a different story for another time.

The point is, we were aware at the time that we had fans on PC, but XBLA was the only place we could release the game, in fact the very existence of N+ is predicated on XBLA; we didn't have a free choice of platform as you seem to think.

In the case of N++, a very similar situation occurred. The project got started when Nick Suttner from Sony, a fan of N+, contacted us to ask if we'd be interested in making a version of N for Playstation.

Now, at this point we had a bit of money from N+, so that conceivably we could have made the game for Steam, but frankly we didn't know anyone at Steam (our last contact left the company a couple years ago) and the prospect of having to jump through all the hoops of greenlight didn't exactly fill us with glee.

Furthermore, Nick suggested that we could apply for the Pub Fund program, which is a guarantee on sales -- this means that regardless of how the game sells, Sony will pay us $X.

At this point (early planning of the project), we knew that we wanted N++ to be the very final and "as perfect as possible" version of the game. This meant that we would have to spend a lot more money making it, because we refused to compromise -- with N+ we had very little time and money, and while it was the best thing we could do given our circumstances, we knew we could do a lot better if we had a real budget to work with.

So, again, N++ was predicated on the platform (Pub Fund), which let us swing for the fences -- working with graphic design heroes of ours, licensing a lot of (to us, anyway) terrific electronic music spanning all the years from the original N (2004) to 2015, and most importantly letting us work for as long as necessary to make the game exactly what we wanted. This "it's done when it's done" sort of development is incredibly expensive; even with just 3 people, 30 months of food+rent+etc. adds up. Not to mention the sound design, the database programming, etc..

We realized from the start that N++ would be quite expensive, and we didn't have enough money on our own to make what we wanted, but Pub Fund let us overextend ourselves without risk of bankruptcy because we knew we would eventually be paid some amount. (in the end we spent about 1.5x what we got from Pub Fund, which was probably a bit irresponsible, but we really wanted to just go for it and push ourselves to see what we were capable of, damn the cost)

Additionally, marketing is the hardest thing for indies these days, and we knew that if we went with Sony, they would help to promote our game -- they gave us an awesome booth at E3, they included N++ in their PLAY promotion, etc.. these days it's easy to release a game on Steam, but with literally thousands of games released on Steam annually, it's very hard to get any attention and you can easily fall off the new releases and into obscurity with no fanfare.

Again: we realized that we would be moving away from our fan base was not ideal, but what we cared about primarily was the quality of the final product -- we wanted to make something that our fans would adore, wherever they were. We literally could not have made N++ without Sony, they really helped us a lot; it can be very hard to stay motivated when working on a game, it's incredibly stressful and difficult work, and having people from Sony who believed in us and supported us was tremendously motivating and helped a lot.

In comparison, with Steam you are always aware that you're a completely insignificant number somewhere; it's very hard to even get a human reply to emails, etc.. they have only a handful of staff working with literally thousands of developers. Whereas we were one of only a handful of games that Nick was working on, so that we always had a real human to talk to when we needed help.

Anyway, I hope that this helps to contextualize our decision; I realize that this isn't going to help ease the annoyance of not being able to play N++ if you don't have a PS4, but we honestly would never have made it were it not for Sony.

We definitely want to port the game to as many platforms as possible, we just don't know when that's happening (certainly not anytime this year, there's still too much work to be done finishing N++ on PS4). So, please remain patient

 

[TM94]

I see a lot of people on various forums saying "$20 is too much for a sequel to a browser game". But this game has a crazy amount of content. I played co-op with a friend for hours and we didn't even complete the intro set of levels. $20 might be a bit steep for a downloadable title, but I feel like I definitely got my money's worth.

Exactly, there's so many levels to complete then you've got the level editor on top.

 

[mare]

I hope sales pick up soon, you deserve it.

Thank you!

I think that we will be okay as long as we keep making updates and eventually port the game; it makes us *incredibly* happy that so many people in this thread do appreciate N++, it makes our hard work worth it and helps to balance out the negativity we get from a lot of other places.

 

[mattp]

Firstly I'd just like to say that I've enjoyed my time with N++ a great deal and don't regret buying it at all. I was a fan of N+ on 360 and this has been even better.

However, and I hope you take this in the right spirit, I think you've made a mistake with the pricing/amount of content. N+ sold very well on 360 but it was significantly cheaper (800 MS points) and it also had a demo (I think the lack of demos for digital download games has really hurt them this gen along with PS+ and the 'I'll wait til it's free on PS+' attitude but that's for another discussion).

N+ is a game that you really need to play to understand if you have no experience of the series. You need to be able to feel how finely tuned the physics and sense of control are to make sense of it. Screenshots do it no justice. N+ offered that chance while N++ doesn't so far.

The thing is, whilst you may be correct in saying that when you divide the price of N++ by the number of levels then it works out cheaper per level than N+, I don't think that's how consumers think. They just see the headline price and ask whether they think that is worth it or not. Unpalatable as it may be for people who appreciate these kind of games, I suspect the price for N++ will be considered too high by many whereas N+ was priced at the sweet spot. If you'd released fewer levels for a lower price, I reckon you might have fared better, because ultimately over 2000 levels is more than most players will ever dream of seeing bar the most hardcore.

I really wish you the best in recouping the money you invested in the project though. I do think you deserve more success, I'm just not sure the market is there on consoles for 20 dollar indie platformers like this, no matter how much content there is.

i dont necessarily agree that 20 dollars is too much, but i realize i'm in the relative minority when it comes to pricing. most people see "2d indie downloadable game" and scoff when its anything beyond 10 bucks

but, with that said, your post did make me think. maybe a game like n++ would benefit from cutting the level count in half, selling the game for 10-15 bucks, and having the other half of the levels be a DLC pack?

edit: also i'd like to point out that i fucking LOVE the game. so i hope the sales have a long tail and you guys make your money that you deserve

 

[Draft]

This thread is a fascinating oral history / post mortem on game development. Lovely stuff. Hope the game continues to sell!

 

[SerTapTap]

I can't fault the price point personally--it's been a fairly popular one for many "big" indie things lately and Axiom Verge and others seem to have done quite well on it. Perhaps this game would have done better or perhaps not, but I think it's' worth it to try and push up the accepted value of a high quality indie game.

Personally I think it mostly needed more coverage and possibly to be more upfront about being a major upgrade from N+ and why the online mutli wasn't in (or go back in time and remove it from 360 so people didn't pitch a fit lol). I've seen very few people fail to appreciate how the level editor is more important if it was a this or that decision, but many many people just seem to have been like "NO ONLINE NO BUY LAZY DEVZ"