If you are a fan of the Xbox 360, or keep a fairly good awareness of indie titles being released for any platform, you'll know that a game called N+ was released on Xbox Live Arcade recently. If you've played it, you know it's one of the better titles on XBLA. N is the daddy of N+, creating the style, gameplay, and feel that N+ perfects.

N is a game that oozes style. From the very start, you are greeted by a simple menu with only a few options. The text is all pixelated, looking like something out of a computer from the 70s. In the background, you can observe a random replay of a level being played. Sometimes they are bad, sometimes they show you a lot about how a level is played. In total, it gives off a very minimalist and post-modern vibe. This sort of philosophy extends to the rest of the game as well.

The controls are extremely simple. Hold left and right to travel horizontally, and press shift to jump. The longer you hold shift, the higher your character jumps. The controls may feel sluggish and slow at first, but with time you get used to them, and eventually they will become second nature to you. The biggest thing you will notice is that after you become used to the controls, complex maneuvers and dodging will become second nature. This is the beauty of the control scheme.

The gameplay itself is equally as simple. Each level is comprised of a start and a finish. It is your goal to finish each level as quickly as possible, and in order to put the pressure on, the levels are timed. If you run out of time, your character will automatically die, and you must try the level over again. In order to alleviate this constraint, you can gather little yellow squares to extend your time. This is explained as you, being a ninja, require the gold to extend your amazingly short lifespan.

As far as goals, that is it. However, there are lots of obstacles that stand in your way each level. Turrets, drones, mines, and seeker bots are just a few of the things that block your path. And even then, that's not counting the perpetual threats of falling to your death or running out of time. So prepare to die a lot. The beauty, though, is as each level only take around 1-2 minutes to play at most, and your only penalty for dying is to start from the beginning of the level, there is no frustration over lost progress. This allows players to experiment with different solutions to each level, as each level is very much like a platforming puzzle to be worked out through trial and error.

The graphics and sounds match the gameplay style very effectively. The sounds are very simple, mostly consisting of a variety of thunks, thuds, and booms. There is no music whatsoever, lending even more credit to the minimalist theme. The graphics are much the same way, things consisting mostly of straight lines and simple colors, making everything easily distinguishable. The only real vice the developers took with graphics is by giving your character ragdoll physics, making each death highly entertaining. You even gib apart!

For those into the content scene, the game comes with a level editor, allowing you to make and upload your own levels to a server to share with the world. They can be played by anyone, and the best-rated levels get played quite a lot. You can check the user levels by going to (surprise!) user levels in the main menu. It's definitely worth a look if you are tired of the normal levels.

That's about all one can say about N. It's an extremely simple platformer with post-modern ambitions that it fulfills expertly. It's a small download and runs off of a single executable, which makes it extremely easy to organize. It's a great little time-waster for when you feel like some thoughtful platforming instead of running-and-gunning. But in the end, it just is. And like Cave Story, must be played to realize its true beauty.

You can get N in two places, and there are executables for all three major operating systems. The first place is the official download site. The second is, as always, here on Big Download for your convenience! So whether you want it on Windows, Mac, or Linux, you can find it here as well! Happy gold hunting, and may the bots be behind you.