Does anyone remember good ‘ol Lode Runner? If not, then the basic premise of the game involved controlling your character to collect piles of gold scattered around each level, all while being chased by zealot-like robots (or “Mad Monks”). Back in the 80’s and parts of the 90’s, I remember Lode Runner as being a fun and challenging little game. Not only was it a nice puzzle-platformer, it required skills to outwit those robots that would stop at nothing to prevent you from getting all the gold. (I loved it when you could use your device to make holes in the floor, where the bad guys would fall in and ultimately get crushed . . . 
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N in action. When not under siege by Mines, Laser Drones, & Homing Turrets.
Fast-forward to the present-day 21st century, and replace the main character with a ninja with uber-jumping skills. Also replace the manical robots with mines, thwumps, floorchasers, and several varieties of evil (and very unforgiving!) drones and turrets, and you’ve got N, a neat (and also really hard!) game from the creators at Metanet Software. In N, using your super-cool ninja jumping skills and wall-climbing ninjutsu, you must avoid all the numerous traps and collect all the gold in each level. Repeat that over 100 times in ever-increasing difficulty levels, and you’ve got yourself a pretty fun and addictive game.
A user-made N level . . . or artistic masterpiece?
So if you’re ever bored, why don’t you give N a try? It’s available for free on PC, Mac, Linux, and there’s even a web version you can play around with during those 5 (or 50!)-minute coffee breaks you have at work. Not only that, just like Eets, there’s a really active N community where you can download and try out (literally!) bazillions of user-made n levels (although . . . they do have a rather interesting way of downloading & adding custom levels to the game . . . 
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Anyways, why don’t you give N a try? The manical robots beckon you to do so . . .
I absolutely adore N so much. It swallowed my life years ago and I’ve been unable to escape it since. The gameplay is absolutely brilliant, balancing speed, safety and attaining gold.
However, I do agree that they should really do something about the method of playing user levels. After years of playing N, I was extremely surprised when I started playing Eets and found how easy it was to play on user-made levels. (Although the N system isn’t completely without its advantages, as levels can be put in particular genres and the list of user levels can even be reduced to a certain selection for the sake of the insane level-packs out there).
Comment by Wulfo — July 24, 2006 @ 11:31 pm | Edit This
I love how, when you start N, it shows replays of spectacular N deaths. Some of those replays are just amazing.
It’s a HARD game!
Comment by BigFoot — July 25, 2006 @ 11:23 am | Edit This
Yup, N is fun.
Could never get very far myself though…
Comment by gnat — July 26, 2006 @ 9:06 pm | Edit This
Addictive like heroin. Not sure how I ever stopped playing, but I don’t really play it much anymore.
It takes a long time to get good enough to get far in the game, and even then you’ll play though 10-4 about sixty times before you finally beat it.
Comment by lavkian — August 1, 2006 @ 11:16 pm | Edit This
please can you send me this ninja game?
Comment by simon wolde-michael — March 8, 2007 @ 3:51 am | Edit This