In N you are a Ninja with the taste for gold. To get gold you have to explore different rooms, many of them occupied by Ninja-killing robots. You want to develop your skills so that you can complete all 100 rooms and master reincarnation. The story is pretty flaky, but it’s an interesting one and if presented using images instead of a text it could have been great.

The Ninja character is nothing else than a couple of lines with a head. It’s simple yet the character has a personality. I don’t know how the developers managed to add a personality to a couple of lines but they did. It might be the physics that causes you to care for the character, and feel sorry for it.

You can tell that the developers put a lot of effort into the physics. The movement, especially the jumps feel cool, almost like they were in slow motion from a Jackie Chan movie.

Your Ninja can perform jumps and slides. To jump you press the shift button, the character can also slide down from ledges. Sure the movements are basic compared to most other similar games, to be honest it’s the only moves you need.

There are a lot of levels in the game (500 according to the developers), their concept are very similar to LodeRunner. You move around on different platforms collecting gold, you have to reach switches in order for doors to open. On some levels there are enemy robots trying to kill you, so avoid these too. The levels are simple yet highly entertaining. N also comes with the ability for users to create their own levels. So when you get fed up with the levels in the game you can download user created ones.

Graphically the game isn’t very advanced. Players who have desire for effects or whopping explosions might get disappointed. However the graphics are quite adequate for the game itself and they do wonders in their own simplicity.

The sounds are not exactly groundbreaking, but they do work. I wish that the game had a sound track; surely you can just launch WinAmp and listen to what you want. But sometimes it’s nice with genuine sound tracks since it bring the games to life.

The game has a number of neat features that I just have to mention. The player can choose to submit high scores online and compete with others around the world. Most computer users are able to run N since it’s developed in Flash. So this game can be run on Linux, MAC OS and Windows machines. Since the game starts fast and is simple to get into it’s easy to use on coffee breaks or whenever you want to kill of sometime.

N is great, it’s simple but very addictive. The game also has a number of features and it’s a great showcase for what Flash can do apart from creating annoying banners. The really nice part is that the game is free, who said that there is no such thing as a free lunch?