Raigan

heh... we're friends with Team Meat, and we felt like they definitely leapfrogged N+ with Super Meat Boy -- they raised the bar. We just wanted to return the favour ;)

The main reason is functional: N++ is all about precision, the movement is very fluid and often fractions of a pixel matter. With pixel-based graphics, the smallest unit of movement is an entire pixel; with vectors we can do smooth sub-pixel movement, which not only makes the game feel better, but it makes it easier to pull off the crazy close calls that are so thrilling.

The other main reason was that we were really inspired by the early 2000s vector graphics design of studios like The Designers Republic and Neubau -- we love graphic design in print, and we wanted to emulate that look as much as possible on a display.

We started programming with Flash, which had a gorgeous built-in vector renderer. (Sadly most people still used bitmapped sprites because they run much faster) We really think that it's important for gaem developers to explore unique and novel technology as much as possible in order to push things in new interesting directions, and since we wanted N++ to be the ultimate (and final) version of N, we knew we needed a bespoke vector renderer.

(Sadly this was a hard job -- you can't really get a 72dpi screen to do what 600+ dpi print can do -- but we managed to pull it off as much as possible)

Possibly the fabled land where the mythical "third" dimension exists... ;)

(Probably the ninja would just prefer more levels though)

OMG!!! Who is this?!?! (for everyone else, JohnnyKeys was a uni project we worked on with a few other students in... 2000? 2001? It was basically a mockup of "what if keyboards had dynamic programmable displays on their keys")

Anyway.. hi! :)

I don't know -- we've only played Dustforce a bit! We definitely love the style of the game, but I think it's a bit apples and oranges: N++ is very much a single-screen arcade-inspired action game, while Dustforce is (IMO) sort of about chains/combos and perfecting that line through the level.

(There are perfect lines in N++ levels too, but in general we try to make levels "loose", like arenas for play, rather than only having a single best path)