PluggedIn Review: N+

There are certain characters in fiction who always seem to tickle our collective imaginations. Patch-eyed pirates, rapier-flailing musketeers and high-flying superheroes are but a few. They all seem to embody a special blend of adventure and panache that keeps us coming back over and over for one more flight of fantasy.

Gamemakers understand this connection and use it to send us cartwheeling with Persian princes or blasting aliens with Master Sergeants in more and more realistic adventures. But sometimes even the simplest low-tech games can use creative personas to grab our attention.

In fact, that's how a little downloadable title gained lots of eager fans and was quickly translated into a handheld game that everyone cheered for in 2008. The game's title, N+, is shorthand for ninja. And its black, stick figure, central character-looking like a bit of Japanese kanji script brought to life-never says a word while he deftly uses all his acrobatic skills to climb and hurdle his way through one puzzling maze after another.