This week we take a look at one of our favourite new N++ enemies, the evil ninja.

https://vimeo.com/metanetsoftware/evilninja

Fans have told us that they’ve seen this effect before in Shadow Mario and one of the Rayman games, but we got the idea from Cursor X 10, a really cool flash game we saw way back in 2008 ;) In any case, it’s a chilling addition to the N series that fits so well, it feels like it could have been there from the start. We love the way this vignette captures the creeping realization that they just won’t stop coming.

So without further ado, let’s see what Richard has to say about the video!

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In a word, glitches. From the aesthetic of the entity in game, the delightful mistakes the player finds themselves in as a result of their own actions, to the masterful track by Grischa Lichtenberger, the Evil Ninja spotlight is all about the beauty and destruction of glitches.

The Evil Ninja has a profound effect on game play over the course of a play session. By mimicking the ninja’s every move, the player become responsible for the state of the level and how it evolves over time. Perhaps that perfectly executed jump in the first moments of a run will turn out to be your undoing? This dynamic change of the levels was important to capture, so in this vignette I often show the progression of a space with several cuts of the same footage - it’s easy to see how things can get out of hand quite quickly.



While other spotlights used vector-like mograph for transitions, I stuck pretty close to both the visual depiction of the Evil Ninjas and drew inspiration from the awesome track by Grischa Lichtenberger. This glitch effect became a great way to transition between clips and time, but also allowed me to sync subtle (and not so subtle) visual corruption to the music, providing some hard hitting momentum.



Pushing that momentum and destruction even further, we iterated on a lot of different methods of glitching for player death. We ended up with something that pushes the glitches further, plays with destructive time shifting as well as emulating datamoshing techniques, ultimately resulting in super kinetic hits that sync up to the music.



This vignette has some of my favorite transitions and it was really fun to shape the glitches into something so unified towards capturing the spirit of the entity and the music. I look forward to sharing more with you next week!



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thanks Richard! That glitching is just so cool. If you like Richard’s style (and come on, how can you not), follow him here: http://richardeflanagan.tumblr.com/



The music this week is by Grischa Lichtenberger: http://semanticarecords.bandcamp.com/album/grischa-lichtenberger-graviton-cx-rigid-transmission-semantica-37

When we first heard that track, it immediately screamed EVIL NINJA at us in all-caps – it’s got the perfect dark, complicated, glitchy, driving and completely evil sound. We loved it, and you can totally see why via Richard’s amazing video!

Keep an eye on our twitter (@metanetsoftware) for the next videos as they roll out – only two more to go! And you better believe they go out with a bang. Don’t forget to come back here next week for another look behind-the-scenes!

