N Step Steve is a two-part Freeware Game developed by Ethan Clark from Thinky Games, and a follow-up to the game 5 Step Steve. Being an Episodic Game, the first part was released on Itch.io in December 2020, and the second in December 2022.
It is a top-down Puzzle Game in the style of Chip's Challenge and Deadly Rooms of Death, and revolves around Steve rescuing the members of Laika's crew after crash-landing on a planet as a result of their spaceship running out of fuel. The levels are interconnected, and are part of overarching paths that lead to the stray kittens to be rescued. True to its name, the game operates under a mechanic that limits the number of steps Steve can make before suffering a Game Over. There are tiles marked with flags whose dots grant a Cap of steps he can make (for example, a flag with four dots will allow Steve to make four steps unless he lands onto another flag). However, note that the number of steps between said tiles is not cumulative: If you step onto a tile with a two-dot flag while having five steps left, it will set your cap to two dots instead of seven, so it's important to think carefully about how to move across the levels in order to solve their navigation puzzles and proceed in the quest.
And as Steve reaches more levels, he'll find different elements and hazards that will require cleverness to be tackled. In extreme cases, you'll have to think outside the box and apply very unique tactics to overcome obstacles, such as dying to respawn in a spot from which you can head directly to the exit. There are even stars that are optional to collect, and require out-of-the-way methods that involve going through more than one level, thus having a metapuzzle factor.
This game provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Clone Ending: There are levels where the player has to simultaneously play as Steve and a clone of his present in them. But the game doesn't distinguish who is the real Steve, so whichever version moves to the next level will be treated as the real one all along.
- Block Puzzle: Some levels feature boulders that may obstruct the intended way, thus requiring Steve to push them. These boulders are also affected by ice and arrow tiles, so it will be necessary to work around them.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The Secret Levels that make up for the difficult-to-reach route accessed from the map's northwest in Part 1 are explicitly labeled as the hardest, as they require very obscure steps to be traversed. This route is completely optional, since you don't find any stray members of Laika's team at the end but rather the game's creator, portrayed as a goat. You also receive a collectible star as a reward.
- Checkpoint: The tiles marked with purple-colored flags not only grant the number of steps indicated by their dots, but also serve as respawn points if Steve dies.
- Collection Sidequest: The shining stars found in certain levels. All of them are placed in tiles that appear to be impossible to reach (since trying to reach them will make Steve run out of steps and die), and require very advanced methods to be gathered.
- Conveyor Belt Puzzle: One of the levels consists of traversing a passageway filled with conveyor belts. Since the game revolves around Steve moving across spaces with a limited number of steps (which can only be refilled by stepping onto certain tiles), devising the correct path with the conveyor belts around will prove a difficult challenge. Later conveyor belt puzzles involve using other objects in order to prevent unwanted movement on a conveyor.
- Door to Before: In levels where you find one of the missing members of Laika's crew, you'll find teleporters that take you back to a hub area.
- Frictionless Ice: There are levels with ice tiles which, when stepped upon, will make Steve automatically slide forward. Fortunately, even if Steve is sliding through a row of ice tiles, it will only count as one step made, which becomes useful to traverse long distances without running out of steps.
- Gotta Rescue Them All: The members of Laika's crew, whom Steve has to rescue by traversing the levels.
- Heroic Canines, Villainous Felines: Inverted, Steve and the other cats are the protagonists of these games and the dogs are revealed to be antagonistic individuals who are also trying to destroy flags because they are produced by kittens.
- Hub Level: Some levels have no puzzles and only serve the purpose of providing access to other levels. Each of them has an antenna onto which you can teleport, whether from a warp point at the end of a row of levels or from the map menu.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: In some levels, there are green-colored arrow tiles (similar to those found in Chip's Challenge) which forcefully drag Steve onto the direction of the arrows. Luckily, the dragging effect only works for one tile at a time (so if an arrow tile drags Steve into another, this one won't drag him at all), which grants a chance to figure out how to get past them.
- Letting the Air out of the Band: The music gradually deflates and plummets to silence every time you run out of steps and lose a life, or get killed by a hazard.
- Me's a Crowd: Stepping on double-sided tiles will clone Steve into two, and place each clone on a side marked by one of the arrows. From this point, the player can control both of them at the same time. It doesn't matter which one you reach the level's end with, either, and you'll usually need to sacrifice one of them along the way anyway. In at least one level, you'll end up creating multiple clones of Steve as you move forward. Lastly, the duplication tiles can also clone boulders and step flags (including the ones that double as checkpoints).
- Metapuzzle: Some of the optional puzzles require Steve to enter the room in a specific way, sometimes by making an extra Steve in one of the other puzzles, or even to find how to get to the puzzle at all.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Getting hit by a hazard, such as spikes or the sight of a cursed statue, kills Steve instantly.
- Shout-Out: In Part 2, you can also rescue more difficult to reach Cryptids, many of which are characters from other puzzle games, including Baba, the Orange Statue from Tres Undos, a Science Sphere, Mr. Puzzles (an Expy of Professor Layton), the protagonist of Recursed, the U from Pushing U
, Farold Roberts and Atzlar from the [1] series, and Nyan Cat. - Spikes of Doom: Some levels feature tiles with red-colored spikes. Stepping into one spells instant death.
- Thanatos Gambit: In certain levels, it's mandatory to die after passing through a Checkpoint so it becomes possible for Steve to move from the respawning position to the next area.
- War Memorial: There's a hidden route of levels in Part 1 that is completely optional and, instead of featuring puzzles, simply shows lifeless cat bodies encased in what seems to be square coffins, as well as posters recording the backstory of the bloody war between cats and dogs.
- Warp Whistle: Once steve reached a hub area with an antenna, it will be possible to warp back there from the map. You also warp to an antenna tile upon stepping onto a teleporter (usually located close to one of the stray member of Laika's crew.)
- Year X: "The year is 20XX, X approximately equals 20."
