There are many ways to die in N:
- Gravital impact from hitting any surface too hard (the floor and objects included)
- Electrocution by a zap drone or floorguard
- Explosion from a mine or homing missile from a homing launcher
- Sniped by a gauss turret or chaingun drone
- Shot by a laser drone
- Pulverization by a rising, falling or travelling thwump
- Suicide, which kills the ninja with the press of a button (default K)
- Running out of time
Each time you die, you are allowed to retry the level immediately, with your time limit reset to what it was at the start of the level. As it says in the list, you can also die by running out of time. Prior to version 1.4 this meant restarting the entire episode, but has now been changed to simply restart the level as if you had died. However, it's possible to end up with so little time at the start of a level that it is uncompletable, and you'll have to manually start the episode again.