VVVVVV: Thoughts

Wow, I haven't posted anything on this blog since last April? Man, I should fix that. So I am!

I'm planning on writing at least one post about every new game I play this year, and here's the first, for VVVVVV.

VVVVVV is a puzzle platformer designed by Terry Cavanagh (who also did Super Hexagon, which I've enjoyed immensely over the past few months) that I picked up for like 30 cents in the holiday steam sale. I'd played the demo before, and I've played several flash games with similar conceits.

The main mechanic in the game is a simple gravity switch - notably, however, you can only activate it when you're actually on the ground (or the ceiling). The objective is basically to explore and find your missing crewmates, puzzling your way through gauntlets of laser beams and spikes and such. There's also 20 collectibles that serve as much more difficult bonus challenges.

The story and art style are both pretty unremarkable, but I enjoyed my time with the game as far as it went. There's a definite speedrunning bent to it (including a time trial mode), and I believe there are also plenty of community made map packs and such, so if it does grab your interest there's plenty of content beyond the hour or two a basic playthrough will last.

Controls are THE most important part of a platformer, and they seemed a bit finicky to me at first - lots of platformers have momentum when you're running, so you don't just stop when you stop hitting the key, and sometimes it doesn't feel right. That said, I definitely got used to it, only coming close to ragequitting a couple of times. I think the most times I died on a single puzzle was... 28?

Overall, it's a nice, super cheap flash-style game. I especially appreciate the presence of the map packs - it's a good way of just providing more content for a game that people enjoy.