˙sdooɥʍ ˙˙˙ǝɹǝɥ ʌʌʌʌʌʌ ǝqı̣ɹɔsǝp*click*Describe VVVVVV here.VVVVVV is an indie game created by Terry Cavanagh. It stars the crew of a little space ship: player character Captain Viridian, Doctor Violet, Officer Vermilion, Professor Vitellary, Doctor Victoria, and Chief Verdigris. Their ship crashes and is sent into a strange, unfamiliar dimension, and scatters Viridian's crew across the land. The Captain needs to find them and make sure that they're safe! And that's where you come in.VVVVVV is a 2D platformer with exploration elements and no jump button. Instead, you have a flip button, which reverses your (and only your) gravity. Mastering this is essential to finishing the game. Other than that, there are no other methods of attack, power-ups, abilities, keys, locked doors, or any of that jazz — the only thing standing between you and sweet victory are the challenges and puzzles put before you (and 7,612 spikes.)Find the demo here. Buy the full version here or on Steam. It's also available on the Nintendo 3DS eShop, with added 3D effects of course.
Added Alliterative Appeal: But of course. Every crewmember's name starts with "V", as do a few level names ("Veni", "Vidi", and "Vici" come to mind). A better example might be the game's soundtrack "PPPPPP", which has its own pattern: each song name starts with, of course, P. note "Predestined Fate", "Potential for Anything", "Popular Potpourri", etc.
Advancing Wall of Doom: In all three auto scrolling levels (The Tower, Panic Room, and The Final Challenge) if the bottom or top of the screen gets close to you, a wall of spikes appear - and if you actually touch them, well, the same thing happens as if you touch ANY spike in the game. Note that this applies to both the top and bottom, so there's an Advancing Wall of Doom... but also a Retreating Wall of Doom.
Ambiguous Gender: Captain Viridian's gender is never revealed throughout the game.
Apocalypse How: Class X-5 at the end. You can fix it in time, however.
Are We There Yet?: Vermilion asks this at one point if taken to the the first intermission level.
Automatic Level: The player level Vertical Vehicle does not require any movement from the player; there is only one button press in this level, and that's to collect a trinket.
Bittersweet Ending: Although you do save all of your crew, you wind up screwing up the dimension you're stuck in, which will eventually cause it to collapse. Luckily, it is also a case of Take Your Time, in that it won't happen while you're around. Additionally, collecting all the trinkets teleports you to the Secret Lab, which, according to the crew, contains research that will save the dimension.
Boss Warning Siren: The game has a screen named "The Warning". One tunnel, no spikes, eight checkpoints in a row. It leads into one of the hardest sections of the game.
Brutal Bonus Level: The v2.0 and Nintendo 3DS versions of the game come with, not one, but eighteen full size player-made levels that are more or less harder than the main game.
Call Back: In the Final Level, you come to a room titled "Please Enjoy These Repeats" (Which later becomes "In The Margins" after disabling the Dimensional Stability Generator), which contains the "Yes Men" from the level... er... "Yes Men".
Check Point Starvation: The trinket "Prize for the Reckless" requires you to traverse some rooms while actively avoidingCheck Points. The one in Doing Things the Hard Way leads you through a series of rooms with nothing but spikes to get to a Temporary Platform so you can do the whole thing again, just to get past a square half your height. And then, of course, there's No Death Mode.
Cheerful Child: Pretty much the whole crew contain shades of this - Violet cheers up a worried Viridian with a lollipop.
Chiptune: The soundtrack, as part of the retraux feel.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The various areas in the VVVVVV dimension on the map are colored based on which one of the characters is there and needs to be rescued; the exception being the viridian area, which is the secret lab.
Colorful Theme Naming: The entire crew. Each name begins with a V, leading to the use of obscure colors like Vitellary.
Cosmetic Award: The trophies, awarded for beating ungodly hard and masochistic challenges. It's topped off with the trophy for beating No Death Mode, a giant statue of the combined characters that flashes in different colours.
Each crew member's dialogue is different depending on which order you rescue them.
One of the trinkets (Prize for the Reckless), which the player has to die to get in normal mode, is made obtainable without having to die in no death mode and time attack mode. Name of said level changes to I Can't Believe You Got This Far and Imagine Spikes There If You Like, respectively.
In Flip Mode, the music plays backwards in The Tower (since the auto scrolling is also flipped), and the credits are right-side-up but scroll down from the top.
End Game Results Screen: It displays how long it took the player to beat the game as well as how many trinkets he or she has gotten.
Endless Game: The Super Gravitron minigame, available in the Secret Lab after collecting all the Shiny Trinkets. It's a Survival Mode version of the Gravitron seen earlier in the game — instead of counting down from 60 seconds, it counts up from 0, and you keep going until you die.
Escort Mission: Rather frustrating if you can't get the ceiling-floor mechanic right.
Everything Trying to Kill You: And it's lampshaded by one of the terminals in the Warp Zone, where a scientist recalls having to run away from a giant cube with the word "AVOID" on it.
Exposition Cut: After rescuing crew members, Viridian describes the situation to them, to varying levels of understanding.
Final Boss, New Dimension: Not a final boss, per se, but after you disable the Dimension Stabilizer, the dimension, uh, destabilizes, transforming the area from drab gray Screenwrap Hell to a disco-colorful, screenwrap-free batch of fun.
Five-Man Band: Talking with each member at unique times reveals information about their status:
The Lancer: Doctor Violet, as Captain Viridian works with her occasionally to navigate the dimension.
The Smart Guy: Professor Vitellary. He is the first to deduce the situation between the anomalies of the VVVVVV dimension before the others had any idea onto what was going on.
The Big Guy: Officer Vermilion. He isn't afraid of going out to explore and charge into the unknown. If he's rescued early enough, he randomly pops throughout the game and gives commentary to his surroundings. If taken to the second intermission stage, he admits to having fun on the Gravitron.
The Chick: Doctor Victoria. As seen in the first intermission, she is afraid that something strange happened, casting her and Captain Viridian into the polar dimension. She continues to doubt that the two of them will ever get home, so she needs Captain Viridian's guidance to continue on.
Follow the Leader: After VVVVVV's success, other games based on retraux graphics, gravity flipping, and monoalphabetic names sprouted.
Follow the Money: There is one instance where the background provides a clue to where one is supposed to go next in the form of a giant arrow in The Tower.
Game-Breaking Bug: If you have Invincibility on (available in the options menu), you can sequence break out of Space Station 1 and rescue the rest of the crew, though Violet won't be at the ship. If you decide to complete Space Station 1 normally, Violet will be back, but any crew members you've rescued beforehand will disappear. A bit more literally, turning Invincibility on can result in Viridian getting caught with moving platforms stuck in the player - while the game ordinarily would have them either push Viridian out by the movement pattern or into spikes, you'll just get stuck in the latter case, forcing a return to the main menu. Also, using Invincibility to reach a room exit that you otherwise can't and there being a wall on the other side will cause Viridian to float until expelled, which could be never if there's a continuous wall on that side (avoided in the main game, but possible in some player-created levels).
Harder Than Hard: No Death Mode. Not only is it Exactly What It Says on the Tin - one hit ends the game - but saving is disabled, meaning not only can you not Save Scum your way to victory, you have to complete it in one try.
Saying the words "Veni, Vidi, Vici" to anyone who has won 100% Completion is sure to incite an Unstoppable Rage. It's an optional trinket that forces you to use your powers of Gravity Screwing to bypass a chest-high wall. You have six screens to traverse at a set speed going straight up, all the while squeezing and weaving around walls filled to the brim with spikes. As you're a One Hit Point Wonder, the slightest mistake sends you back to the bottom. Once you finally, painfully get to the top (one of the screens on the way is called "Your Bitter Tears... Delicious"), you must land on a small platform that will vanish after a second, where you have to reverse the gravity and do it all again in reverse, on the same life. It is not at all unreasonable for this one section to make up more than half of the deaths on a typical playthrough. The remix soundtrack CD even references this on the back cover, with Chief Verdigris (the green one) taking a cutting torch to the block sitting in the way, with the other 5 crew members behind him.
The appropriately-titled "Prize for the Reckless" is just as lousy. You have to exploit the game's checkpoint mechanic of respawning you at the last check point you touched. That means going through three rooms without touching any checkpoints, to get to a disappearing platform that then allows a moving platform to get through. Then you kill yourself on the same screen to get to the checkpoint and to the trinket.
"Edge Games" requires some quick work on the action button and some quick (yet precise) maneuvering with the arrow keys. Specifically, one must fall "up" into a chamber just as an enemy passes, move left using the Wrap Around, quickly flip at least two times (timing it perfectly to miss the enemies), move right to the next gap, flip at least twice again (again, quickly yet well timed), then move left quickly enough to grab the trinket. Good luck if you're going for V rank on the Warp Zone, because then you have to go back through the same obstacles.
Law of Cartographical Elegance: Played with. With The Tower running right down the centre of the map and blocking access to the other side, the Space Station levels and the Warp Zone can only be reached from the Ship by wrapping around from the left. Indeed, the Laboratory appears at the top and bottom of the map, wrapped around.
Level Editor: Included in Version 2.0 of the game.
Lampshade Hanging: If you enter the Artificial dimension with Vitellary, at the point where you join up, Vitellary runs through a checkpoint. After he realizes this, he will ask Viridian what it is and suggests they take it back to the ship to study. Viridian replies that it's probably best not to think about it too much.
Malevolent Architecture: The Space Station and Laboratory have numerous spikes and enemies, which brings to the question how people work there. However, it's justified, as the previous owners deliberately make it as hard as possible to reach the trinkets scattered about.
Meaningful Name: There are several ways to interpret the meaning behind the name "VVVVVV":
The six crew members, whose names all start with V. These names follow Colourful Theme Naming - each is coloured the same as their name.
Spikes, as mentioned below. Lots and lots of spikes...
Metroidvania: Of sorts. While there are no upgrades to get in the vein of typical Metroidvanias, the world is free to explore right from the get-go, and you can tackle the individual levels in any order you wish.
Nintendo Hard: Despite frequent checkpoints, there is nothing unusual about dying hundreds, if not thousands of times before completing the game.
Our Monsters Are Weird: You've got random numbers, buses, glitchy blocks, ghosts, lies... apparently these are the products of Terry Cavanagh's dream diary.
Rank Inflation: S is not even the highest rank in VVVVVV's time trials. V is. Additionally, the lowest rank possible is B, indicating that merely clearing a time trial at all merits an above-average score.
Reconstruction: Of 80s gaming, particularly on the Commodore 64. Tempers its ridiculously difficult level design with infinite lives and plentiful checkpoints. It's essentially a retro game with modern sensibilities. Similarly, the music is in many ways a reconstruction of the Chiptune genre, doing a lot of new things with the format.
"Positive Force" plays in three different parts of the game, and parts of it sound like Pushing Onwards (or vice versa).
"Pushing Onwards" itself plays in two different parts of the game, so between them these two songs probably account for a good third of the playtime, including some of the most infamous parts.
Replay Value: The trophies for time trials, Flip Mode, the Super Gravitron, and finishing the game with a limited amount of deaths.
Retraux: As should be extremely obvious. The design takes quite a few cues from classic Commodore 64 platformers; the in-game text is even set in an authentic Commodore font. And on the 3DS, the game's pre-startup image is a cassette tape.
Save Game Limits: The main game only truly saves when you reach a teleporter, but you can quick save at any time. In the player levels, however, you can save at any checkpoint, making it easier to Save Scum your way to a low death count. (Of course, in the player levels it doesn't matter how much you die since there's no record kept of it...)
Schmuck Bait: The Dimensional Stabilizer and the room called "What Lies Beneath?" (The room directly under it is called "Spikes do!")
Sdrawkcab Name: ecroF evitisoP, and while not backwards, flipping doomS upside-down gets the word Swoop.
Many of the screen names are references to common phrases, TV show titles, and other things.
The individually-named screens themselves are an homage to Jet Set Willy.
In a visual shout out, the monsters in the room "Sweeney's Maze" (named for Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney) are ripped straight from the ASCII game ZZT (made by, well, guess).
The disclaimer in the Super Gravitron in the Secret Lab is a funny shout-out to anyone who has used a ROM-based emulator.
Spikes of Doom: The whole game, as the game title suggests, is filled with thousands of spikesnote If you want an exact number, there's a grand total of 7878 spikes in the whole game. Really.
Teleporters and Transporters: There are numerous teleporters scattered around the VVVVVV dimension, and when you finish the game, you can teleport back to the ship at any time.
Unobtanium: One of the rooms with a Shiny Trinket is named, in fact, 'Purest Unobtanium'. Ironically, it's one of the easier trinkets to get, although it is quite easy to miss if you don't know what to look for.
Updated Rerelease: The game got one as part of the Humble Indie Bundle III, where it was completely re-written in code from Flash to C++, two new tracks were added, and a level editor was included. Additionally, a port to the Nintendo 3DS' eShop adds new levels and 3D visuals.
In many rooms, it is the key element. The entire main area wraps around, both horizontally and vertically - in fact, the good Professor Vitellary even refers to the trope by name in his description of Dimension VVVVVV. His theory is that it is because of the dimension's peculiar instability.
This trope is also subverted in one area of the overworld (which comes before the area that does use actual wrap-around). You seem to be falling through the same room multiple times, but it is in fact multiple identical rooms - keep falling and you'll reach the bottom!
. Buy the full version here
3 reviews