Video Game / ViViD

Are you listening, Burt?
I am a doctor and you have to listen to what I say.

— Doctor

ViViD is a freeware PC game by the Layabouts, originally created in 2010. It's basically a Platform Game about a guy named Burt and his doctor. The doctor gives him pills and the game takes a strange turn. It can be downloaded here or here.

In 2019, an Updated Re-release, ViViD Relapse, has entered production. It is now much larger than the original game, and consists of three episodes, of which only the first is free.

ViViD provides examples of:

• All the Worlds Are a Stage: All of the interface screws come back for one or more screens each in Day 10. The music also changes to fit the types of distortion seen in the previous Days.
• Art Shift: The game's scenery changes into a beautiful field for a moment during Day 9. This shows that Burt wants to completely see the world.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: White is good and Red is dangerous.
• Content Warnings: The game gives one on possibility of having epilepsy.
• Fantastic Drug: Burt's medication, as he develops an addiction to it. The story itself is one about dependency (or more specifically, being dependent on something in your life to function normally, like heart medication.)
• Interface Screw: The game distorts more and more every day because of the effects of Burt's medication;
  • Day 2: The screen violently shakes, making it hard to gauge jumps onto arrows.
  • Day 3: The screen is closely zoomed-in to obscure much of Burt's incoming obstacles.
  • Day 4: The screen is turned upside down, which has the side effect of reversing your controls.
  • Day 5: The screen sways from left to right, which speeds up and slows down both the game and your inputs. There is also a point where the game becomes miniaturized, with static filling the screen as you go from right to left.
  • Day 6: The screen fills with static whenever Burt moves. Jumping becomes even harder here, as you move so much when you jump that the static persists for a second or longer.
  • Day 7: The four corners of the screen are shuffled around, making Burt's play areas much smaller as a result.
  • Day 8: The screen is stretched and squished every second, which also changes the speed every time.
  • Day 9: The two halves of the screen shakily move up and down at a fast rate.
  • Day 10: Every above modification appearing in different screens.
• Mercy Kill: At the end of the game, the doctor kills Burt because his addiction got out of control. Maybe. It's ambiguous.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The doctor delivers one to Burt during Day 9, as he threatens him.
• Retraux: The game has primitive sprites because Burt is colorblind.
• Snowy Screen of Death: If Burt dies during the game.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: The song that plays throughout all of the game's levels have effects applied to them to reflect upon the Interface Screw changes that they have;
  • The second day has the song play in an extremely shaky manner.
  • The third day has the song play very loudly.
  • The fourth day has the song play backwards.
  • The fifth day's song speeds up and slows down in rhythm with the screen swaying. Until it stops.
  • The sixth day's song is muffled, and cuts out whenever the screen fills with static.
  • The seventh day's song has it's rhythm completely screwed with, playing every few beats in a random order.
  • The eight day's song changes in tempo whenever the screen changes.
  • The ninth day's song is both sped up and muffled. The song that plays during Burt's lucid moment is completely different, being a soft ambient track.
  • The new song for the tenth day changes to fit the above types of distortion.
  • The credits song is played extremely slowly and muffled.
• Spikes of Doom: It's the only obstacle in the Game.
• Unreliable Narrator: The 'doctor' voice is clearly at least partially in the mind of Burt. Perhaps it all started innocently as an experimental treatment, but he wasn't able to fully articulate the side effects, due to his own perceptions being so blatantly skewed and twisted. It's a keen reminder that we take the reality and accuracy of our own perceptions and memories for granted, when they're so easily altered.

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