Video Game / VVVVVV

Veni, Vidi, Vici.

˙sdooɥʍ ˙˙˙ǝɹǝɥ ʌʌʌʌʌʌ ǝqı̣ɹɔsǝp

*click*

Describe VVVVVV here.

VVVVVV is an indie game created by Terry Cavanagh for PC in 2010, before porting it to many other platforms in the following years. 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, in place of a jump button, a "Flip" button to reverse your character's (personal) gravity. Mastering this is essential to finishing the game. Other than that, there are no 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 put before you (and 7,612 spikes.)

As the game has a Level Editor, the game naturally has a ton of fanmade levels. Enough for them to have their own page.

In 2020, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the entire game was released under the GPL, allowing anybody to alter, copy, and redistribute it as they see fit.

This game provides examples of:

• Abbey Road Crossing: The cover of this game's soundtrack parodies this.
• 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). In addition, the game's soundtrack is called "PPPPPP" and 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.
• All There in the Manual: On one hand, the game's manual actually doesn't explain the story at all or what obstacles you'll have to avoid. On the other, it does give you a complete statistical breakdown of spikes in the game....
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: Several levels each have their own unique features, such as The Laboratory's inversion planes, the Space Station levels' quicksand blocks, Space Station 2's Inconveniently Placed Conveyor Belts, The Tower's automatic vertical scrolling with an Advancing Wall of Doom, and the Warp Zone's wraparound rooms. Every last one of these^note Except the Warp Token, which is basically just a one-way screen exit anyways returns in The Final Level.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming:
  • Go on, guess what letter it is.
  • All the songs in the soundtrack, titled "PPPPPP," start with "P."
• Ambiguous Gender: Captain Viridian's gender is never revealed throughout the game. (Appropriately, that's the player character ["That's you!"], and the game doesn't know what gender you are.)
• Antepiece: The game is famously very hard with lots of intricate platforming challenges. But occasionally the game will help you out by preceding a setpiece with an antepiece, a simplified version of the challenge that coaches you for the real thing. It has at least two antepieces. Here is the easier example: the player moves from left to right here. When they go through one of those lines, the direction of gravity is reversed. To get through the red room they just hold right, the next room is much trickier but the player has a pattern in mind to help them.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • After beating the game, you can go back into the open world and search for any missing logs and trinkets, which get you the good ending. However, you never have to complete already beaten levels again- at any time, going into the main menu allows you to warp back to the ship. This is also useful if some levels are too hard for you, and you want to try them later.
  • The game has an invincibility mode for people who simply do not have the skill to beat the game, especially disabled gamers.
  • The Gravitron, despite its "Survive for 60 seconds" billing, only requires you to clear those 60 seconds in five second increments.
• 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 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.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: The Tower, The Panic Room, and The Final Challenge.
• 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, eleven checkpoints in a row. It leads into one of the hardest (but thankfully optional) sections of the game.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The v2.0, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita versions of the game come with 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."
  • Also in the Final Level, there is the "Three's Company" room which is nearly identical to (but slightly harder than) the "Three's A Crowd" room from the Laboratory.
• Captain Obvious: Vermilion.
  WARNING: Disabling the Dimensional Stability Generator may lead to instability! Are you sure you want to do this?
• Checkpoint: A circle with a C in it, which you activate by touching.
• Checkpoint Starvation: The trinket "Prize for the Reckless" requires you to traverse some rooms while actively avoiding Check 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.
• Credits Medley: Popular Potpourri.
• Cult Soundtrack: The music of VVVVVV is popular and constitutes a great deal of people's perspective on the game.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Except in some unlockable modes, checkpoints are frequent (almost one per screen) and the delay between getting killed and respawning is pretty short.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • 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. The 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 Tower's music plays backwards (as it's scrolling the other direction visually), and the credits are right-side-up but scroll down from the top. On the 3DS, the credits are also swapped between the two screens so that they scroll off the bottom and appear on the top screen, rather than using both screens as one big screen as normal.
  • In a room where a crew member normally only follows you when you're on the floor, the hint text is changed to specify that, in Flip Mode, the crew member will follow you when you're standing on the ceiling.
  • For the 3DS and Switch versions, because it's on a Nintendo console, the room "Whee Sports" had the name changed to "Copyright Infringement." All other versions remain the same.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The polar dimension.
• Easter Egg: If the game is launched from the command line, the startup messages include an ASCII art picture of Captain Viridian.
• Elephant in the Living Room: Literally. There is a giant neon crying elephant that takes up four rooms that will make Captain Viridian sad if he stays with it for a while. No, there isn't any explanation given in-game.
• 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 (and how many deaths).
• 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.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: The hidden elephant. The effect can be disabled in the game's settings.
• Escort Mission: Intermission 1. Rather frustrating if you can't get the ceiling-floor mechanic right.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Basically, if it moves it can kill you. This includes moving platforms, as some of them pass close enough to spikes to kill you if you don't hop off of them first. It's also 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.
• Filler: Much of the overworld map.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Not a final boss, per se (since the game has No Antagonist), 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.
• Flip-Screen Scrolling: As part of its Retraux appeal, there is no scrolling; walk (or fall) off the edge and you'll flip to the next screen (with the exception of Wrap Around and Auto Scrolling areas).
• Fusion Dance/All Your Colors Combined: Upon access to the secret lab.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Commit suicide using the "r" button on the keyboard when everyone is being teleported around in the intro if you press it right as you land into the room you normally teleport into. That will sequence break out of Space Station 1 and all you need to do is 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, although you will keep your trinkets.
  • 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.
• Gameplay Grading: In addition to the grades given for Time Trials and the trophies for clearing the game with few deaths and high scores on the Super Gravitron, player levels are graded by giving you one asterisk on the select screen if you beat the level and two asterisks if you collected all the trinkets.
• Genre Throwback: 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.
• Gotta Catch Them All: Three versions: 5 crew members, 20 Shiny Trinkets, and the beta-only coins.
• Gravity Screw: Your primary ability. Note that you can't flip your gravity in midair — once you hit the Flip button, you can't flip back until you hit solid ground again (or die trying); the developer has noted that this is what keeps it from becoming "a jump button."
• 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.
• Humanoid Abomination: The fan-made level incorporated into later releases, Victuals, is centered around one.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Space Station 2 and The Final Level both have quite a few of them.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: Veni, Vidi, Vici: some of the rooms you'll need to go through if you want to get a trinket that's behind a 1-block high wall.
• Justified Save Point: Defied. Professor Vitellary draws attention to a Checkpoint and suggests that if it were brought back to the ship, he could study what it is and how it works. Captain Viridian awkwardly disagrees.
• Just Ignore It: Vitellary's curiosity about the check point seems to make Viridian uncomfortable and perhaps worried about the fourth wall's integrity. He urges the professor to move on without thinking too hard about it.
• Lampshade Hanging: In the room "Doing Things the Hard Way," which contains the infamous Veni Vidi Vici trinket, there's a computer terminal which states, "Hah! No one will ever get this one."
• Last Lousy Point:
  • 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. Note that because of the design of this section, it is also possible to land down on the same side of the waist-high wall you came from if you mess up at the end, necessitating that you do it all over again even though you didn't die. 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 to respawn on the same screen so you can use the platform and get the trinket. Note that the three intervening rooms each have two checkpoints strategically placed to make them difficult to avoid.
  • "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 (a mercifully easier task).
• 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. There's also the free "Make & Play Edition" of the game, which includes only the level editor and the ability to play custom levels, without including the actual main game.
• Level in Reverse: Flip Mode inverts the world vertically, including the names of rooms and dialogue bubbles.
• Level-Map Display: And each area is color-coded according to the crew member you rescue from it. Outside the colored-zone areas, the map display is also a fairly-accurate representation of the actual terrain in each room.
• 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. Lots and lots of spikes.
  • The constant up-and-down Gravity Screw-ing.
  • The triangle-wave filled soundtrack.
  • When the characters are upside down, their legs look like Vs. Just check out the PPPPPP album cover.
• Mercy Mode: Referenced in name of the "Easy Mode Unlocked" room, part of That One Level.
• 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.
• Mini-Game: The Super Gravitron, a harder version of the Gravitron segment during the main game, where you are timed for how long you can dodge obstacles while bouncing between gravity-flipping lines.
• Nintendo Hard: Despite frequent checkpoints, there is nothing unusual about dying hundreds (if not thousands) of times before completing the game. Thankfully, Death Is a Slap on the Wrist.
• No Antagonist: The conflict is the crew being separated from each other after their ship crashed, and Captain Viridian having to rescue them all. The main source of death is obstacles, and while there are enemies to dodge, none of them seem to be sentient or have any relevance to the plot. The final challenge is an escape sequence rather than a boss fight.
• Non-Indicative Name: The actual color of the crew members generally do not correspond to their names. For example, Chief Verdigris is something close to emerald green, instead of, well, verdigris.
• Notice This: During your climb in the Tower, at one point you'll be stuck on a ledge wondering when the next safe footing to flip to will appear; a large arrow shape in the background will help show you where (but you won't make it without a leap of faith)..
• One-Letter Title: Or rather one letter, six times.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: You've got random numbers, buses, glitchy blocks, ghosts, lies (yes, the word "lies") ... apparently these are the products of Terry Cavanagh's dream diary.
• Portal Network: There are teleporters practically everywhere across the map. After returning to your ship the first time, your only hint about where to go is to have the teleporters marked on your map.
• Plot Coupon: You need to rescue your crew members. And if you want 100% Completion, you'd better pick up those Shiny Trinkets while you're at it.
• 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.
• Recurring Riff:
  • "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.
• Sampling: Word Of Soundtrack Composer confirms "Pushing Onwards" takes a bit from Ryu's and Guile's themes.
• 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.
• Shout-Out:
  • Many of the screen names are references to common phrases, TV show titles, and other things.
  • The individually-named screens themselves are a homage to Jet Set Willy.
    • One of them is even named "Manic Mine".
  • 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.
  • One of the rooms in one of the user levels is named Demon Wall.
  • The room "The Tomb of Mad Carew" is a shout out to the first Dizzy game, which featured an area with the same name (which itself comes from the poem 'The Green Eye of the Yellow God' by J. Milton Hayes, referenced throughout the game). The monster here looks like a ghostly version of the Dizzy character himself.
• Sound Test: The "Jukebox" is located inside your ship; collect shiny trinkets to unlock new songs. The only song not present in the lineup is the remixed version of "Predestined Fate" used in the final level.
• Spikes of Doom: The whole game, as the game title suggests, is filled with thousands of spikes^note If you want an exact number, there's a grand total of 7878 spikes in the whole game. Really.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: The Dimensional Stabilizer at the end of the game, which you must deactivate.
• Sudden Lack of Signal: The map's features cannot be displayed while Viridian is in the polar dimension.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity: "The Warning," a room filled with checkpoints lined up on a conveyor belt (so it sounds like an alarm when you run through them). It comes directly before Veni Vidi Vici.
• Temporary Platform: They crumble and vanish the moment you land on them, giving you footing for only about a second or so.
• Theme Naming: All the rooms at the first half of the final level are named after old TV programs, most including V puns in the title. Such titles include "Bewitched," "Gunsmoke" and "The V Stooges."
• Time Trial: Six available, based on the colored sections and the final level.
• Title Drop: The last screen before the ending. Also, the name of the dimension in which the game takes place.
• Treacherous Checkpoint: The game turns checkpoints into an obstacle for any player seeking that Last Lousy Point. Collecting one Shiny Trinket requires dying and re-spawning at another checkpoint on the same screen; pulling off this move means going around the long way while fastidiously avoiding checkpoints.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Some screens feature that.
• Triumphant Reprise: "Positive Force" to "Pushing Onwards."
• Two Girls to a Team: Violet and Victoria. Of course, since Captain Viridian's gender is never stated and might be intended to be the gender of the player, it's possible for this to be a Gender-Equal Ensemble instead.
• 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 Re-release: 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, with the new levels carrying over to the Nintendo Switch version.
• Video Game 3D Leap: Only shown in a fan video but the idea's garnered quite a bit of interest.
• Video Game Caring Potential: You will want to keep your entire crew safe. Their sad faces are too heartbreaking to suffer.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Alternatively, you can place Viridian in the corner of shame in the secret lab or keep them near the elephant and watch them frown for as long as you please, you sadist.
• Visual Pun: The title.
• Warp Whistle: When you finish the game, you can teleport back to the ship at any time.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Invoked by several room names of the final level. Right after yet another teleporter accident sends the captain to more Alien Geometries and disquieting music.
• Wrap Around:
  • Utilized in a variety of rooms, particularly the green maze containing Verdigris where every room wraps around on all sides (save for the exit to the next room). 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!

---