VVVVVV – RELEASED!

By: Xander

On: January 11th, 2010

So you find yourself between two sets of pylons which effortlessly inverse the laws of gravity and no less than five sets of absolutely fatal spike traps. Somehow, this is actually close to the safest you’ve felt since you left the ship.

Welcome to VVVVVV, the eagerly anticipated platform adventure from the brainly fantastocity of Terry Cavanagh whose work last year with Judith and Don’t Look Back sowed the seeds of anticipation for this his biggest title to date.

To surmise, your ship has befallen some sort of disasterous event and your crew have become separated across a strange dimension. It’s your job to reunite them and possibly pick up some secret trinkets along the way. Aside from your ability to walk either left and/or right, you also have the power to flip gravity at your will. The rest of the adventure then builds on this power again and again, adding new and interesting ways to solve puzzles with no small quantity of intelligence or dexterity.

There’s a demo available online which contains two levels for you to sink your teeth into, and the full version is available through the main site at the generously quaint sum of $15/Â£8.99 (For both Mac and PC, with the Linux version coming VERY SOON), and the game does seem rather packed full of extras for those of you brave enough to seek out all those trinkets. You’ll probably struggle, you will definitely die and you will absolutely do it all with an unrelenting grin on your face.

Congratulations to Terry, and happy V-Day everyone!

TIGdb: Entry for VVVVVV

Posted in Action, Highly Recommended, Linux, Macintosh, Platformers, Windows | Tags: TerryCavanagh

Botulino

I think we should separate the discussion about the game being overpriced and his actual merits.

Is it overpriced? Maybe, I paid the 15 bucks and I feel he could have put a bit more gamey rooms instead of creating the huge outdoor area.

I feel that the absurd circlejerk about graphics,jesus,the creationists and all that nonsense stems from the fact that you’re obsessed with the price tag more that the game itself. The graphics are good, get over it.
Anarkex

Me? I’ve hardly even mentioned the price tag. I think we pretty much finished up the price argument long ago, come to pretty much the same conclusion you have.

No, no, we’re talking about the quality of the game here, of which “graphics” is a part of. Or we were, but then me and Fuzz just shot the shit for a little while. That a problem?

>absurd circlejerk about graphics,jesus,the creationists and all that nonsense

Clearly you only read three words of the above 200+ posts. I don’t blame you.
hey

this game made me happy and you people are all very silly.
Anthony Flack

That was pretty much my starting point too: the game made me happy. Why? I’ve played thousands of games and I’m pretty jaded these days – I would say that 95% or more of games make me feel mostly just mild boredom. But this game made me happy when I played it. I conclude: there’s something there that I’m not getting from other games.

If it didn’t make you happy, then I guess it’s not for you. There isn’t really anything especially clever I can offer to admire about it on an intellectual level (except to say that there is a real art to stripping something down to its essentials: there’s not many games I can think of that manage to make so much out of so little, and they are all classics). It’s a question of refinement, and you can’t really have a logical argument about refinement.

It’s like if you had an abstract composition of coloured shapes, and it looked okay. But if you move one of the triangles an inch to the left, or change that shade of green to a slightly lighter shade, then it looks a whole lot better. And there is a point where it looks “just right”, and everything harmonises.

There isn’t really anything you can say to explain why one picture looks right and another doesn’t. Some people will look at it and just go “YES”. Other people will say “it’s just coloured shapes; I don’t get it”.

This is clearly not a game that appeals to everyone. But I think that for people who are tuned to that particular frequency, there is a strong sense that VVVVVV has nailed that “just right” feeling.
JAmster

Playing the demo doesn’t give you the whole impression and feel of the whole game. So those of us who played the demo never really got to the whole “happy” and “everything just seems to fit” mentality. Knytt and Untitled Story made me feel happy, and they are some of the best games I’ve played. But I didn’t have to pay 15$ or have someone tell me to just play it and “you’ll get it”. And if they had been 15$ I wouldn’t have played them and wouldn’t have been inspired by them.
The Vagrant Werewolf

@JAmster

“And if they had been 15$ I wouldnâ€™t have played them and wouldnâ€™t have been inspired by them.”

I’m not a huge fan of capitalism myself, but whenever anyone says something like this, the neon DOUBLE STANDARD light blinks on in my head.

If you’ve never paid to enjoy anything and your life was one of free things, lived inexpensively (akin to he developer of Passage), then I could actually understand that.

But have you seen a movie lately that you’ve raved about? Avatar, perhaps? Have you played a console game, any console game, and had any emotions stirred by that?

If so, it’s a double standard. Why is it YESGOOD to pay huge corporations large sums of money and rave about something, yet it’s EVILBAD to pay a smaller sum to an independent developer who’s trying to get their footing, financially?

Normally, I don’t support the whole Dystopia NOW notion, it’s a bit nonsense, but when I see things like this, I do worry that people are being carted off to little black rooms and having their noggins tampered with.

Brand names are good, start-up nobodies are bad, brand names are good, start-up nobodies are bad, brand names sare good~…

Because on a more serious note, that’s what the whole double standard looks like. Independent developers who’re perhaps not financially well off and yet are still doing their best to develop fun games are not as worthy as bigger companies who’ve got so much cash that they’re rolling in it, like a pig in shit.

I feel that Terry’s game should allot him at least some amount of success, but this is a Sheep-staffed World we live in, and that evil indie dev is probably only going to spend it on drugs, or alcohol, or something.
d2king10

I don’t think it is the difference between paying a huge company or paying an indie developer, it is just that comparing the $15 I could spend on this game to comparing $15 on a game at gamestop, I am going to get a lot more for the $15 from a game from a company.

Thus why $15 is too much, and why a lot of people have posted stating such. I am 100% positive that if he bumped the price down to $5 he would sell a shit load more copies and there would be a lot less complaining, but as it is now, it feels as if I am paying $15 for a game I could find on any free flash website.