Fan of retro platformers? Enjoy challenge, pixels, and the stark inevitability of death? Then VVVV, a java demake of VVVVVV (that's two whole additional Vs, folks) is for you. Only without all that cumbersome story. Or dialogue. Or sound. Or a save function. Venture out into the great unknown to rescue your six stranded sidekicks to turn their frowns upside down. You can also put down the pitchforks, since the game was created with the blessing of source material author Terry Cavanagh. Sorry folks, this meeting of Angry Mob Weekly is canceled.
Control is easy, using the [arrow] keys to move, and the up [arrow], [space], or [V] key to flip your character's gravity, sending him flying towards the ceiling or the floor, depending on where he is at the time. You can also view a map by tapping [M]. The game keeps track of your time, how many crew members remain to be saved, and, of course, how many times you die. Which you will. Likely quite a bit. The only things you have to worry about are spikes, which are instantly fatal and will force you to respawn at the last checkpoint you touched, and certain bits of the terrain, which will happily drop or catapult you into said spikes. Other than that, it's just you, a bunch of stranded crew-mates, and the great outdoors. (The role of the great outdoors here being played by the fathomless black void of space.)
Just because there's a lack of oddly symbolic enemies in this incarnation doesn't mean the experience will be easy, however. The map doesn't display the locations of any crew-mates you may have stumbled across, but been unable to rescue, so those of us with a poor memory are going to be doing some interstellar Marco Polo as we search. But for some the biggest issue is definitely going to be the lack of a save function. If you don't have the time to complete it all in one sitting, or have experienced that miracle of nature known as the rage-quit, VVVV forces you to restart all over from the beginning every time you close your browser window.
While not as complex as its source material, VVVV is still an impressive little creation that will provide a meaty feast of devious platforming for some, and a challenging exercise for others. If you can beat the game in under 100 seconds and/or less than 10 deaths as the author challenges you, make sure you tell me all about it. Your hands will go nicely in a jar of preserving fluids on my library wall.
i like how its more, "free" and you can go in any direction as apposed to one or two in VVVVVV
Well, 405 deaths, and 1848 or thereabouts in time. Beat the game and there's NO way I'm going to get either challenge completed.
Grr. Java in-browser stuff like this hasn't worked on my Macintosh for a while now. I don't have any idea why, and neither the Java support site nor the Apple support site are any help. All I get is a big white space, and in the corner there's a little file icon with an "X." Java's enabled on my browser (both Firefox and Safari), I'm pretty sure I have the most recent updates for everything...
Why won't this work for me? D:
I've got 5/6 but I've currently racked up about 500 deaths, more than half on the vertical bouncing bars between the two rows of spikes along the top and bottom. I assume this is how you unlock the bottom right corner of the map, but the spiked block right at the end of this screen is totally inappropriate and is starting to piss me off.
StephenM3 - Java is very hit and miss on my Mac, too. Some work, some don't. I like to avoid Java whenever I can, both from a programmer's and a user's perspective.
This doesn't run for me either in Mac OS X.
I was, however, able to run it in Parallels under Windows XP and Firefox.
It was fun for a while, but I'm not into games where the theme is "run you head into a wall until you break through."
It's odd, I'm on Vista and still having Java issues. "Loading Java Applet Failed...", whatever that means. This is really the first time I've ever had any Java-related issues.
First try: 244 deaths, 1611 seconds.
This feels a lot like the first Jumper game, which I guess isn't a bad thing. I came really close to ragequitting in that room with the seemingly random assortment of platforms and spikes, but only because it really felt unfair as you had to pretty much memorize the whole thing and blindly jump from screen to screen. Everything else was very enjoyable, though.
I agree with you Lavos. I'd also like to complain about the fact that on some screens you can't go off screen because the next screen doesn't have enough room to put the character in that spot. It's really annoying.
Lavos, for what it's worth, that pair of screens is an homage to a much more brutal set of screens in the original game. In the original, however, it's merely in pursuit of an optional collectible.
And I agree with Kgummy. There are a few screens that appear to have exits but which are blocked off by the next screen over that you can't see.
But what fun! I'd love to see more from either this or the original. I retrieved all but one of the stranded people and wandered around a bunch looking for the last one before realizing you can hit "m" or the return key to display a map. After that it was entertaining to figure out how to reach that last one, which for me was in the upper-left corner. I had previously thought both the 'entrances' to that area were untraversable and I'm still not entirely sure how I
got up through the narrow screen with the three-sided box of reverse-gravity lines. I believe that in the original such a screen would be a dead end. I think I had myself land overlapping with the left edge of the square, and somehow jumping up from there kept the top edge from bouncing me back.
Was that really the proper way to get there? Was there another entrance I had missed?
In any case, great game. My stats: D:142 T:1309 (including time spent going off to read the instructions...)
doesn't work on my mac, not in safari and not in firefox - just like StephenM3 says
maybe you could change the "macwinlinux"tag?
I can get it to work on a Macbook Pro, but not on a Macbook.
Ah, tried it on 7 and it seems to be working fine. I'm willing to bet it's a matter of how recently one updated their Java player that will make a difference here!
Very nice demake, and it pays tribute to Terry's work very fittingly. It seems to be a lot more puzzley/mazey, since there are more one-way routes that you have to take in this version. Worth the play!
Aw, DANGIT! They canceled the Angry Mob Weekly meeting last week, too! I'm starting to think this isn't worth the dues I pay.
But seriously, hooray for the demake! Now I can tear my long, luxurious hair out of my tender scalp through more levels, AND LIKE IT.
Worked on my MacBook. I quit after about five minutes, though. Didn't want to put too much time into it before I hated it and did a rage-quit, so I preemptively stopped myself.
It's awful. But you have to give praise to the programming skills.
It's a great game! I recently finished VVVVVV, so this one was a piece of cake. 8 deaths, 230 seconds in second try.
Finally got on a computer capable of playing this and gave it a try. Very amusing demake! A lot of the puzzle-types were very different from what's in the full game. Impressive file size, of course.
Oh no! Captain Viridian has been split into six lifeless clones and scattered across dimension VVVV! Chief Verdigris must venture out into this dangerous world to save him, braving crazy spiky traps, even smaller resolutions, and a complete lack of any engineering-related challenges! Will he overcome the "Doing things the hard way" homage? Will he get lost in a world where screen wraps occur without warning? Will he go utterly insane after the hardest of rooms leads only to a message to Terry? And most importantly, will Doctor Violet be impressed??? Find out all this, but not really, in...
VVVV
The only game I remember experiencing a "rage-quit" was the first Punishment game by messhof. (The sequel was much easier to stomach.) And I don't count I Wanna Be the Guy. I quit after about fifteen seconds because I clearly "did not want to be the guy"..
Oh, uh, but --yeah! V's great!
StephenM3: LOL. Lovely preview!
Anyone else spot the hidden Mojang Specifications logo?
Got it to load on FF on a MacBook Pro (10.7.5), but only jump works. Directionals are spasmodic and uncontrollable. Too bad! Just my type of game.
Also, this stage is now included in actual VVVVVV in the player levels section. So you can play it there with all of the regular VVVVVV music and graphics and so on!
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