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If you’re having difficulty you can go elsewhere and come back later. This is where the open world comes into play. “But if I can’t do these challenges then I don’t give a rat’s ass about how ‘lubricated’ this cycle is”, I hear you say. Each of these elements lubricate the cycle of dying and retrying to such an extent that, instead of having to grind your way through sections you’ve already done or awaiting overly long death animations and respawns, you’re straight back in the saddle refining your technique to overcome the immediate challenge at hand. Thankfully VVVVVV makes every effort to ensure death isn’t an issue: checkpoints are visible entities, numerous and perfectly placed between every challenge the dying animation is fleeting with an almost instantaneous respawn and there are no lives or game over screens to speak of. I died just shy of 2500 times in the 5 hours it took me to fully complete, which (if my abysmal maths are correct), is about once every 7-8 seconds (I attribute this to stiff cursor keys and cold fingers). You see, VVVVVV is tough, especially if you intend to collect all twenty shiny baits trinkets dotted throughout it. Getting the trinket on this screen (formerly in the top right) was crazy fun. Which is a great thing when a game is as difficult as this.

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Other than that the game gives you no other direction so you’re free to go where you bloody well please. These energy patterns are usually teleporters which allow you to access some of the aforementioned levels as well as providing a quick means of travelling across the overworld. There’s a natty map system (similar to that of Super Metroid’s) that plots your progress as you explore and discover the world, and highlights areas emitting unusual energy patterns to investigate. The story is simple enough: Captain Veridian’s spaceship, after suffering from some sort of dimensional interference has crash landed on a mysterious planet and his crew of five - Doctor Violet, Officer Vermilion, Doctor Victoria, Professor Vitellary and Chief Verdigris - have gone missing thanks to the on-board teleporter going bananas during evacuation it’s Veridian’s job to find and rescue them all.Īfter a short section gently introducing the game’s flipping mechanic you’re dropped into the overworld within which all of VVVVVV’s ‘levels’ are nestled and, hopefully, the missing crew members. Like Braid, Portal and World of Goo, it’s one of those games that manages to squeeze every drop of creativity from its juicy core mechanic. It doesn’t sound like much but Terry Cavanagh takes this simple concept to such stratospheric and dizzying heights that I was grinning (and grimacing) with every new challenge that he threw at me.

He can only be flipped when he’s grounded but he’s still mobile in mid-air. Flipping effectively switches the gravity for our blue hued dude Captain Veridian, moving him from the floor to the ceiling and vice versa. There are only three actions in the game: walk left, walk right and flip. VVVVVV is a 2D platformer built upon a single glorious idea. I’m a bit late to the party with this one but hey, if I can’t talk about one of the greatest platformers I’ve ever played a year after its release then what the hell can I talk about? I’d heard a lot about VVVVVV but not for a moment did I expect to be placing it alongside the likes of Braid, Portal and World of Goo in the lofty echelons of my coveted Hall of Fame. Despite being broke, living back with his parents and all but abandoning his dream, Cavanagh produced VVVVVV, a sprightly, unalloyed delight - go and play it.

“The only thing I really had going for me was VVVVVV … I was having so much fun with it”, and it shows.

“It’s hard to believe that, after a tough 2009, VVVVVV was going to be Terry Cavanagh’s last game as a full-time independent developer. Time Played Completed in 5 (ish) hours Verdict: 5 /5 Gold Star

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Available for Windows (version played), Mac OS X

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