Since it’s been discussed already on Boing Boing and RPS, I’m not sure I have a lot to add to the analysis, other than to say this is the kind of indie game I wish there was a lot more of.
If you’re too lazy to read the links, it’s a platformer with incredibly simple controls and ingenious design, with a very retro aesthetic. Play the demo here.
It’s interesting, but it needs different acceleration curves. The game is forgiving enough with respawn points, but I’d rather like the ability to control myself a little easier in the air so I don’t spent 10 tries to get past a set of spikes.
Definitely an interesting concept though.
I agree with Charles, and boy, does this ever take me back to the days of the C64. I love it!
Isn’t this 90% of the modern indie scene?
But even if that might seem to imply a cakewalk tour through its world, VVVVVV is surely anything but: the final death toll for an average run can easily stretch into the thousands, particular rooms in the multiple hundreds, but Cavanagh has made death a learning experience rather than a punishment with liberal checkpoints and zero-time restart.
…
Certain challenges in the game are so difficult that they become more tests of rote reaction time muscle memory against its one-hit spiky deaths (so omnipresent that they loom even in the game’s very title), and it’s to Cavanagh’s credit that he’s made burning through 177 subsequent deaths in a matter of minutes feel like a rewarding puzzle over a maddening flaw.
Although reading the rest of that article gives me some explanation to why it’s kind of cool, the “bang your head up against the wall, like, forever” game component passed me by about 20 years ago. I wish Mr. Cavanaugh and his game the best of luck though. I like to hear about indie developers that make stand-outs and carry it into a full career.
Clearly you neither played the game nor read the articles.
It is probably more difficult than it really needs to be, but that’s not what I like about it. I like that it doesn’t put any artificial obstacles in between you and the gameplay itself. You die? Immediately try again. No loading, no backtracking. It’s something I wish more games would emulate.
Have you played a single indie game outside of the ones that make it to the bigger sites?
I should probably stop before I have to compose a list or something. I’m not trying to fight, just let you know there’s more gaming joy to be had even if this is one of the best examples of its kind.
Yep, I played the demo you linked for a bit. It’s just not my cup of tea, but I do like the take on doing something different. Maybe the super retro vibe got to me a bit too. Sadly if this had been my C64 days I would have played the shit out of this. I’m just to jaded now to appreciate a new gameplay mechanic on an older genre playstyle.
Like I said though, I can appreciate what he’s doing and where he went with it, at least from reading the article and the short time from the demo. By the way is it just me or does the sound from that demo site have the volume turned to 11.
I love it.
Yes. Are you capable of having a conversation without coming off as a raging douchebag?
I should probably stop before I have to compose a list or something. I’m not trying to fight,
Then you should probably have attempted to discuss the game itself rather than playing your “indier-than-thou” card.
And seriously, you want to talk about other indie platform games, great! Go start some threads! But let’s talk about VVVVVV in this one, huh?
just let you know there’s more gaming joy to be had even if this is one of the best examples of its kind.
I’m aware of this. The entire point is that this is one of the best examples of its kind.
Well, shit, then, don’t write a sentence in your first post that indicates you are not and get upset when I wonder out loud about it. I didn’t make my original reply to be a raging douchebag, but you seem to have dialed it up through the roof out of some uptight sensitivity.
It was fun.
I do wish there were more indie games like this. Nothing about that sentence indicates I’m not aware of other examples, merely that I wish there were more of them. And “indie platformer” isn’t exactly the elements of VVVVVV that I wish other games would replicate, in any case. To wit - difficult without being unfair, no nonsense UI or “gamey” stuff getting in between the gamer and the puzzle, and some very clever design using only a few simple elements.
I didn’t make my original reply to be a raging douchebag
Yeah you did. Maybe you didn’t intend to, but a non-asshole response would have been to say “here are some others like it that you might not be aware of.”
It’s interesting what you can get away with—or alternately, how our expectations change—when you go fully retro.
If this had modern visuals and was released through normal publisher channels, I wonder if people would be ripping it for being punishing and having a stupidly tough learning curve, blah blah blah. I doubt they’d be praising it for “making death a learning experience.”
Sometimes statements aren’t as loaded as they are in P&R. I phrased it as a question because as I’ve said elsewhere on the forum, I don’t know enough about the scene to really be an expert. I’d be curious to know if games like (off the top of my head) Jumper 3, Nikujin, Super Meat Boy, RunMan, N, or Canabalt are all missing a key component in some way.
I haven’t played it yet since I’m at work, but I don’t play enough platform games to be confident in my analysis anyway. It’s also not clear whether the more mainstream publications picking this up have either. Just one of those cases where I’m trying to acquire historical perspective from a firehose, so I apologize if you thought I was leading toward something else.
Your apology is accepted. Jumper 3 isn’t really the same sort of game at all - it’s more akin to Breakout than anything. Meat Boy’s about on the same level - it lacks the Metroid-esque connected levels that I like in VVVVVV, but that’s not really a drawback, just a difference. N, likewise. Canabalt is great, but not really what I think of when I think “platformer.” Haven’t played Nikujin or Runman.
It reminds me a lot of :shift:, an iPhone game with similar gameplay but a graphic novel black and white aesthetic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvBKNCqodDI. I didn’t play too much of :shift: because the lack of control on the iPhone annoyed me.