mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

VVVVVV is a retro-style 2D puzzle platformer with a twist: You can't jump, but you can reverse gravity, alternating between falling up or down. This idea has occasionally been tried in other games, but here it's the primary game mechanic and its potential is thoroughly explored. The story is minimal—you're a space captain who has to rescue each member of his crew—and only serves to give you a motivation to keep progressing, using your gravity-flipping ability to get past enemies and environmental hazards of increasing difficulty.

What I like about VVVVVV is that it evokes the extreme difficulty of platformers of the 1980s, without the infuriating sadism of those games. You die from one hit (and you will die A LOT— I was pleased when I got the achievement to beat the game with under 500 deaths), but you also get unlimited lives and a huge number of checkpoints, sometimes even multiple checkpoints per screen in particularly tricky areas, so you never lose your progress. You're allowed to quicksave too, though it's not really necessary with all the checkpoints. The early sections give you a chance to get used to the basic gameplay before introducing complications in later levels, like having to guide an NPC who follows you around, or having to keep up with a level that constantly scrolls whether you move or not. It feels like the game developer is rooting for you to overcome the challenges he's set, not trying to make you miserable or frustrated. I've found this to be true of Terry Cavanagh's other games as well, and I really enjoy it.



The aesthetic is inspired by the Commodore 64, both in look and sound. The chiptune soundtrack is upbeat and fun to listen to. Some of the imagery is bizarre, like enemies that are just the word OBEY, or which have stop signs for heads, or rows of hearts shooting out of cannons. I wasn't surprised to learn that Cavanagh apparently took some inspiration from his dreams, and it gives the game a certain surreal vibe.

The main game itself is not long—I replayed it before writing this post and completed it in under two hours, but that's with already having played it before, being familiar with the puzzles, and having practiced some levels a lot in the time trial mode. That's just one of the goodies that you can unlock after beating the game, including flip mode (flips the entire game vertically), minigames, and a level editor, so there's quite a bit of replayability. The UI of the level editor could be a little more intuitive, but it's still nice to have, and trying it out gave me an even greater appreciation for the game's level design and how finely calibrated its difficulty is, realizing how easy it is to create puzzles that are either way too simple or practically impossible.

I like this game a lot and I come back to it every once in a while. I think it's a bargain at $4.99 USD and I'd recommend it for anyone who's into puzzle platformers.

Accessibility notes: Several accessibility options are provided, including invincibility mode, a range of slowdown modes, and the ability to turn off various flashing/distracting graphical elements.