Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Super VVVVVVboy

By Alec Meer on October 25th, 2010 at 5:09 pm.

I tried to pick a middleground between teasing and spoiling

The following, a conceptual reworking of Terry Cavanagh’s splendid/monstrous hyperdeath platformer VVVVVV is not a real game. By criminy, you’re going to wish it was.

Cripes. The polar opposite of that demake the other day, huh?

Alas, VVVVVVx, for that is this project’s name, is purely a proof-of-concept Maya mock-up created by a talented Earthling known as Roxfox – but is there a reason it couldn’t happen, with time, money and powerful brainwaves?

I have no idea if playing this theoretical game would even be possible, but I would absolutely love to try. I also love Marmite-flavoured Mini Cheddars, but they don’t exist either. At least, not anymore.

Not anymore.

Sigh.

Oops, sorry about that. VVVVVVx: amazing! Make it, someone, please.

(Thanks, SpaceDrake).

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47 Comments »

  1. 25/10/2010 at 17:15 Rich says:

    Good grief that game would be mind bending. 10 minutes and my throat would be bleeding for all the screamed swearing.

  2. 25/10/2010 at 17:16 Fenring says:

    Seeing this brightened up my day. Great stuff. Not sure if I could face playing it, but then it hasn’t been long since I finished VVVVVV.

  3. 25/10/2010 at 17:23 Nova says:

    Interesting, but I don’t think it would work as well as VVVVVV. The genius of that was the simplicity and the “complexity” it derived from that.

    • 25/10/2010 at 17:35 Manley Pointer says:

      Yeah, it’s a cool demonstration, but in practice I think it would just show that some 2D concepts really don’t translate into 3D.

    • 25/10/2010 at 19:42 apa says:

      Now there would be a reason for people to actually get those 3D screens and goggles! 3D wouldn’t be just a gimmick but instead a requirement to be able to actually play it.

    • 25/10/2010 at 20:44 Noc says:

      I think it’d work, but not with the standard Third Person Chase Cam they’ve got there. But a Rubiks’ Cube style camera that lets you flip between cardinal directions should do the trick. It might need to be orthographic, too, for purposes of precision.

      The result would essentially the original game plus a spatial puzzle element.

    • 25/10/2010 at 23:19 Matt says:

      VVVVVVFez?

  4. 25/10/2010 at 17:24 Navagon says:

    This would have been great. Imagine experiencing your mind breaking in three directions at once!

  5. 25/10/2010 at 17:29 westyfield says:

    It looks mad bastard hard.

  6. 25/10/2010 at 17:31 mlaskus says:

    This is incredible, and curse you Alec Meer! Now I will have to go through VVVVVV again!

  7. 25/10/2010 at 17:33 Tei says:

    It looks like Mario Galaxy to me.

  8. 25/10/2010 at 17:36 hyperactiveChipmunk says:

    CFG time!

    V -> ‘V’
    V -> VV
    V
    Vx

  9. 25/10/2010 at 17:42 mpk says:

    That music reminds me of Streetfighter II.

  10. 25/10/2010 at 17:43 jon_hill987 says:

    The thing that really grabbed me in this article was “Marmite-flavoured Mini Cheddars”. I need some now and they don’t exist.

  11. 25/10/2010 at 17:59 James G says:

    I’d love to see a playable POC of this. It looks fantastic, but as others have said, this doesn’t necessarily translate into working well in practice. Pretty sure I’d suck at it though.

    Thinking about it, I wonder if this is something that would work best if it were just four buttons, and the character autoran. Obviously it would restrict level design, and would result in a more arcadey feel, but part of me thinks that would work better than a direct 2D to 3D adaptation. I almost certainly think you want to limit the player to back/forward, even if you end up autoturning them at corners.

    • 25/10/2010 at 21:22 Jeremy says:

      Shoot, I wrote my thoughts before seeing this. I definitely agree that forward / backward would be the best way to translate into 3D. A game like this, or Super Meat Boy or whatever else is only fun because of the precision of the controls. If you lose that precision and move into a more fluid Mario style of 3D movement, the dying becomes ragequit material.

  12. 25/10/2010 at 18:04 Simon says:

    Oh god, Veni Vidi Vici and Not As I Do in 3D…

  13. 25/10/2010 at 18:05 bhlaab says:

    I could see it working if they forced a gamepad, but with kb+m I’m not sure it would be controllable.

  14. 25/10/2010 at 18:13 Delusibeta says:

    Incidentally, GetGames is selling the original VVVVVV for the princely sum of £3.20. http://www.getgamesgo.com/catalogue/game/vvvvvv

  15. 25/10/2010 at 18:24 bbot says:

    VVVVVV notably had only gravity reversal, and no jumping at all. This clearly had some jumping, (90 degree gravity rotation which flipped the character from the center of one platform to the center of another) which would complicate things even further.

    This would be an interesting 3D display tech demo, since it would be an absolute bastard to play without being able to judge distances.

  16. 25/10/2010 at 18:38 Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive says:

    Don’t believe the hype.

  17. 25/10/2010 at 19:09 Deostr says:

    All I could think of when It reached the 4 walls 3d part is this game.

    http://www.kongregate.com/games/player_03/run?tab=achievements

    So it is possible for something along those lines to be played, I just don’t know if it would be a proper direction for VVVVVV

  18. 25/10/2010 at 19:24 deMarco says:

    Just imagine the Veni Vidi Vici shiny in 3D… I’m already angry, and it doesn’t even exist!

  19. 25/10/2010 at 19:43 Nick says:

    Why must you remind me of marmite mini-cheddars? =(

    Still, the mature cheddar ones are almost as nice.. if you can find them. Also marmite roasted cashew nuts are pretty damn good.

  20. 25/10/2010 at 20:26 geldonyetich says:

    Not that I haven’t seen enough 3D platformers to know that such a concept would be easy enough to realize.

  21. 25/10/2010 at 21:04 Koozer says:

    You know what I like? Tomato flavour Quavers and Dandelion & Burdock. Neither of these things exist within the discernible area.

  22. 25/10/2010 at 21:06 Koozer says:

    Also, this is missing the most vital part of 3D platformers, even if it is only a mock-up: a shadow.

  23. 25/10/2010 at 21:15 Jeremy says:

    Honestly, I think an Xbox controller would be an ideal way to play a game like this. Two joysticks would be ideal, and I don’t think you would need to free roam on the 3D surfaces. Just center the player on each platform, otherwise flippity flipping on moving platforms would be in the “no fun” category of difficulty in 3D.

  24. 25/10/2010 at 21:23 TeeJay says:

    “Tony Hawke Pro Skater … In Space”

    • 26/10/2010 at 04:36 Sam Crisp says:

      I’m pretty sure there was a level like that. Although you didn’t circumnavigate objects in space, it was just a normal level but with low gravity.

  25. 25/10/2010 at 21:25 Shadram says:

    It could work with a simple enough control scheme. Maybe something like Space Bar to run forward (allows more control than auto-run), and the arrow keys to flip gravity directions. You’d probably want some basic camera control, just to look in the 4 directions. I don’t think you’d even need a “run backwards” button if the levels were designed around not having one.

    • 25/10/2010 at 21:27 Shadram says:

      Or, as mentioned above, a 360 controller would work great. The Dpad or left stick to flip gravity, right stick for camera control and trigger to run forwards.

  26. 25/10/2010 at 22:06 Dee says:

    There was a UT2k4 mutator that let you do this. Each player had full control over which way was “down” for them. Sadly I never got to try it with a friend, but it was pretty awesome just with bots (who didn’t use it).
    Control was easy too, you just held down your “gravity” button, and moved the mouse to rotate yourself.

  27. 26/10/2010 at 10:42 Melf_Himself says:

    “Marmite-flavoured Mini Cheddars”

    I have no idea what that is, but I wonder if it’s similar to this:

    http://www.vegemite.com.au/vegemite/page?siteid=vegemite-prd&locale=auen1&PagecRef=758

    You may be able to get this mailed to you from some Aussie with too much time on their hands (me, if you ask nicely :p).

  28. 29/12/2010 at 23:36 Omega RKB says:

    I could see this working in 3D, the controls wouldn’t be TOO much of a problem:

    Space – Flip the gravity in terms of the world’s Y axis (in terms of your current position)
    W / S – Spin the world 90 degrees around it’s Z axis (in terms of your current position)
    A / D – Spin the world 90 degrees around it’s X axis (in terms of your current position)

    I / K (or Up / Down) – Move forward / backward
    J / L (or Left / Right) – Move left / right

    See, easy?

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