VVVVVV

VVVVVV is a game that hates your thumbs but loves your persistence. It’s a sugar-rush nightmare in monochrome pixels, a Commodore 64 fever dream where the jump button is replaced with a reality-warping gravity switch. You don’t hop, you invert, flipping Captain Viridian onto the ceiling to dodge spikes, wrangle precision jumps, and recover your equally unfortunate crew across a cold, digital labyrinth.

Developed by Terry Cavanagh, VVVVVV takes one good idea, “What if you fell up instead of jumping?”, and never lets go. No wall jumps. No double jumps. Just flip or don’t, and live with the consequences. Spoiler: most of the time, the consequences are death by spike, enemy, or sheer impatience.

And yet, dying is half the fun.

Death comes fast and often, but VVVVVV is merciful in its cruelty. Checkpoints are constant, sometimes hilariously so, like a room where you’ll respawn just to die again a second later. It’s a kind of rhythmic failure, like being stuck in an old-school platformer version of Groundhog Day, but with a killer chiptune soundtrack from Magnus Pålsson cheering you on.

Structurally, VVVVVV ditches the usual platformer trappings. There are no keys, no upgrades, no skill trees. Just you, your flip switch, and an open world to throw yourself at. It’s refreshingly pure, every obstacle is beatable from the jump (or rather, the lack of one). The challenge isn’t gear, it’s you, your sense of timing, your nerves, and your willingness to learn from 137 nearly identical deaths.

Visually, it’s aggressively minimalist, wearing its retro aesthetic like a badge of honor. Bright solid colors, strobing hazards, and player sprites that look like they’re auditioning for a ZX Spectrum reboot. It won’t win any beauty contests, but it’s not trying to. It’s here to test your reflexes, not your GPU.

And while later versions (like the 3DS port) threw in a few bells and whistles, bonus levels, new controls, a Notch-designed stage, the core remains unchanged: flip, die, repeat.