I absolutely fell in love with VVVVVV when I grabbed my first Humble Bundle for PC and despite never completing it, it became my number one favourite indie game of all time. So when I saw the game had been ported to Android I was over the moon, I just had to buy it. At first I was a little scared that the game would be a bad, laggy port with terrible controls, but in the hands of Terry Cavanagh who has ported several games like Super Hexagon and being at the price point of $3.59 I felt quite safe. And that faith in him paid off.
Port Quality
Now for all of you wondering if it is any good compared to the PC version, it is exactly the same (apart from building of custom maps), if not better. The performance of the port was simply amazing. Running the game on my stock Nexus 5 has no graphics downgrade, they are still retro, beautiful and most importantly still trippy to the point that it confuses the you more as you attempt to focus on what is on the screen. I have had no drop in frame rate and no lag, even when in a busy screen jumping from top to bottom. The gameplay has been left alone, meaning that the entire PC game is still in the game. From the checkpoints to the bouncing walls, you name it, it remains in there, even the rage.
The controls are always a big part of a port from console or PC to Android, and they scared me a little, forcing me not to play until I realised that I could change the control scheme to a class d-pad and touch anywhere else to flip gravity. This was only my favourite control scheme, however there were two more:
- Swipe: Swipe on the left side of the screen to move and tap on the right side to move
- Sides: Touch the left or right edges to move, touch both edges together to flip
- D-Pad (The One stated above): Use the virtual buttons to move, tap anywhere else to flip
Swipe and Sides were extremely awkward for me and very ineffective, so I went with the tranditional D-Pad which was perfect, and in parts better than the PC in my experience. But everyone will differ, so play around with the different control schemes until you find the one that works for you.
Altogether the Port was a best case scenario, as it was almost better than the PC version, although you may have not so good performance on a slower or older phone compared to the Nexus 5.
Gameplay and Storyline
The storyline isn’t terribly complex. You play Viridian, a starship captain, everything is going normally on your ship until it’s pulled into an alternate dimension. After escaping the ship in a teleporter, the captain becomes separated from his 5 man crew, which presents the games main objective – to save your 5 crew members (whose names also start with ‘V’, hence the name of the game), fix the dimension and then escape it.
The gameplay is where this game shines. It’s a key mechanic, is the ability to flip your own gravity field on and off, you flip up to the ceiling or back down to the floor at will. The gravity flip is what the entire game is based on, but it doesn’t get old as it is used to solve many other problems involving other mechanics. The other mechanics are broken into missions, or rather crew members which you have to save. One of these, the most frustrating is the cliché ‘racing the screen’, but is done extremely well as the other mechanics are incorporated, despite being the most dull of the mechanics. The trampoline mechanic is the most interesting, which involves flipping your own gravity, and removing your power from when you flip or fall.
And if you get bored with the difficulty with the game and/or finish it the developer has given us many other things to achieve in the game, which include:
- Flipping the screen to give the game one more play through
- One death mode, which allows you one death in the entire game
- Time Trials
- Custom Created maps (By players on PC, you cannot at this point make them on Android to my knowledge)
- The Gravitron (one mission in the game which I won’t spoil for you, however is also available for a separate download for free)
- 20 collectible ‘shiny trickets,’ which will and an extra few hours of raging to the game
Conclusion
VVVVVV isan amazing PC game with what I found to be an amazing Android port, what more could you ask for? With good controls, no lag, an amazing soundtrack which is extremely diverse, a simple, yet engaging storyline and intriguing gameplay mechanics VVVVVV for Android is a very enjoyable game, even when raging. Should I buy it? It took me 3 hours and 32 minutes to complete the game, with 9 shiny trinkets (going back for some). Well the game provides enough gameplay, as well as replayability to justify the $3.59.
I had 6268 flips and 2148 deaths, my hardest room was ‘The Gravitron’ with 133 deaths, what were your end game stats?
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