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made another small update! the biggest thing here is it should fix the audio desync issues

another day, another small update! lots of fixes, notably a basic system for handling different fps options

small update! finally fixed the issues balneor reported lol, plus some other little things

new update! fixed a lot of small things that were bothering me, link & changelog in the first post

hey, i just released a small update for this! it fixes the music bug people have been talking about and also has a couple other small fixes. link & changelog in the first post!

im ride or die on that V key shit. it's ON BRAND

this RULED, i still need to think on this a lot to put coherent thoughts together but it hit rly hard

i wish good fortune upon you forever

you switch the tileset with F1. if the room is set to any tileset other than space station, it'll use tiles2 instead of tiles

for detox 2.0 i actually retimed the ending cutscenes to match up with 30+fps mode, so really if you're NOT on 30+fps mode it'll desync. im not totally sure how best to fix this issue, maybe i could add an option at the start to choose which mode you're on? unless it's detectable in which case i can just do that

the great updatening part 5? last year i started a project to make updates for all my levels (at least from before Levelmaking Sins) but i guess that didn't really happen. i might still get around to that, but for now here's a big update to detox! this is definitely the level i'm proudest of anyway, and now that this is out i can feel comfortable sharing it with people again.

the main thing added in this update is a new sequence in chapter 1 with dialogue that clarifies some stuff. not sure how to get more specific than that without spoilers. there's a tiny bit of new music too (also added to the soundtrack album), and an icon to make dialogue less confusing. so yeah!

this is a really impressive and polished level with lots of interesting level design ideas! definitely the best entry in the recent contest, which is saying a lot

[script1:]

sure, i can try to explain this! i'm assuming you have a basic understanding of how normal vvvvvv scripting works.

the flag commands are what we need here. you can make a script non-repeating by putting this simple code at the top:

Code Select Expand

ifflag(1,stop)
flag(1,on)
#your script goes here

the use of 1 and stop here is just for example. in practice, flags are global and persistent throughout your level, so you'll want to use different flag numbers in different scripts. and stop just needs to be any script name that doesn't exist. if you enter a script that really does exist, that'll be run the second time instead of doing nothing.

the big caveat here is, if you use this code with a script with dialogue boxes in it, you'll run into an issue! the game creates "cutscene bars" (the letterbox effect) at the start of any (simplified) script with dialogue commands in it. this is fine in most cases, but it'll cause a bug in our script: when the player returns to the script after having already triggered it, even though no dialogue shows up, the cutscene bars will appear and they won't go away. this can get very annoying, since the player has to keep navigating the level while these black bars are covering up part of the screen.

to work around this, if our script contains say or reply commands, we use a different method. create TWO scripts: script1, which is the one your script box is running, and script2, which isn't connected to any script box or terminal. then, we can do this:

script1:

Code Select Expand

ifflag(1,stop)
flag(1,on)
iftrinkets(0,script2)

script2:

Code Select Expand

#your script goes here

as before, script names and flag numbers are examples. troubleshooting tip: i think if script2 starts with a 'say' or 'reply' command right at the very beginning that can cause glitches? it's been a minute since i worked on a vvvvvv level but if doing that causes issues you can try adding a filler line at the start.

let me know if anything's unclear or confusing! i'm writing this at some ungodly hour lol, but i tried my best to make it make sense

the great updatening part 4. this level insists on having zero story whatsoever, and almost no dialogue. it's meant to be a simple, back-to-basics response to some elaborate levels that were coming out at the time. despite this, there's some flourishes that were new to me: it's my first level that used direct mode (mainly one-way tiles). it's even my first level to use internal scripting! it uses it only once, to surprise the player. having long forgotten about it now, and expecting there to be nothing like it here, it kinda felt like getting punched in the face lol.

now let's talk box checkpoints! these were originally used in 3 different rooms, in the Slightly Less Generic Laboratory Place zone. basically, most checkpoints have a set direction: up or down. these ones, though, have no set direction. so instead, whether you respawn flipped up or down depends on what direction the last checkpoint you hit was facing. if you spawn directly at one with no direction set, you end up in a weird glitchy state. i ended up removing 2 of these checkpoints in the initial release (or possibly 1.1?) for fear of this glitchy state. i started spreading the word: don't use box checkpoints!! if you save at one you softlock!!!

however, i hadn't tested this by actually loading a save, only by testing from the editor. when you save, vvvvvv will actually save your flip state at your checkpoint. this means the softlock described won't actually happen: you can save and reload on box checkpoints as much as you want. i sincerely apologize for the disastrous box checkpoint-related misinformation i spread in 2015.

also they don't have to be boxes at all. any sprite that isn't one of the default 2 will work. i just went with a box because it looked nice.

this level came out in 2015, but to be honest it kinda feels older than that. it is a deliberate throwback, though in truth this was the only type of level that i'd actually finished up to this point. i just liked simple levels with charmingly stilted humor. culturally, that era was defined by levels with lots of use of fancy internal scripting and oc characters. the biggest level of this type was Dimension Open, a real tour de force of a level. it has tons of zones, tons of cutscenes, and brings in ocs from many different levels. it's basically the avengers of uhh vvvvvv fanon. it was a big collab project, and i actually worked on it a bit! i don't remember what most of my contributions were tho.

it felt to me like you had to make this type of level to be prestigious. 000000 was my 2014 attempt at making something in this style, but i never finished it. it was frustrating how difficult it was to make, and my heart wasn't really in it. so i scrapped it and made Dimension SIMPLE instead. a defiant stand against the new school. for the next level, a collab with one other person, we'd make a level with (relatively) high production value that stuck out in an entirely new style of its own! that level, for better or for worse, is probably still the project im most known for, but it's a post for another day.



i had trouble fitting this into the main body of the post, but this era was also culturally marked by a lot of horrible toxicity in the community. lots of harassment, lots of 4chan neo nazi type shit. thankfully this atmosphere didn't leak into the level at all, and this thread is extremely tame, but there is still noticeably more rudeness going on than in my level threads from 2012 and 2013. i personally know two of the people in this thread and they're very much chill now, but yeah. not sure what else to say about this here but it sucked.

this post ran long! it turns out a lot of big shifts in design sensibilities happened from 2013 to 2015. it's funny that this, my first solo level after that span, stubbornly refuses to acknowledge these shifts. it is, perhaps, the least useful case study for this era possible. oh well lol

the great updatening part 3. this is a simple little level with an emphasis on spatial connectivity and a slightly confusing storyline about cloning. i feel like my philosophy abt these updates is already changing; i decided not to fix any typos or clips, and basically just present the level as it was (but without my old username, and with the map image i really wanted to include back then). the "early dware" aesthetic is still very clear here and i don't want to sully it lol.

in fact, im concerned enough about preservation that i just added back the older versions of this level, as well as "Stereodimensional" and "Double Trouble". much as i want to fix all these little things that have been bothering me for years, i don't want that to get in the way of good archiving.

this humble little level got over 400 downloads and an endorsement from terry! old dware man