By Terry
Last weekend, I was at the Eurogamer Expo in London, showing VVVVVV publicly for the first time! There’s a photo of big bearded me getting very worked up. It was pretty exciting stuff!
The show itself was a really amazing experience – I’d never been to a games expo before, let alone demo something at one. I met up with some really great people and played some brilliant games (the line up was phenomenal). A number of people at the event have written up summaries that you should check out – David Hayward, Mike Rose, Mike Nowak, and Rob Fearon (who I was gutted not to have met!).
This is the first time I got to see the game being played live, so I spent most of my time there hovering around and taking notes, chatting to the people who tried it out. While I’d gotten some feedback on the individual levels as I made them, it was really helpful to actually see where people where getting stuck, or lost, or overly frustrated. (though I have to admit I got a kind of sadistic pleasure when people got stuck in the really hard parts or decided to go for a shiny trinket!) I’ve gotten a lot of notes for little things to fix.
I couldn’t be happier with how the game was received. There were some people who didn’t really go for it at all, and that’s fine – I had one or two people pick up the controller and just give up at the first sign of any challenge. There’s no way I could make the game work for them without ruining it for everyone else.
But a few people really, really got into it. I expected with the whole setup of the event that players would give up when things started to get hard, but that didn’t happen at all. I had more than a few groups decide to tackle the hardest level right away, die dozens and dozens of times in the same room but persevere, pass the controller around and give each other suggestions on how to get past each bit. If anything, the hardest rooms really seemed to go down the best.
I’ve been getting back to work on VVVVVV this week at a less rushed pace. Should have more info soon!
Congrats Terry,
now stop hyping us and let us play it! =)
Excellent news! I’m not afraid of the difficulty, if is of the same magnitude of “Don’t look back”. Hope to play the game soon.
Hi,
I played VVVVVV at the Expo and I loved it but unfortunately didn’t get to say hello to you in person. I’ll look forward to getting my hands on the game!
Cheers, Ash.
Hi Terry,
Can’t wait to play VVVVVV now 🙂
Guillaume: DLB is a walk in the park compared to some challenges in VVVVVV. But in a different, good way!
If I make a second donation, will that be added to my previous donation when determining which of the donation targets I meet? I’ll probably donate again anyway, but it’d be good to know.
Can’t wait!
Wish I could’ve been there, but y’know, Canada and all… 🙂
~Josiah
I got to play VVVVVV at Leeds. Really enjoyed it.
Challenging enough that I got into the “I refuse to be beaten by this!” mindset without making me want to give up in frustration.
Best of luck to you at IGF!
Cheers all!
Josiah: Yeah, as excuses go that’s pretty good 🙂
Stephen: Yep, that’s fine – though if you just want beta access don’t worry about it, I’ll add you to the list!
Hurrah, I’m glad it went well. It looks like it was a blast, and I’m happy you enjoyed yourself. I can’t wait to play the game.
Hey man, I’m in total suspense… Can you say any more about current progress? It’s weird, for some games, the hype builds and then there’s this weird watershed point where you realise you’re not actually all that excited about it. That’s not the case with vvvvvv… Especially with the promise of cutscenes and cool Metroid-y elements that’ll tie the prototypes I’ve played together.
Just rambling, but would love to hear of any developments post Expo!
Hoping to post something later on when I get back from the library 😛 Keep an eye on your inbox!
Played this at the Expo. Was one of the highlights for me. Really made a change from the usual gumph re: L4D2, ASII etc etc.
I died 181 times at Vini alone and kept trying, but if there is one level i truly cant stand it’s Dial M for Murder (even though i only died a bunch of times instead of, say, over 200 as in the vini vidi vinci combo…).
I don’t even know how i got through that one, but it’s just frustrating…
[…] in 2009, I was fortunate enough to have VVVVVV displayed in the Eurogamer Expo’s Indie Games Arcade, something which stands out as a massive highlight for me as a game designer. Not only had I never […]