Big news, guys! I’m launching a MASSIVE update to VVVVVV today, as part of the new Humble Indie Bundle! This is a complete rewrite of the game to C++, making it run faster and better on Windows, Mac, and, finally, on Linux!

But even more than that: there’s now also a level editor in the game! I’m really excited about this – it’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since launch last year. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working flat out, trying to make this as powerful and simple to use as possible, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what people do with it.

While working on the editor, I sent early versions to a few friends and asked them to have a go at making something with it. Everyone came through big time; I’m totally blown away at what they came up with! Those ten levels are included with the new version. Let me tell you a bit about them (and the people that made em):


Robson: Pyramid of Doom

Robson is the creator of YYYYYY, an awesome ASCII demake of VVVVVV which I loved to bits. His level is an extremely cool themed world called “Pyramid of Doom”, which incidently is one of the easier levels in the pack, so it might be a good place to start if your VVVVVV skills are rusty…


Jonathan Whiting: Vertiginous Viridian

Jonathan Whiting is the indie developer responsible for Stalwart, Love Letter, Crushd and Jed, among many other games. I’m a big fan of his level design! He frequently attends the jams we hold in Cambridge, and was one of the first people I thought of for this. His level, “Vertiginous Viridian”, does some really clever things and explores some very interesting level ideas!



Magnus PÁ¥lsson
: Dual Challenge and A New Dimension

Magnus PÁ¥lsson, aka Souleye, is the musician for VVVVVV! I’m really impressed with his levels for this – he made two, “Dual Challenge” and “A New Dimension“, and it’s clear he really put his heart and soul into them. I love these levels because they feel like his music – in that they’re saturated with ideas and little details and care. His “New Dimension” level is also by far the biggest of the pack, occupying a very good chunk of a 20×20 map!

(Incidently, Magnus’ levels are the only ones of the pack to use scripting, which unfortunately wasn’t implemented in time for other people to use it.)



Craig Forrester
: Variation Venture

Craig Forrester, aka Ishi, is a UK indie developer and also attends the jams here in Cambridge. He’s the creator of the awesome Xbox Indies title Upbot Goes Up, as well as Johnny Platform’s Biscuit Romp and the awesome two player platformer Treasure Treasure. His level is “Variation Venture”, and is a short adventure divided into four parts around a central hub!



Roger Svanlund
: Line Wrap, Roadtrip to the Moon, and Golden Spiral

You might know Roger Svanlund, aka Rox as the creator of that super cool 3D mockup video VVVVVVX! Rox made not one, but three levels for the new version of the game! My favourite of his is “Line Wrap”, which is a great looking themed level that does some clever things with wraping rooms. He also made “Roadtrip to the Moon”, and “Golden Spiral”, which is without a doubt the trickiest level of the ten!



Whirligig
: Variety Show

Whirligig is the creator of the other ASCII demake of VVVVVV, titled CCCCCCCCCC. It’s a really clever and well put together game, that, like Robson’s YYYYYY, brings lots of it’s own ideas to expand the basic concept of the game. His level, “Variety Show”, is a bit like his levels from CCCCCCCCCC, with big open rooms.



Notch
: VVVV 4k

I’m sure Notch needs no introduction, but here’s one anyway – Notch is the creator of Minecraft, one of my favourite games. He’s also a frequent partipant in online coding contests like Ludum Dare and Java4k. To some of you, his level, “VVVV 4k” might be familar! This is a port of his awesome 4k demake of VVVVVV for last year’s Java 4k contest.

As for a new level of my own? Stay tuned 🙂

If you bought VVVVVV directly from me, you should very soon receive an email with a new download link! If you got it on Steam, it should be updated automatically there very shortly too. Unfortunately the Mac App Store will take a little longer as it needs to go through the approval process. But if you bought the game there (or anywhere else) and want to download the new version, get in touch and I’ll send you a link 🙂

If you wanna get started making levels, I’ve posted a short tutorial on my forums! Incidentally, my forums are the place to post and find new levels. 🙂

One last thing: I’d like to thank everyone involved for making this happen – everyone above who worked on levels packaged with this version, John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen for organising the bundle, and in particular, Simon Roth, who created the C++ port, and tirelessly worked long nights with me to get this version of the game ready for the launch.

Thanks everyone 🙂 Hope you enjoy the new version of VVVVVV!

117 thoughts on “VVVVVV version 2.0 launches in the new Humble Indie Bundle”
  1. This -once again- look utterly amazing. Can’t wait to try the level editor and that’s why it seems I’ll have to also grab the humble bundle.

    Keep up the excellent work!

  2. I tried it out last night on OSX 10.6.8 and it’s fine here. I suspect it’s built with the latest version of the SDK with support for 10.4 removed.

  3. Where are the save files located now? I was under the impression that they had been moved to the app directory (portable VVVVVV would be sweet!) but they aren’t. At least I would like to backup the save files myself, but I can’t find them. Help?

  4. Sorry Terry, but i think its not too cool, not to tell people right away, that it doesnt work with mac osx 10.4 next time you could write beside the download button (for mac osx 10.5 ) :-/

  5. wow I just love your game .. I bought 3 time I guess lol steam, kongregate and humble bundle 😛
    keep updating it with new levels please 😀

  6. Doesn’t seem to run on MacOS X 10.5.8 either – as above, I guess it’s only compiled for 10.6 up? Luckily I’m buying a new laptop in a couple of days so I’ll be able to play this! One of my all time favourite games.

  7. Bought it for the third time. First trough the website then I had to have it on steam and now I bought the humble bundle so that’s #3. Can’t wait to find the new levels in the menu on steam.

  8. @leigh they are in your documents folder.

    For users on 1.5 who are getting start-up crashes and 1.4 users (who I believe it doesn’t work for at all) I am currently putting together a special version for you. I can’t give an ETA but we will hopefully have it working on all Intel macs soon. 🙂

  9. Someone mentioned Kongregate, but I got it on Steam – it’s version 1.2, and it’s not updating – how do I sort it out?

  10. Should tell you I bought this through the Humble Indie Bundle and absolutely love it. I’ll be upgrading my donation soon. Hope you don’t mind sharing money with EFF. D: I feel it deserves an equal chunk because it affects me just as much.

  11. How big is the new version? I’ve uninstalled VVVVVV on Steam and have been waiting for the new version to be approved and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the same size as the original (42 mb).

  12. Awesome! Lack of long-term ‘life’ in the form of something like a level editor was one of the things I thought this game was sorely missing. Now if Steam would only push it through finally…

  13. Steam’s update seems to have deleted all my progress in the game. Is anyone else having this problem. Not a huge deal for me, but it might be for others.

  14. Would you believe yesterday I fired up to play the new version and saw that my save game was gone. So I started again, played through the whole game again and only then noticed it was still v1.2! aagagagahhhh!

    So now steam pushes the update and I have to do it all again! Not to worry, I love playing the game, but my sweet sweet, impossible to replicate, 24 seconds on the super graviton is gone forever. Nooooooo.

    Good to see someone is working on a commodore 64 port!

  15. So where is my old save file then? I got it in the humble bundle and poured blood sweat and tears into finishing it (I leapt for joy when I finished Vini Vidi Vici), but steam must have downloaded the patch while I was playing.I just want to make sure it’s there so that when the saves to get exported to v2.0 I can pick up from there.

  16. Loving the new levels!

    Is it possible to save the game while in the new levels? Actually I’ll rephrase that – it allows me to save the game but I can’t see any way to continue the saved game later.

  17. Hi Terry!
    First of all, awesome game. Second, would you ever implement Steam features, like Cloud Savegames and Achievements. It would be cool. Thanks.

  18. thanks for the updated release.

    The inclusion of an analog TV filter made things even more difficult and eye distracting.

    Though I’d like to have the option for the blur filter like in the previous version

    Makes the game somehow better looking and smoother on a netbook I use but it is more a matter of personal preference

  19. Actually just access to all music used in all the included levels would be nice, not just Magnus PÁ¥lsson’s levels. The current Juke Box lacks them :/

  20. Since downloading Humble Bundle 3, I have been really enjoying VVVVVV. I think it is my favorite game from the bundle, actually!

    Do you think it will be possible to create a mobile version of VVVVVV, now that it is written in C ? Going to webOS or maybe iOS shouldn’t be too difficult, if it is written with SDL.

  21. I’ve had a few instances where i’ve bugged out and start rising/falling through the walls on the new levels, always on the edge of the screen. Most noticeably on souleye’s. Can’t tell you much more about what was happening as it was all a bit crazy! One place where it definitely happened was at the start of the gravitron part of that level, on the left side of the first screen to the right. In the end i can spam space bar and get out, but i was in a totally different part of the map so had to restart.

    Apart from that, love love love the new release. Great job and thanks for giving us original purchasers the download as well 🙂

  22. Loved the update 2.0! Will you keep on making new updates? :DDDD
    Can’t stop playing VVVVVV, creating lots of maps and having tons of fun 😀
    I’m gonna buy VVVVVV for gifting it to my friend!

  23. wow, just wow!!! thanks a lot Terry for this great free update, and now I can play on linux too!
    I too was a bit disappointed my progress was lost (I’m not sure my body can take another run at veni vidi vici ;)) but I’m understanding you are working on a conversion tool, you’re the best!

  24. Excellent, excellent, excellent stuff.

    …a couple of issues though. Firstly, I can’t figure out how to save my game on the new levels. If I press ‘esc’ I only get options to quit or continue playing. It’s a bit frustrating as some of the new levels are too big for me to want to attempt them in a single sitting.

    Secondly (on a Mac) I can press CMD-F to go into full screen mode, but if I press it again to return to windowed mode my mouse pointer is gone, and it seems the only way to get it back is to quit the game. It would be nicer, too, if full screen was a menu option, because it’s not obvious that it exists at all unless you happen to try the keyboard shortcut.

    Many thanks again for your continued above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty level of support for this game.

  25. Please make a Mac version of the save exporter!

    Also, the Analogue Mode doesn’t seem to do anything. Does it need to be unlocked?

  26. Analogue mode crashed OSX Lion, which was released just a few days before the bundle launched – we didn’t have time to fix it, so we had to take it out last minute 🙁

    Simon is working on a save exporter that should hopefully work on mac!

  27. Hey, the level editor is neat and all… but it seems to be missing something. A delete object/mode! As far as I can tell, once a teleporter or enemy is placed, there’s no removing it from the level, and the only way to get rid of platforms is to place backdrops over them!

  28. D’oh – it’s enter to go into the menu that lets you save – it’s been too long since I played the main game, so I’d forgotten that.

  29. It’s not just the saved games, it’s the player levels. They need to be somewhere accessible, and the application support directory is hidden away on OSX Lion.

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