Vitellary Quest [v0.9, mildly buggy]

[uugr]

I figured I'd drop this here now, since all the cool kids are putting their contest levels on the forum for Exposure(TM) and, hey, I can just go back to update the file currently in here later, right?



Here is VITELLARY QUEST, the 1st place winner of round 2 of the VVVVVV Discord levelmaking contest! Features multiple playable characters, a fanonical prequel story explaining how Vitellary joined the D.S.S Souleye Crew, and two entirely original gameplay concepts no one (to my knowledge) has used before, all crammed into one dense 10x10 map filled with trinkets and scripting galore!



Read the RAVE REVIEWS (!!) from the judges of the round:

Alexia:
That was pretty good.
The gimmicks were cool, but based 100% on gameplay.
It's really, REALLY long, too.
I had to do it in two parts;
It seemed a bit too difficult at times.
Still, pretty solid level, 9/10
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shiny:
This level is amazing. The gameplay is just difficult enough to be engaging (sometimes its super difficult though), the gimmicks are unique, the story is wonderful. It reminds me of levels like dimension open that utilize the vanilla assets so well.
9.9/10
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coral:
-broken position scrip -500 points

Actually really good. I love it. I l o v    e   i  t. I really like the dynamic between Vermilion and Vitellary - it's hilarious. Only gripe is the occasional broken position scripts. There were pretty intense difficulty spikes for me in a couple of rooms, but I managed to power through them. I like how even though the level is focused on Vitellary, you still take the time to give the other characters some development as well. Really good mechanics with the manual gravity line shit.

9/10 make a sequal where they kidnap Victoria from her 3 by 3 foot house
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dav:
Typing as I play: Text box positions are off, because you used simplified scripting for much of the dialog, which causes cyan reply textboxes to always be above the yellow player, and yellow textboxes to be in the center. There's also a wall glitch if you exit Overzealus Reflexes below. The start of the final area (where there's "no turning back") really needs to checkpoint the player earlier - it's really easy to die the first time in that room (or more), since you don't know the room yet, and then you're brought all the way back to Docking Station, and have to remove the gravity lines in Vermilion's room again and such. The 1x1 crumbling platforms can be really hard to walk on, especially in the room "aBkc naF droht", and the amount of flashes in "LusciousFigLipsExpelIdiocraticAria ehLOL" is pretty annoying if you have to keep repeating the room.
So there are a few stretches which sometimes assume you'll be able to make it in one or two tries, and become frustrating to have to keep repeating, especially in the final level. But other than that: this level has a good size - you filled the entire 10x10 space with unique rooms, you had a lot of scripting - the player can even choose which area to go to with which character, and will get different dialog depending on which character goes to which area. And you had a script called applebapple, which greatly reassured and relaxed me.
8/10
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alek:
This is the only one I haven't beaten: I gave up on the Final Challenge. Though as the name implies that's very close to the end.

This level is sort of equal and opposite with shiny's: where that had lots of assets but vanilla gameplay, uugr's is light on custom assets but a tour de force of new mechanics. The enemy spawning zone especially has some truly WEIRD rooms, which is the best thing you can hope for in the context of an old-ish puzzle platformer. The spatial reasoning going on is excellent.

Unfortunately, this is bogged down a bit by some unreasonably precise rooms, particularly the aforementioned Final Challenge. The bit with the small gap with vertical gravity lines and enemies would be too much even with an adjacent checkpoint, let alone after an already-difficult section.

Also, don't base your story on my shitty level that became a meme. You're better than that.

But even this sour ending can't diminish what's overall one of the best-designed levels I've played. I love the trinket challenges where you speed up the enemies! And the bits where you have to untangle a room's knot by opening enemy gates! And dipping in and out of gravity line confines! The design is bursting with creativity and I'm really impressed that uugr was able to make so much at this level of quality within a strict deadline.
9/10

This current version is listed as '0.9' instead of '1.0' because, unfortunately, there are a couple of minor bugs, especially with the scripting, that I didn't have time to fix by the contest deadline. When I have the free time, I'll probably release an updated version. The current version is fully playable, there are just small issues with text box positions and such.

Download (with graphics) attached!

[Bruce Michez]

That was... absolutely brutal.  I think this is basically the new Dimension 333333, both in terms of ambition and difficulty.

I noticed that wasn't in this level at all.  Is that because Mysterious Planet is part of your chronology, taking place after this?

Also, I enjoyed deciphering the Morse code and binary numbers, even if the former turned out to be vulgar.

[uugr]

I'm going to take the Dimension 333333 thing as a compliment, so thank you!

If you collected multiple trinkets, there's a line in the ending about the crew needing another member to study them. I've never played Mysterious Planet, but if it's the story of Victoria joining the crew, then yeah, that or something similar is implied to happen after the events of the level.

I didn't expect anyone to actually bother deciphering some of those roomnames, honestly. I was less looking for "interesting hidden meaning" and more "something that fits the vvvvvv roomname limit", which is hard to do, especially with binary. Still, glad to hear it improved your experience, I guess.

[pixelator]

oh that's why you said not to suggest that someguy play the level