Soul Searching (v2.0)

[Martze]

This level is AWESOME but I'm stuck... how in the holy motherload of ASS are you supposed to get through Emergency Exit?  My god that room is a friggin' nightmare.  I might have to come back to this later...

This is one of the rooms I was worried about the difficulty of. I may make this easier, if I receive more complaints about it. It is the second-to-last room, though, so I don't want to make it too easy.

It's a bit tricky to describe how I do it. I tried to record a video, but fraps didn't pick up the game for whatever reason. If someone knows how to record this game properly, please let me know. But I'll try to describe it in text, for now.

Start at the checkpoint in "Ventus" and hold right until you reach "Emergency Exit." If you do that, I can guarantee the exact pixel Viridian will enter the screen at, and your timing will be the same as my timing.

After that, you bounce three times at the left edge of the screen, avoiding the shocks. You bounce off the top, the bottom, and then the top. It is after you make this last bounce and begin falling downwards that you make your attack. Not so fast that you hit the front of the wave of enemies, but fast enough that you go clear the upper-left-most shock and the end of the wave. It's tricky even like this, though, and usually takes me a couple of tries!

[Stampy]

I certainly wouldn't change anything to the enemy paths or the freezing things at all in Emergency Exit.  Just a checkpoint at the far end would be enough to make it that little bit easier.

[Martze]

v1.1 added a checkpoint after Emergency Exit that shouldn't be that hard to reach.

[xTwoTails]

Dear god that was BRUTAL.
Emergency Exit was by far the most difficult room I've ever seen so far.
You sure did put those shocks in places that we all will fall for.
Well thought, I also love the Shock squares, very original.

Even with your instructions, I still find it extremely difficult to pull through that one room.

[dinoquark]

I found a couple of minor (as in unlikely to be triggered by accident) bugs.

One is from goofing around on the floor in Tenderized Venison (which is easy to get to if you're persistent), might be hard to duplicate but I managed to get stuck: http://i.imgur.com/Fy4Cc.png

The second one (which I didn't manage to capture a good screenshot of) is from getting underneath the checkpoint platform in the room before Emergency Exit and jumping repeatedly to fall past the gravity inverter.  From here the player is stuck in THE TWILIGHT REALM BETWEEN SCREENS and can move left and right, it's possible trigger a ceiling checkpoint in the beginning area, and then get killed by the ceiling above the no flip zone. Respawning near the beginning and skipping Emergency Exit (but it was worth it! Dang Emergency Exit...)

[Martze]

All right. I've come to a decision.

I have released Version 1.2.

"Emergency Exit" has been reduced in difficulty. The wave is now two enemies shorter, and the shocks have been moved.

It isn't because anybody asked me to. Actually, nobody asked me. The thing is, I had no idea how hard the room was. I designed it, playtested it, and after moving a few shocks around, got it to the point where I could beat it maybe one of every three attempts, which seemed fair to me. I had no idea that it was nearly impossible unless it was approached in exactly the same way.

Dinoquark, you are a crazy good bugtester. I'm really glad for your help. I couldn't reproduce either of these, but I made some "invisible" changes that might help with them anyway.

[wally2069]

Tenderized Veal was definitely the toughest room. The timing was very strict. One suggestion might to be switch the right column with the left one. It might be a little less intimidating to make 2 single flips to get the hang of it before moving on.

The rest of the rooms were more than fair.

The shocks were very interesting. I loved the notion and it was easy to work with. Overall a fine way to combine existing resources into something fresh.

Good job!

[Psychopath]

There's a bug that is easily reproducible in Emergency Exit. Line yourself up with the two rightmost "shocks" that are vertically adjacent. The following events should go in this order: shock, death, respawn, shock again.

This is obviously not intended and is not present in the main VVVVVV storyline. However, this could prove to be a nuisance for level designers if they place a checkpoint prior to that in a location that requires immediate movement upon respawning (it also slows the pace of the game, which I found to be annoying).

That bug aside, it's a marvelously designed stage, I had some good fun playing through it. I was going to do a stage myself where all you had to do was save Captain Viridian but with a more surreal "You're inside your own brain and that is your subconscious" sort of thing. Seems that I was beaten to the punch, but oh well. The final line of yours did make me laugh a good amount; but does it qualify as masturbation or incest?

[dinoquark]

Awesome! Both those bugs I pointed out are fixed as far as I can tell. I died after getting under the elevator this time (how?! I don't see any spikes there in the level editor...) (the first one was probably just a fluke.. but I like the idea of killing cheeky players who break the elevator anyway  )

One minor stylistic thing I noticed playing through the new version.
These two blocks look out of place: http://i.imgur.com/8NXxc.png
Not sure if that was intentional or not 

[Arkatox]

I still need to play this, but congrats on the feature!

http://distractionware.com/blog/2011/08/featured-vvvvvv-level-soul-searching-by-martze/

[Psychopath]

One minor stylistic thing I noticed playing through the new version.
These two blocks look out of place: http://i.imgur.com/8NXxc.png
Not sure if that was intentional or not 

There are a few places that I've noticed that also have that. There's a few in Stupidity/Bravery (I forget the actual name).

Perhaps a little aesthetic polishing before 1.3 gets released could be in order.

[Martze]

@wally2069: "Tenderized Veal" isn't making everyone furious like the old "Emergency Exit" did, but I suppose everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and anyone whose weak point is timing will struggle with that one. I don't want anyone to get hung up on a single screen and find themselves unable to clear it, though, so I'll think about it for the next release.

@Psychopath: Not really something I could avoid, apart from spacing the shocks in a way that it is impossible to hit two at once. I call this a bug in VVVVVV itself, though not a major one. Thank you for your input, though.

@dinoquark: I suggest you try deleting the room name. The spikes and walls are hidden under there, just like in "You Can't Explain That."

I did not notice the oddity with those blocks. I can look into it in the next release.

Thanks to everyone else for their comments.

EDIT:

v1.1 and v1.2 were emergency fixes. I'll keep listening to your feedback, and as long as there are no major issues, I'm going to take it slow and make sure my next version is as good as I can make it before I release it.

[TheoX]

Rating #028
Enjoyment: 9/10
Aesthetics: 9/10
Novelty: 10/10
Difficulty: 7.5/10
Room Names: 9.5/10 (some were not named, which seemed incongruous)

OK, now that I beat this, I can give it a real rating, and let me tell you, this is about as close to a perfect score as I've given in my ratings.  I REALLY enjoyed this one, no wonder it got featured.  Pardon my language about the Emergency Exit, I was mimicking AVGN.  Glad you changed the room anyway, it still took me a bit of time to get past.

Rooms I liked:
"Vegetable Valley" - I liked how you kept the enemies in one spot.  Very nice look and feel to this room.
"VeeTube" - No words can express my amusement for this one...
"Vroom Vroom" - >>>THIS IS AWESOME<<<
"Doing Things the Easy Way" - I actually went up first... stupid me.  Clever.
"The Difference Between Brave and Stupid" - I liked how this had two meanings.  The one mentioned above, and the enemies up top, which I tried to go between... >_>
"You're Not Thinking V-Dimensionally" - again, clever.  And again, I tried the stupid way first...
I liked all the "twin" rooms too.  Very nice design; slick.

Rooms I think need improvement:
"Tenderized Veal" - I got through this fine, but I have a feeling that people worse at the game might get stuck here... a checkpoint wouldn't hurt.
"Sierpinski V" - the first time I played the level, I jumped up to the right and died... maybe put a checkpoint in this room?
"Demon Wall" - it is so damn hard to get into that warp point.  I counted how many times it took me to get on THIS playthrough: 32 tries.  I know it was harder the first time too.  Please give the player, like, one more block worth of space!

Very very very good.  I will definitely play this again.

Status: 100%'ed!

[Kadir]

The ending threw me a little.

This was a wonderful level.

[Martze]

I have released version 1.3, which is hopefully the last version. I didn't playtest it as extensively as any of the previous versions, though, so it probably shipped with a new batch of careless bugs. Bah.

I wasn't planning to do it at all until I started on my new level and realized that roomtext would have been the PERFECT way to indicate those checkpoints instead of the ugly Cs I made out of backing. I wasn't thinking straight when I came up with that one. So while I was going to the trouble of making a new version, I decided to round it out with the other requested features.

Tenderized Veal and Demon Wall have been made far easier.