The other day I acquired VVVVVV, an indie game that looks and plays similar to a Flash game, but Steam was having a special so it was only $2.50 and I’d heard good things about it so I bought it. Can’t beat a video game that costs less than a gallon of gas, right?

So anyways, this game is based around the rather gravity-defying gimmick of being able to switch between walking on the floor and walking on the ceiling. That might seem like a pretty simple gimmick, but you’d be surprised: this mechanic single-handedly turns the game from your typical retro platformer into a puzzle game that still somehow requires lightning-quick reflexes. Or you die. For the record, you die a lot in this game. Fortunately, the game designers were well aware of this, and you have unlimited lives and respawn near-instantly.

This brings me to my next point: each puzzle is neatly self-contained within either a single room, or a very small selection of rooms. So theoretically, if you have perfect reflexes, you can finish each puzzle within about five seconds. This is a delightfully evil tactic on the game designers’ parts, by the way, because the fact that you can see the end of every puzzle juuuuust out of reach, combined with unlimited lives and instant respawn on death, means that instead of getting frustrated and quitting, you’ll just keep trying, because it’s just RIGHT there and you’d might as well give it ONE MORE SHOT and then ONE MORE TRY and then JUST ONE MORE and then… yeah.

Anyways, combine some seriously catchy game mechanics with some seriously catchy chiptune music, and you’ve got yourself a game that you’ll quickly lose an hour or so to. It’s not particularly big and flashy or anything, but if you’ve got thirty minutes and want to lose your mind, this game is the way to go.