VVVVVV Goes Open Source For Its 10th Anniversary

Indie title VVVVVV, the minimalistic platformer created by Terry Cavanagh, reached its tenth anniversary earlier this week. To mark the occasion, Cavanagh announced on his blog that he was releasing the source code for the game for others to do as they pleased.

Here’s his message for the anniversary below:

Today is the 10th anniversary of VVVVVV’s release!

Or possibly tomorrow is, depending on who you ask – technically, the game first went live at 3am GMT on the 11th January 2010, after a very, very long day of fixing every last bug I could, making last minute builds, and trying to slowly upload everything on an extremely unreliable internet connection that kept cutting out. But I’ve always gone by “it’s not tomorrow until you wake up” rules, so I still think of January the 10th as the real launch day <3

Gosh, ten years.

VVVVVV is such an important game to me, I barely even know where to start. I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion: so, as of today, I’m releasing the game’s source code!

VVVVVV was first developed via Adobe Flash, before being ported to C++. The game has reached many platforms since then, including consoles like Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, as well as smartphones. It’s known for its gravity-switching mechanic that is explored increasingly throughout the game, and has earned a reputation as one of the de facto retro-inspired tough platforming games.

VVVVVV is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, and Android.