Philosopher George Santayana once wrote “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” The indie gaming scene proves, however, that those who remember history can repeat it most often and quite faithfully as well. Indie games in the past few years have grown at such a magnitude that the only way to accurately and fairly collect data on current trends is as such: a randomized 5×5 board, each with a common aspect of indie gaming.

While such a system has existed in the past, with many insights into the very cogs of that war machine we call indie gaming, I felt it would take a truly notable piece of software to awaken the bingo from its slumber. I didn’t have to wait long as Terry Cavanagh stepped up to the plate with the phonetically challenged VVVVVV. One look at it and you might get the impression that you’ve traveled back to the golden age of 1985, but VVVVVV quickly sets itself apart from games of yesteryear through its employment of chiptune music, constrained screen scrolling, brutal difficulty and a lack of any form of depth or ingenuity. VVVVVV is not so dissimilar to finding your old photo book, glancing through the pictures and reminiscing, then burying it for another 20 years. It’s a nostalgic experience, but sometimes you have to look at the same photo around 300 times before continuing to the next one, which has been flipped upside down and is rapidly changing colors. Then someone charges you fifteen dollars.

Overwrought metaphors aside, there’s almost something despicable about this game; the way it carefully emulates retro classics while inserting a gimmick presenting itself as new and innovative. The method in which it employs the most unnecessary and shallow “metroid-like” free-roaming environment in recent memory, seemingly just because it wasn’t indie enough already. Every screen, room title and spike pit reeks of indie, and yet at its heart it is merely a foul construct; an imitation. When historians look back to pinpoint the death of the independent spirit, coldly calculating machinations like VVVVVV will be the ones fingered.

But enough talk, let’s play Indie Gaming Bingo.

(more…)