head to head

Rick Dangerous 2 cover artvsVVVVVV cover art

Rick Dangerous 2vsVVVVVV

Rick Dangerous 2 leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); VVVVVV leans Execution (Pure Mechanics).

EXECUTION8 /10READS0 /10VARIANCE1 /10OPTIMIZATION3 /10
Rick Dangerous 2VVVVVV

Axis by axis

Execution8 vs 9

VVVVVV leans harder on execution: Pixel-perfect gravity flips through spike gauntlets

Reads0 vs 0

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance1 vs 0

Rick Dangerous 2 leans harder on variance: minimal randomness, memorization-based

Optimization3 vs 3

Even - both lean on optimization about the same.

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Rick Dangerous 2

full breakdown

VVVVVV