jvgs: a minimalistic platform game

game screenshot

This game takes place in a world much like ours, which has started fading away. At a point where nearly everything has gone, a poet finds himself, alone in a strange world of danger. He starts a journey along the broken stream of thoughts that’s left.

“The constant flow of text throughout the game makes it very hard to put down (and I don’t even like poetry as a rule)…”
“I enjoyed the minimalist and obscure way the game is presented. For me it really appears as a work of art — something which computer games are normally not close to”

What

JVGS is a free, minimalistic platform game that runs on windows, mac, linux and most other obscure systems out there. Some elements are loosely based on xkcd. The Ghosts album by Nine Inch Nails was chosen as soundtrack.

Downloading & Running

You can download the lastest version of the game at the sourceforge mirrors. Windows users should extract the zip file and run jvgs.exe. Users of superior operating systems will find instructions in the README. For ArchLinux users, a AUR package is available.

Either case, do not forget to boost your audio volume to a maximum before playing.

Authors & Contact

The game was written by Jasper Van der Jeugt (me). I received help from Nickoli Vega, who wrote some of the poems and assisted in game design.

I’d be glad to hear comments, questions, criticism, feature requests and bugs. The easiest way to contact me is to mail me at or mention me at twitter.

The code is released under the WTFPL. You can find it here at github.