Messages

1

Modding / Re: Something like a sequel mod

« on: December 19, 2017, 07:41:19 pm »

still here 

I also still check on this thread every now and then... 

2

General / Re: Aquaria fanart [spoilers]

« on: July 30, 2013, 05:17:54 pm »

@Kein : Nice one!

3

Games / Re: Our Favorite Downloadable Games

« on: July 08, 2013, 01:25:58 am »

Yet another one for nostalgic gamers: OpenLieroX

   

Probably everyone knows Worms (released in 1995 for DOS).
Some might remember that there was a real-time Worms clone, called Liero (released in 1998 for DOS).

Well there's a cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux) sequel, called OpenLieroX (before it became an open-source project it was called "Liero Xtreme").
It's basically like Liero - only bigger, better, and much much crazier...  (oh, and it has online multi-player)

4

Games / Re: Our Favorite Downloadable Games

« on: July 07, 2013, 02:55:46 am »

OpenTTD

It's less "casual" than most of the other games that have been listed here, but it's freely downloadable to so it fits the thread description...



OpenTTD a free, open-source, improved reimplementation of the old "Transport Tycoon Deluxe (TTD)" game, for Windows/Mac/Linux.
Unfortunately it has a pretty steep learning curve (you will need to read tutorials on the wiki if you're completely new), but once you get to know it it becomes a perfectly good way to waste large amounts of time... 

You have to build transport networks (railroad, buses/trucks, airplanes, ships) to transport passengers and cargo between towns and industries - and, of course, make a profit and outperform your (human or AI) competitors.

You can build simple train routes: ...or make it more complex to optimize efficiency: ...or go completely nuts: (click for full size)

5

General / Re: Aquaria for Android available on HIB

« on: June 19, 2013, 12:58:50 am »

Here is some info regarding system requirements, and known supported/unsupported devices, for the Android version:
http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/1186935-humble-bundle-with-android-6---system-requirements

6

Modding / Re: Something like a sequel mod

« on: June 13, 2013, 12:08:38 pm »

Your shader is gonna cause a lot of motion sickness among players... 

Nice work though!

7

Modding / Re: Something like a sequel mod

« on: March 30, 2013, 12:24:47 am »

@False.Genesis
The walking animation is cool, but why can she jump so high/far now on land? It looks kinda unrealistic...

8

Modding / Re: translate aquarian

« on: March 14, 2013, 07:04:10 pm »

look out for gfx/aquarian.png and gfx/aquarian-alt.png. Rename the aquarian.png to something else and aquarian-alt.png to aquarian.png. After this, everything will be visible in bright readable letters.

The bright yellow letters are ugly though, it kind of ruins the atmosphere of the game.

As an alternative I've made a modified version of the original black-colored "aquarian.png", with English letters as small subscripts:


This thread provides yet another alternative, replacing the runes with ones that look similar to the original ones but at the same time also mimic their English counterparts:

9

General / Re: I am astonished this game is not more highly regarded.

« on: February 10, 2013, 08:58:05 pm »

Of all of the games I see being lauded, this one has been mysteriously absent.

I think that's just because it is already a few years old.
With so many new video games being made each year, the critics and media move on pretty quickly, especially in the case of Indie games.

At the time when Aquaria was released, it did get many positive reviews and even won the grand prize at the 2007 Independent Games Festival (IGF).

10

Modding / Re: Something like a sequel mod

« on: August 30, 2012, 04:09:54 pm »

Wow, this looks really promising.

^ Optimized for mega-widescreen

Is that a debug mode screenshot, or is it really possible to play the game on such a big resolution?
And won't that make it much easier, since you can see enemies from far away?

We're looking for entitiy, boss, zone, and story ideas, if you have any, please post!

This really depends on the general "setting" / "world" in which the story plays. Can you post some more info about that? In what major ways will it be different from the original Aquaria world?

If the various humanoid civilizations (Krotites, ...) are back to life, it would be possible to have a group of "people" as a boss fight, rather than only animal-like monsters or gods.

Another boss fight that I would find interesting, would be against a copy of Naija herself.
I.e. the anti-Naija would have the same energy form / beast form / shield song / etc. available as the protagonist and use them effectively (if this is even possible from a scripting point of view).
If time travel fits in with the story line, it could be a past or future version of Naija. Otherwise it could be part of a "dream" or something, or an "illusion", or whatever.

I also have some (not yet fully thought-out) ideas for classic Aquaria-like god/monster boss-fights. But sharing them would mean giving away the "trick" how to win the fight (i.e. it would contain SPOILERS in case they will actually make it into the mod), so maybe there is a less public channel more suitable for such discussions?

11

Modding / Re: Labyrinth Mod Released

« on: August 04, 2012, 08:12:09 pm »

The Ruhk egg:  I did want an egg to be available there, but the ruhk has to be killed to produce the egg, and without energy form I'm not sure that's possible.

I don't think I ever actually killed a ruhk in the original game. I just shot at it until it would flee and drop an egg. (In this mod, I simply jumped at it, which also successfully scared it away but did not cause it do drop the egg.) You might be right though that it is the damage you give to the ruhk, not the fact that you scare it away, which causes the egg to be dropped...

The Depths map:  One of the testers (@achurch) told me he had a great time setting it up in each area so that the enemies pretty much eliminated each other...

Beast form is your friend on this map - you can eat many of the enemies. 

Interesting... I didn't try either of those things very much while in that map. Might have to go back and give it another try...

The recipe room at the bottom of the Wheel map:  Well, yes, that is a bit "cheesy" or "leafy" or something!

Come to think of it, the original game has a similar spot:  In the north-eastern Kelp Forest map, there was a large rock at the center with a (somewhat hidden) cave inside in which you could get many many leaves and red bulbs, and outside of the cave, there was a cove with two jellyfish nearby, so you could go back and forth between the two similar to the room in this mod. Although, of course...

• you wouldn't get many eggs there - you'd have to travel to a completely different map (open waters) to restock on those
• the cave was more convoluted and a longer, so it would take longer to "harvest" all the ingredients
• there was no kitchen nearby
• there were several enemies right outside of the cave, which would respawn each time as well... so you'd have to be more careful (although the sea dragon could actually be seen as part of the food-restocking system, as he was afaik the only way other than song plants to get a special bulb  )

On the other hand, there were additionally some fish swarms nearby for meat and oil.

I just like to make food

So do I, which you can probably deduce from my own contribution to the Aquaria community... 

12

Modding / Re: Labyrinth Mod Released

« on: August 01, 2012, 04:49:49 am »

Hey, I also completed this mod now, and wanted to leave some comments.

First of all, thanks for creating it... I really enjoyed it!

As for the above discussion about the intro map enemies being too difficult, I disagree. I found it quite easy to simply swim and jump around in such a way that they could not hit me. (And I don't even consider myself a good player...) Yes, swordfish can be annoying, but you can easily see when they're going to jump at you (they stand still for a second or so right before), so that's when you know that you need to dodge. Sharks aren't all that difficult, as long as you don't stay in the same horizontal line as them. And the giant wurms can be intimidating, but since you're faster than them I don't see the problem. (Also, once you find the bind song, you can fight them by dropping stones on their heads...  )

Aristobulus, is it possible that due to the original game you had become so accustomed to energy form that you had forgotten how to survive by simply dodging stuff?  
Also, if you're having trouble here, wait until you reach the "Depths" map (see below)...  

I do agree that the anemones can pose a challenge though. The first time I jumped off that cliff into the unknown, I landed right on the anemones, and got bounced off of them (without being able to do anything about it) ... right into some more anemones. Outch.

Anyways, the feedback I wanted to give about this mod:

1) What I especially liked

• Naijas's home. It's small and cozy, and actually feels like a home. In the original game, I was always annoyed by how big the home cave was - especially with all the extra rooms (or should I say halls) that got unlocked as you advanced in the game - and the treasures got spread out over all this vast space, which denied the player the satisfaction of seeing an overview of all found treasures close together. Not so in this mod.
   
• The "Rapids" map. I thought this was a really innovative and fun puzzle. And thanks to the strong currents and wormholes, each "try" through it was relatively quick, so it didn't become obnoxious to do many tries.
  (Although I am wondering whether I missed anything useful, since one time I ended up in a dead-end that had a song plant, so maybe there were more songplants or costumes there that I missed?)
   
• The "Strange" map. This was simply awesome. Beautiful graphics, lots of fun jumping opportunities, an abundance of strange "fish" (they dropped fish meat and oil, so I think I can call them that...  ), and an interesting boss fight (where it's not immediately clear how you can even have a chance to defeat him, but once you figure it out it's quite doable). Also, this map really put the fun in wearing the Urchin costume (which I never found much use for in the original game)...
   
• The zoom spots in the main "Wheel" map. Great idea, and well executed.
   
• The background graphics in the "Pearlmine" map. Various places in this map gave a really cool "depth" feeling, like you're actually in a big 3D world. No place in the original game achieved that so well.

2) What I found (positively) surprising

• Ok, this is not so much about the game itself but rather about my experience with it. When I first started exploring the central "Wheel" map, I thought I would never be able to find my way around it, and it would be one long, tiring journey of trial and error 'til the end. But by the end of the mod, I suddenly realized I had come to "know" that area quite naturally and could quite accurately find my way to specific points of interest without even putting much thought into it. A rather nice learning experience...

3) What I found a little irritating

• The rukh nest in the intro map - because it did not leave a "rukh egg" ingredient like the two rukh nests in the main game do...  
   
• The section in the main "Wheel" map that was filled with Nudibranchs. Ok, maybe I'm simply angry at myself because for some reason it took me quite some time (and several deaths) to solve that "puzzle". But even once I had figured out how to do it, it was a tedious  task to actually execute (a long way of swimming back to various earlier points, and returning) . Couldn't that puzzle have been more locally confined? I.e. only a short tunnel section filled with Nudibranchs, with both sides of it easily reachable without having to swim for 10 Minutes (accounting for getting lost along the way)?
   
• The Octopus boss fight. In most boss fights in Aquaria you 1. need to figure out how you can damage him, 2. plan how exactly your'e going move and what steps you're going to take (e.g. jump back and forth between specific spots, swim around him in a specific direction, damage him at very specific times etc.), and 3. execute it three or so times until he gets mad, then 4. blast his eyes. If you didn't follow your well-planned steps for how to move/act, you would usually get killed fast. If you did, you would win.
  In this mod's octopus fight, on the other hand, I couldn't figure out any such steps - the octopus simply moved around and used his weapons too erratically. On the other hand, he seemed to have much fewer hit points and would do less damage with his lasers then the Aquaria-bosses. So it degenerated into just a messy close-range hustle between me, my bound rock, and the octopus - with me simply accepting his laser damage and offsetting it with health recipes. When he died, it just wasn't the same feeling of satisfaction as after a carefully planned and successfully executed Aquaria boss kill.

4) What I found a little irritating, but in a way also kind of fun  

• The "Depths" map.
  The sheer number of nasty enemies in this map was just... crazy :-) I found it completely impossible to do any systematic exploration of the map - I became so preoccupied with dodging missiles and running from predators that I pretty much lost my sense of space and just jumped across caves, tunnels and wormholes aimlessly (often ending up in the same spot repeatedly)... When I came across an energy shot door and associated "ball", I was actually beginning to think I had made a mistake and should have found energy form before entering this map... It took quite few more minutes of frantic swimming around before I reached a savepoint, and yet more before I at last found the "magic wormhole chamber" that would allow me to solve the map...
  (Btw, once I had energy form, I systematically cleaned out the whole map, leaving no monster alive, just out of revenge...  (ok, also for the song plants))

5) What I found a little cheesy

• The "recipe refill" room at the bottom of the "Wheel" map.
  You could just go back and forth between that room and the jelly fish room right outside it, and they would both restock everytime so you could easily get as many leafs, eggs, red bulbs, jelly oil, etc. as you want. The kitchen was also near, making it possible to make full use of those ingredients... Of course I couldn't resist (I even took a trip back to the "Strange" map, to stock up on meat and oil (and recipes based on them), just so I could make use of all those leaves and eggs...) but in retrospect it made the game a little cheesy.
   
• The last boss fight (after getting energy shot).
  Maybe I am myself to blame (for having stacked up so many recipes), but this wasn't so much a fight, as it was me eating some Energy shot +2, Speed +2 and Regeneration +1 items, and then jumping around and continually hitting the [CTRL] button like crazy without much tactical consideration. After some time I got blinded (screen turned into rainbow spiral) - I don't even know what caused it, I guess I was hit by some projectile - and when the screen turned normal again, I noticed all enemies had already died in the meantime and I could stop hitting [CTRL]...  
  

Again, all things considered I really enjoyed playing this mod, so thanks again for creating it!

13

Support / Re: Unofficial update packs! [Updated 14th June 2012]

« on: July 06, 2012, 07:15:27 pm »

You didn't apply the files from my updatepack. The mod selector uses files in gfx/modselect -- if you don't have them, get these first (they are not in the repo).

Ah, I didn't realize that, sorry.

Now that I applied the updatepack, it works as expected, and the crash is gone too.

14

Support / Re: Unofficial update packs! [Updated 14th June 2012]

« on: July 05, 2012, 05:28:34 pm »

Use my git repo, which is more up-to-date and has this and other stuff fixed: https://github.com/fgenesis/Aquaria_clean

Ok.
(Maybe it would make sense to edit the initial post of this thread to mention that - currently it just lists both repositories side by side...)

Btw., just tried the new mod selector interface, it's very useful, but I'm experiencing graphics problems with it:
(click for full screenshot)
The rest of the game seems to be displayed just fine, though.

Also, when I set the game resolution to "1280 x 1024" (which is my screen's maximum resolution), opening the mod selector immediately crashes the game (no error message other than "Segmentation fault"). It works fine with any lower resolution. The rest of the game also works fine with "1280 x 1024".

I'm using an "ATI Redwood [Radeon HD 5670]" graphics card, with the proprietary "catalyst" driver version 12.6, and X.Org server version 1.12.2.
I don't usually have graphics problems with OpenGL/SDL games.
Are you doing anything out of the ordinary in that mod selector, SDL or OpenGL-wise?

15

Support / Re: Unofficial update packs! [Updated 14th June 2012]

« on: July 05, 2012, 03:27:17 pm »

I tried to build the latest revision from the https://bitbucket.org/fgenesis/aquaria repository on Linux, but it failed with this compile error:

Code: [Select]

[ 25%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/aquaria.dir/Aquaria/ModSelector.cpp.o
[ 26%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/aquaria.dir/Aquaria/ModDownloader.cpp.o
[ 27%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/aquaria.dir/Aquaria/Network.cpp.o
In file included from /home/archy/build/aquaria-fgenesis/aquaria/Aquaria/Network.cpp:1:0:
/home/archy/build/aquaria-fgenesis/aquaria/ExternalLibs/minihttp.h:72:5: error: ‘intptr_t’ does not name a type
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/aquaria.dir/Aquaria/Network.cpp.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/aquaria.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2
What should I do?

-----------

Update:
The newest revision from https://github.com/fgenesis/Aquaria_clean.git compiles and runs perfectly.
Is the bitbucket repository no longer up to date?