Messages

1

Modding / Re: Opening up default Aquaria adventure in Editor / making world easier

« on: December 16, 2007, 02:28:05 pm »

Alec: Because interweb debates fail to accomplish anything but time and energy spent. But I agree with your points; I'll follow your lead.

Hiro: Or for just figuring out how to do things. But the general feeling I get is that cracking open the DATA.000 file is something our talented developers do not want (humor). It would be immensely useful - you could learn how things are done (especially if a future version of the editor has a "properties" window for each object so you can see what it's settings are more easily), and you could go "Half-Life" on it.

It would allow the community to come up with harder mods, a "more magic" mod or a "less projectiles" mod or a "Zaxby's Culinary Delights" mod or even a casual mod.

But that requires the developers giving up the idea of retaining complete control over what's in that DATA.000 file and saying "Well, once someone opens it up, it's theirs to tinker with. But you know what? That's kind of beautiful, that we've inspired someone to do..." and then just think of all the mods that could come out. Think of how the community would feed itself, and upon itself, and how this single pearl would generate so much. People would talk more, and more sales would follow. It's the Half-Life or Neverwinter Nights effect, both of which had their campaign worlds open to modding, if not at the start (NWN), eventually.

Alec: You'd be a happy dude once you saw how much time folks are willing to put into your game for free. I watched it for 3 years with NWN, lived it every week (I have four kids, no such thing a "every day"). Sure there are abrupt and angry idiots out there, but think of it...

If I'm wrong about your stance with the DATA.000 file, that's a happy day for me.

Hopefully I haven't inspired the wrath of The Internets this time. Dave out.

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Modding / Re: Opening up default Aquaria adventure in Editor / making world easier

« on: December 16, 2007, 02:01:05 am »

I realized, upon rumination, that Aquaria strikes the same sort of cord as a game that has never left me: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Now, aside from the rainbow shield, nothing took the difficulty out of that game, and it simply would not be the same without it. You explored, you gained new abilities, you got a neat story, music good enough to listen to away from the game (well, certainly pieces) and 2d sprites that just made you feel at home.

My wife mostly plays Brain Age so it's not like she'll lose any sleep over all of this

And the reason I don't care for debates on teh interwebs is because they generally all occur and end in the same way: people take turns standing on the table yelling and waving their baggage in the air, and then sit back down. Rarely, folks are open, usually, they just feel somehow personally attacked. It's human nature. It's often a case of person A has 12 years of history on the subject and person B comes along with misguided idea, or just a completely different background, that is at direct odds with what person A knows to be true, but you can't fit 12 years of learning in a forum post, and person B, coming from a different culture if not field of education, a different personality type if not different agenda, will usually respond in kind, and then you get persons C, D, E, F & G responding thanks to the magic of teh interwebs.


Me? I decided to learn something. Here, I decided that A) what I posted was inane because of what Alec pointed out. B) That I really should avoid stating reasons for anything, because that's extra stupid of anyone who knows what I stated in the paragraph above. C) I should think about C: SoTN some more and then attack Aquaria again.

3

Modding / Re: Opening up default Aquaria adventure in Editor / making world easier

« on: December 16, 2007, 01:44:30 am »

You are one of the principle creators; you'd know best how your work should be experienced. I mean that truthfully. Logically, I'll point out that not everyone (I can tackle the game, my wife can't) can experience it the same way, but that just means it's a game for me, not her, kind of like any game that has a higher difficulty curve, such as, say an FPS. The music and indie dev reading got me expecting something "not hard," so when I handed it to her, I found I was wrong. Not your problem, no game can be all things. Some try, and they pretty much all suck.

I've removed the reasoning in my initial post to remove anyone else's desire to get into a debate.

4

Modding / Re: Opening up default Aquaria adventure in Editor / making world easier

« on: December 16, 2007, 01:38:17 am »

I didn't mean to step on your toes, Alec. You've put years of work into this. I didn't mean games become works of quasi-interactive fiction, either.

Have some kids, get a little older, have less time - but that'd be really sad if that happened to you anytime soon because you wouldn't have created this.

Best thing to do is appreciate people for who they are, because that's how they do the magic they do day to day.

I should have left out all of my reasoning. So stupid of me, I've been on teh interwebs for a while - oh, wait... it's my nature to be open bleh, rarely serves me well.

5

Modding / Re: Replacing the Main Character

« on: December 16, 2007, 01:33:54 am »

Any word on how to unpack the DATA.000 file?

I'd like to just modify Naija's sprite parts.

6

General / Re: Aquaria with Wii Remote [video]

« on: December 16, 2007, 12:49:41 am »

I have a Wii (camped out prior to last Christmas), four kids, four Wiimotes and waaaay too many Wii games.

Having played Geometry Wars: Galaxies extensively, however, I'm not sure that games involving pointing where you want to go/aim are good with Wiimotes. It's easier to use the Classic Controller and, in the case of Aquaria, a mouse.

However, that said, I'm happy to see the tools with which to get those fantastic devices working with a PC are coming along so well.

7

General / Re: Aquaria hit the P2P

« on: December 16, 2007, 12:44:12 am »

Personally I like StarDock's solution, makers of Galactic Civilizations II. They used no copy protection but made their game patches authenticate with their servers - unique CD keys that, to my knowledge, nobody keygened / broke.

So folks pirated their game and then couldn't download the patches, which not only fixed bugs but added gameplay, updated AI and made the ship editor more fun.

But I'm not in the business, just a bystander. I just thought that was a cool solution. Authenticating with live servers seems to work great for online games; maybe offline games should do that more.

8

Modding / Opening up default Aquaria adventure in Editor / making world easier

« on: December 16, 2007, 12:33:25 am »

DESIRE:
I want to either gain access to the LUA files that make the core game run or get the actual game into the editor in order to:

• Make the game easier (either by less damage, more save points, more health, more damage reduction, whatever means is easiest).
• Learn more.

DATA STRUCTURE:
Apparently everything it saved in  the giant "data.000" pack file, but I don't know how to unpack it. In Supreme Commander one can just use WinRAR (doesn't work on this, I tried) and whatever you unzip the game uses in place of what is in the pack file. I assume that something similar can be done with Aquaria because I have read that MODs supersede all else. The first hump is just finding the LUA script files so I can examine them and see if there's a few things I can tweak to make my wife and I able to play.

HOW DO I (either one):

• Gain access to the core game's script files to make changes to damage models or the health system.
• Get the core game into the editor.

Thanks so much guys.