Messages

1

General / Well, finally got it. Words of praise.

« on: January 05, 2009, 02:09:26 am »

Though I went through the trouble of registering and following the game over a year ago, I only just got it the weekend after the patch (waiting for widescreen).  Thanks to bit-blot for a sexy, smexy game.

I love castleroids, but it's a masochistic love seeing how few of them come out consistently.  That's why Aquaria is great for me.  Comparing Aquaria to, say, the latest DS Castlevania is like comparing Edy's Slow Churned Ice Cream to yogurt.  It's hard to say this without sounding like a graphics whore, but being pretty is key to being fun to explore for me, and Aquaria's got that in spades.  With a unique setting on top of that and solid gameplay, I'm deeply satisfied with this product so far.

I don't think it's linear, but I'm in The Veil.  Thanks again.

2

General / Re: I don't mean to be grabby child, but...

« on: June 21, 2008, 07:30:11 am »

Hey, I guess indie games or not, gamers of all stripes know how to be patient.  I'll go back to my hole and wait intently.

3

General / I don't mean to be grabby child, but...

« on: June 17, 2008, 06:12:45 am »

... is there maybe even vague guess at the release date of the 1.1.0 patch?

4

General / Re: So I would be lying if I said that this isn't a newb question.

« on: April 28, 2008, 04:41:16 am »

*sigh* breathtaking.  I'm basically a sold customer, I just have this strange compulsion to wait... I can't describe it.

I'm in ur URL hacking ur numbers:
Wide Shot

o.0  I'm gonna need a few more monitors?

5

General / Re: So I would be lying if I said that this isn't a newb question.

« on: April 27, 2008, 05:08:11 am »

Not to hijack a topic, but 1.1.0 is still also gonna be the one to add widescreen support, right?  That'll be great.  I've actually not bought it yet because of that

6

General / Re: The Widescreen Thread

« on: February 16, 2008, 03:12:36 am »

Oh I know they're not 2.5 celshaded (I played the demo and it's beautiful), but I was just using that as an example as a possible future of HD 2D gaming.

So the sprites are all hand-drawn raster?

7

General / Re: Aquaria hit the P2P

« on: February 14, 2008, 05:59:55 pm »

I prefer THIS kind of antipiracy measure.  It seems pretty damn funny.  Is it harder for pirates to search for numerous tiny checks throughout the game rather than a few single checks?

Either way, I wish all companies did this as a unilateral policy.  It'd be hilarious to hear pirate sob-stories filling my internetz when their game goes haywire.

8

General / Re: The Widescreen Thread

« on: February 14, 2008, 05:34:06 am »

What do you want to know about the graphics?

OpenGL is used to employ 3D acceleration for 2D graphics.

Sorry I was gone so long.  Actually what I meant was something a little more general.  It's about traditional raster graphics vs 2D vector graphics.  At gamefaqs we sometimes argue about the future of 2D gaming.  The common complaint I hear is that traditional hand-drawn raster sprites and backgrounds are too time consuming to make for HD resolutions and with enough frames of animation to look smooth and enough level of detail to be appealing.

Some argue that 2D vector graphics is a solution to the smoothness issue, and I say so too half-heartedly, but afaik you can't get the same level of detail in your objects.  The best compromise I could think of was Viewtiful Joe's approach: Make it 2.5D, then apply intelligent filters (like celshading) to make it look hand drawn.

So, what I was wondering was, from that point of view, how is Aquaria done?  What are the basic objects, and how did you decide how to balance the time/detail aspects and the system resources aspect (I'm not certain celshading is the most system efficient way to achieve that look)?  Because I was awed by how smooth Naija's movement is and how clean the rotations are.

9

Support / Re: Temporary fix for widescreen users

« on: February 14, 2008, 05:23:56 am »

Only tested with Vista32 and GeForce 8800 GTX though

I have some input that may help anyone using Vista 64bit (like me).  Vista x64 enforces the loading of signed drivers only.  I haven't tried it yet, but I believe RivaTuner requires the ALSysIO64.sys driver, which is unfortunately not signed.

HOWEVER, there is a simple workaround which I use to force ALSysIO64.sys to load so I can run CoreTemp, another system monitor/utility goody.  There is an executable called Atsiv.exe, which is free, that can force unsigned drivers to load as long as you temporarily give it admin privileges to complete it's operation (ie: You have to answer a UAC prompt).

You have to run it from the command line, but you can write a simple batch file to handle that.

Here are the complete directions:

1) Go here and download the zip file at the bottom.  It contains CoreTemp (you won't need that), Atsiv and ALSysIO64.sys (which you will need).  It also has a sample batch file, but I'll walk you through it anyway for RivaTuner
2) Place Atsiv in the same folder as RivaTuner.exe for simplicity.
3) Open Notepad
4) Copy and paste the following italicized text EXACTLY as shown (for the BOLD part you should put whatever the folder path for RivaTuner.exe is for you):
Atsiv -u ALSysIO64.sys
Atsiv -f ALSysIO64.sys
Start "CoreTemp" "C:\Whatever\your\folder\is\here\RivaTuner.exe
5) Save this (call it whatever) to your RivaTuner folder too and close.  Rename this text file from whatever.txt to whatever.bat
6) If you've never done something like this before, you've just made a batch file.  Just double click it to run it and the command line should briefly appear, Atsiv will load the driver, and RivaTuner will start.  You'll have to answer the UAC prompt (probably three times).

Since Atsiv only loads the drivers temporarily (and that's a good thing), you'll have to do this each time you want to run the batch file.  Like bole said, though, you only need to use RivaTuner once.

I hope this helps, it certainly helped me.  You can use Atsiv all you want to force drivers you want to use to load.  I do NOT believe it is a security risk because it still needs your admin approval to run, and you can query Atsiv in the command line to tell you all the drivers it currently has loaded.

I do not recommend using it to load drivers you don't necessarily trust.  I only use it for  ALSysIO64.sys.

10

Support / Re: Vista Save Files Location / Save files not showing up in Continue

« on: February 09, 2008, 08:48:02 pm »

For those curious about optimizing their computer in general, and learning more about virtualization and other funny Vista quirks, I used this to optimize my compy for Oblivion:

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

Evidently that website is well renowned or something.  Anyway, the Vista guide is awesome.  *NOTE* not for those who hate reading.  It's quite long, but aims to be thorough in plain language.  It's not a quick fact-sheet.  It's free, yet professional.

11

General / Re: The Widescreen Thread

« on: February 09, 2008, 08:43:46 pm »

Well, it may sound arbitrary, selfish, and maybe even a little bit silly, but I'm gonna wait to buy until the widescreen patch comes out.  It's just that this game is so visually stunning I'm compelled to play the whole thing that way.  This game looks really fun.

Speaking of which, where should I go if I want to ask curiosity questions about the technology behind this game?  I'm especially interested in the graphics.

Oh, btw, hi everyone.