Having trouble getting Mods to open

[r_b_bergstrom]

Hello,

Love the game!

Just finished playing it a couple days ago, and thought I'd take a look at some Mods today. But I can't get any of them to run. I downloaded a bunch of mods from these forums (and the links at the wiki) and (since I'm on a Mac) I used "Show Package Contents" to find the "_mods" folder and saved the downloads there. I extracted the mods from the various compressed formats. But when I launch Aquaria and click on the Mods button, it doesn't give them as an option. I only have the three or so mods (jukebox, editor tutorial, and template) that came installed with the software via the Humble Indy Bundle purchase.

Am I doing something wrong? If anyone knows some trick to access the mods that I'm missing, please fill me in on what I need to do.

[Lady-Succubus]

Which mods have you tried, and what does your _mods folder look like now? We'll need more information to help you, sorry.

Inside your _mods folders should be a bunch of folders named after your mods, and ________.xml files where the the file is named after the folder. If it looks like this already, then you'll have to come back and ask for more help. Good luck! ^.^

[Echolocating]

Basically, what Lady-Succubus said.

There's a "_mods" folder in the Aquaria application folder. Extract your mods into the "_mods" folder and everything should be fine. You can then access them from the game's main menu screen. For example, in the "_mods" folder, the extracted jukebox mod should have placed a "jukebox.xml" file and an associated "jukebox" folder which contains all the content files and folders for that mod.

[r_b_bergstrom]

Thanks for the efforts at helping. Thus far, you haven't told me anything I didn't already know / do. Here's some more information and details in hopes that someone will find something that I'm doing wrong...

I open Aquaria, and on the screen with Naija in the blue crystal with various buttons on rocks, I click on the purple rock that says "Mods".

This brings me to a screen with a big box that says "Template Mod" and has a close-up picture of Naija. I can click on it, which opens the editor and places naija on screen in a nondescript circular room. Or, I can click on the ornate right or left arrows from that screen with the "Template Mod" banner. Clicking on the arrows cycles through precisely four Mod banners. They read "Template Mod", "Test Map", "Aquaria Jukebox" and "Tutorial". Those four were already pre-loaded when I installed the software from the Humble Indy Bundle, I haven't done anything to load them.

I wanted to access the other mods that people have made. So, after exiting the Aquaria program, I right-clicked on it's icon, and chose "Show Package Contents" from the pop-up menu. This brought up a new finder window. That finder window has a number of folders, the first one is named "_mods", the second is named "Ambrosia", then it has aquaria.png, then there's a folder called "config", a folder called "Contents" etc.

I double-clicked on the "_mods" folder. Inside it were a folder named "aquariaeditortutorial", a folder named "aquariatemplate", a folder named "jukebox", and a folder named "guert_mod". Each was followed immediately by a correspondingly named .xml file. Since three of them have the same names as the mods my software came with, I'm assuming these correspond to them, with "guert_mod"  being the one that comes up as "test map".

So I downloaded a number of mods from this forum, and from the Aquaria modding wiki. These came in a variety of compressed formats, .zips and .rars, etc. I extracted each of them just as I've extracted plenty of other files before for other programs. I copied them from my downloads folder into the "_mods" folder inside the Aquaria package. 

So now my "_mods" folder has in it those initial four folders and .xml files, plus it also has a "AngryLi" folder and AngryLi.xml, "beautyOfAquaria" folder and beautyOfAquaria.xml, "big_energy_battle_121" folder and big_energy_battle_121.xml, "rpg_PrequelCampaign" folder and rpg_PrequelCampaign.xml, etc. They look just like the format and structure for the existing Mods that came with the software. Poking around in the folders, I see each contains a number of other folders, an "entitygroups.txt", a "mod-icon.png", a "mod-init.lua", etc, so there's really nothing missing from those folders that is present in all 4 mods that came with the software bundle. Everything looks to be in order, and seems like it should work.

But when I open up Aquaria, and click on the purple Mods rock, it only ever shows me those same four Mod banners to choose from, just "Template Mod", "Test Map", "Aquaria Jukebox" and "Tutorial". It never shows me any other mod banners or names, no matter how many times I click through with the right and left arrows.

I'm left with two questions off the top of my head:
1) Should I have put the mods somewhere other than inside the software package? I do see that at least one mod has a readme.txt that says "To install place the CostumeMod folder and CostumeMod.xml into your Aquaria _mods folder (ex: X:\Games\Aquaria\_mods)" That example doesn't match the placement of my aquaria "_mods" folder at all. The default installation just placed my Aquaria in the Applications folder, so I've assumed thus far that the example given in that readme was probably the default installation location for the PC version. Maybe it/I installed to wrong spot on my machine? I'm pretty sure I just did the default installation and nothing special, I can't imagine why I would have done anything unusual, but it's been several weeks so I don't know for certain.
2) Has anyone on this forum had similar experiences with the Mac version purchased via the Humble Indie Bundle? If others who got the same version of the software as me are having no trouble running mods, then maybe they could take a close look at what I wrote above to see if I'm doing anything wrong. They could also chime in that mods work for their mac with this version, so that I'd know for certain that the problem must lie with my computer or my files, and not with the Mac version in general, or the specific build included in the Humble Indie Bundle.

[r_b_bergstrom]

Further update: I've got more information now, but it's still not working.

Before I started this thread here, I also filed a bug at bugzilla.icculus.org (the readme that came with the software said to contact them about any bugs).

They got back to me today, saying that mods aren't supposed to be put in the package, they're supposed to go in "Library/Application Support/Aquaria/_mods". They claim that the first time you run Aquaria, it's supposed to copy the _mods folder to that location automatically. So I opened up Library/Application Support, and there was no Aquaria folder there. It never copied.

So I made an aquaria folder there, and put a _mods folder inside it, and moved all the mods into that.  No luck, though. It still won't let me access mods via the software. It would appear my copy of Aquaria is not looking at "Library/Application Support/Aquaria/_mods", despite what the bugzilla/icculus guys think.

Could someone on a Mac (who has been able to get mods to work) please tell me where their "_mods" is located? Also please include either the version number you're running, or at least whether or not you got yours via the Humble Indie Bundle, so I can figure out if we've got the same version of the software. Thank you!

[Alec]

The mods folder you want should be in "Application Support" or something like that...

The one in the app bundle is just for "installing" (it's like a backup of the default mods)

(unless Ryan changed something in the humble mac version)

[Echolocating]

I don't have a Mac, but the only other thing I can think of trying is searching for "jukebox.xml" (a file that we know is working) and seeing where Aquaria might have installed that file (or duplicates of that file). If the original 4 are showing up, but not the new ones that you've added, there could be an unnecessary duplicate folder (the one that you've found) that's causing all this confusion and Aquaria is using a different one buried somewhere else.

Good luck, man.

[r_b_bergstrom]

After a great deal of effort, I have finally been able to get it to run a mod. It took a very thorough manual search of my hard drive. When finally we found the correct folder, my wife and I were dumbfounded. Yesterday, following the instructions of the bugzilla.icculus guys, we'd looked in a particular place (inside Library/Application Support) and there was no Aquaria folder there. I'd been so upset that their instructions involved looking for a folder that didn't exist, and didn't come up when I searched my computer either manually or by automated means, that I showed it to my wife like "do you see this thing here? Cause I can't find it." She helped me look, and confirmed for me that the folder wasn't there. 

Today, it's there. I'm absolutely certain this isn't user error. I was really thorough yesterday, and showed it to her. Since then, though, i've reinstalled the software. I'm guessing there was a glitch when I unzipped the software and booted it up the first time, because that folder was not there yesterday. We're both absolutely certain it wasn't.  (Oh, and interestingly enough, when I do a search for "jukebox.xml" my computer can't find it anywhere. I can find it manually, but an automated search doesn't. I don't know what to make of that.)

Anyhow, thank you to everyone who offered advice.  I'm gonna go play some Mods.

[frostyfrog]

not sure if this will help at all, but in ubuntu, the files are hidden in a system folder type thing located at "/home/<username>/.Aquaria/" while the game is located at "/home/<username>/Aquaria/". I needed to press ctrl+h to see them.

[GMMan]

not sure if this will help at all, but in ubuntu, the files are hidden in a system folder type thing located at "/home/<username>/.Aquaria/" while the game is located at "/home/<username>/Aquaria/". I needed to press ctrl+h to see them.

Why do you have the game in your home folder? It belongs in /usr/local/games (as installed by installer).