Aquaria: Sacrifice v1.12

[Hiro]

Hang on, in the recipies menu it tells you what to combine to get that item..
Whats to stop you reading all those for free and learning the recipies without paying (by combinging things yourself)?

Other than that, looks awesome. You're really taking Aquaria to like, a new level. 

[TheBear]

Hmm...I didn't realize that every recipe could be discovered through cooking. It's not a huge deal as you still get one of those items when you exchange your small crystal. Maybe it would work better if I removed the ingredients tab and just offered more recipes or even more of the same items (like 2 leeching poultices). The food vendor would be an easy way to obtain buffs as you wouldn't have to worry about finding the right ingredients. I think I'll still display what it takes to make the item as it seems like it would only further encourage players to use the food system. I'm also thinking of keeping the currency for food and item vendors separate. Do you guys have any suggestions?

[Zeke]

You could categorize the foods by effect, and then put concealment over them.  Like, have all the healing things in one place, speed effects, regeneration, and miscellaneous buffs in their own locations, and rank their price by usefulness.  That way, you won't know what you're buying, but you know if it costs five crystals, and is in the 'Special' section, it's going to be a Magic Soup or a Hot Borscht or something.

This (excellent!) video makes me wonder two things:

1.  Are you using only the music from Aquaria Proper, and is there going to be music for every place?  I've always felt like the various bosses' music could be a little... spicier.

2.  Do the item and food vendors only have items and foods from Aquaria Proper?  Or are there super-secret-brand-new foods and items?

[Hiro]

Yup, you can definately make anything you want if you have the ingredients. I thought everyone understood the idea of making recipies by experimentation...
Hmm, it could still be okay if you got more of the same item when you bought it; but it still kinda seems to ruin the whole 'buying the recipie' aspect. xD
If it were me I'd have it show recipies for the items that had been bought.
But what ever lol. 

If the currencies are the same for both things then the player can decide to forgo one to get more of the other. Its a gameplay decision and could add depth, but might make it unballanced if someone can get too much of one or the other.. I dunno. 

[Quemaqua]

Great to see progress here.  Sorry I haven't been around too much, but I'm still available if you're ever in need of written assistance.  Your work is still looking awesome!

Congratulations on your graduation, too.  Nothing better than finishing off school.

[TheBear]

@Zeke
1) I am not a composer and as such there won't be any new music but there will be Alec's music all over the place. I generally have the music on when I first start working but after a couple hours of debugging the repetitiveness becomes overbearing and I turn it off. There is music in Mithalas (level you see in the video) I just had it turned off.

2) At the moment the vendors contain items only from Aquaria Proper. I can add new ingredients and recipes but they would have to give the same buffs or debuffs as the existing food (hp, regen, defense, speed, etc). The existing food items seem to cover pretty much everything so I haven't created any of my own.

@Quemaqua
Although I wanted to finish a bit more dialogue I've sent you a PM with an included link to the current version of the script.

[TinaFishOfDoom]

that shop thing seems pretty cool, hope you will make your own recipes too . How will you be able to get moneys? will you do like jobs/quests? Will you just find it? Another thing that would be cool is like if you had porogi's in like a krotite shop (since they are basically energy guys) and like plant leaf recipes in the druinads place.  Etc. I dont expect you to but i like the idea.

[TheBear]

@TinaFishOfDoom (for the most part)
The 6 Large Crystals, used at the collectible vendor, are a mix of hidden and boss drops. At the moment Small Crystals, used at the food vendor, are obtained from flowers, urns, and crates. I've decided to stick with a single food vendor for the time being that now offers twice as many items/recipes but no ingredients. The ingredients needed to create an item has been removed from the vendor menu for the time being. All of your questions/suggestions deal with pushing this mod farther in the direction of an RPG which is something I've contemplated a lot. I was going to try to prototype an entity that would allow me to create more HUD components so I could expand on this. At one point I was thinking of an XP/leveling system but I don't see any way to modify Elena's (Naija's) stats from a mod. On top of this granting XP for killing creatures kinda bothers me as there are so many non hostile creatures (plus tone of game). I thought of the standard Bioware good vs evil system where based on your actions you'd gain certain abilities. More combat focused if you were evil or something else if you sticked to the "good" side. I think it would be possible to have Small Crystals (my currency) to have a chance to drop from creatures but I have yet to look at it. I'm not sure how a full on RPG take of Aquaria would feel and I'm not entirely sure how successful it would be without a quest log, improved world map, talent tree, etc.



I've included a picture below of the symbols I was going to use to show new conversations/vendors. I abandoned the idea immediately after seeing it in game (immersion breaking) but after playing through Sacrifice again today I really think it's necessary. This past week I've done about 6 pages of dialogue and scripted around 6 or 7 short cut scenes and events to make things a bit more dynamic and interesting. I've also done a ton of testing and optimizing to try to limit the number of bugs upon release (almost went insane today from how often I was crashing).

I'll be making another post this weekend which will include a slightly different video along with a release window (I'm super serious this time).

[Hiro]

Hmm, yeah the speech bubble thing really doesn't blend well huh.. but it's gonna be pretty darn useful to find new things to do/talk about. I think it should stay..

[Quemaqua]

Can't wait to play this.  I've been diligently plugging away at the script (at least what passes for my attempts at diligence...), and I think there's some pretty fantastic stuff here.  Hope you guys are getting excited.

[TheBear]

Time lapse videos are awesome! Planet Earth's time lapse shots blow my mind but even they may be second to my enjoyment of watching the environment art come together for Castle Crashers. (The Behemoth's videos on Vimeo) I was not given the ability to draw nor was I able to learn how to (despite 3 years in art school) which is why I enjoy level design using existing assets so much. Doing the visual aspect of mapping in Aquaria is so relaxing for me. It's difficult to explain to non gamer people exactly what I'm doing so I figured a video of me actually doing something would clear things up. Plus, as I've already discussed, time lapse videos are cool.

Aquaria: Sacrifice (Mod) level creation time lapse [HQ]
- first video on YouTube! I'm going to be famous once I get my 20 million views.
- The speed of the time lapse will slow down at 1:30 as I realized my first session was a bit fast.
- I figured the text wouldn't be readable but just trying to give a general impression of the scripting going on.

I'm leaving for a 2 week vacation to Canada early tomorrow morning. Upon my return it should take me about a week to tie up the loose ends and get this out to you guys. The plan is for a release on that weekend which starts on August 7. As with all developers nothing is set in stone but I'm feeling happy with the state of Sacrifice. Enjoy the video and get pumped for what is going to be an epic mod!

[Quemaqua]

That was surprisingly awesome.  I rather enjoyed that.  Nice to see all the work that goes into something.

[Hiro]

Daaaam that was cool. You have that level creation down pat. Something Alec would be proud of I'm sure.
I like you're style man, keep it up. 

[Alec]

Aquaria: Sacrifice (Mod) level creation time lapse [HQ]
- first video on YouTube! I'm going to be famous once I get my 20 million views.
- The speed of the time lapse will slow down at 1:30 as I realized my first session was a bit fast.
- I figured the text wouldn't be readable but just trying to give a general impression of the scripting going on.

Good on you for posting that, it makes me feel wall warm and cuddly inside. Thanks!

[sadron]

Good on you for posting that, it makes me feel wall warm and cuddly inside. Thanks!

The creator has spoken~!