Controls (^_^)

[Krissy]

Yes I of course mouse is supported. But will there be support for controllers? It would be great to actually have the option of both.
Me personally I can't imagine playing this beautiful side scroller with a mouse & kb. Btw, alec or Derek did you guys map out the buttons yet?

[Alec]

Right now you can switch between XBox360 Controller (Console Style), Mouse (Aquaria Style) and Mouse+Keyboard (FPS Style) on the fly. (i.e. if you start using the gamepad it'll switch to gamepad mode, etc ... and eventually we'll add support for other gamepads)

The control schemes each work slightly differently, and you can customize how the game plays by toggling certain features. (in the final release you'll be able to configure the gamepad+keyboard buttons as well)

The default for mouse is Left mouse button is move, Right mouse button is interact/sing. Middle mouse is look around, if you have it. Naija has a bunch of moves you can do by moving her in different ways as well.

Here's a screen with Naija singing...

She's attracting the attention of the small jelly fish, and her voice is echoed in the "phonograph" plants. The "song interface" leaves a little trail behind your cursor, so you can doodle a bit too. Its pretty fun to improvise along with the background music.

[Krissy]

I see. Sounds inspiring. I didn't know music and sound will play a big role in the game. Are the soungs a melody type? LIke vibratos & crescendo's? Or is it a bit more on the vocal side? I'm in love with certain aspects of game music. I felt Ecco the Dolphin - Songs of Time CD was simply beautiful. It has alot of feel to it.

[Alec]

Ah... hard to describe music.

Its mostly based around the areas you visit in the game, so each area has its own feel, but there are common themes + sounds that run through all the tracks. (some tracks are also based around creatures and a couple are for specific story events)

Each track has different layered melody lines... that helps with the repetition. (you notice different lines the more you listen) They're also built to work with Naija's scale of notes so you can sing any note along with it and it sounds like it fits.

There are some vocal type sounds used in the tracks, but they don't usually carry the melody too heavily... other instruments do that. I figured that Naija (the player) should get to fill that part vocally.

So far there are 21 tracks, and there'll probably be at least 2-3 more before we're done.

[Assault]

Are you going release a small part of one of the tracks you got in a future blog post?

[Alec]

Yep.

[Assault]

Alright!
Thanks.

[Alec]

Oh yeah, I also worked on using the microphone as a control method. By singing into the mic, you can make Naija sing in-game. Its kinda flaky at this point (you need to have damn good pitch)

[Assault]

Sounds like a cool feature to mess around with. Not sure how fun it will actually be to use throughout the entire game, but seeing as this is optional it's something I'd definitely want to try out.

[Krissy]

Karaoke is the first thought that comes to mind.

[Alec]

Yeah, the microphone is hard to use effectively right now... but there might be ways to simplify it and have it work better. One problem is trying to sing certain pitches with the background music as the only pitch reference. The songs themselves are also built to be easily performed by moving the mouse, not necessarily being easy to sing.

If it could be more forgiving, it would be more fun. One way would be to detect the distances between the notes rather than worrying about the actual notes being correct. So if you mimicked the "movement" of the combination (like moving down three notes and then stopping; or singing one pitch, jumping to a pitch 4 notes down and then back) it would consider it accurate.

[Krissy]

Yeah, the microphone is hard to use effectively right now... but there might be ways to simplify it and have it work better. One problem is trying to sing certain pitches with the background music as the only pitch reference. The songs themselves are also built to be easily performed by moving the mouse, not necessarily being easy to sing.

If it could be more forgiving, it would be more fun. One way would be to detect the distances between the notes rather than worrying about the actual notes being correct. So if you mimicked the "movement" of the combination (like moving down three notes and then stopping; or singing one pitch, jumping to a pitch 4 notes down and then back) it would consider it accurate.

Have you ever thought about keeping it simple? Like  just using a preset sort of notes and whatever note the sound comes close to Naija acknowledges it and sings it. Keeping it simple works just as well.

[Alec]

Well, that's what happens. Naija can sing 8 notes, the closest note to the current pitch gets picked. The way the interface works with the mouse, you hit notes in a certain order to activate songs.

The problem is that its hard to sing a pitch accurately to hit the right notes. I'm trying to figure out how to make that easier without redesigning the way the song interface works for mouse input.

[Ian]

Aquaria will support Kareoke? SIGN ME UP.

Hahaha. That would be pretty crazy if you got that to work well. Tough, but cool.

[Eileen]

It could be training for all those horrible 'American Idol' singers.
That's a really cool idea though!