Finding Aquaria Stories

[Nightmareshadow]

Call me a nerd, but I just had a strange urge to tell the story of how I found out about Aquaria.

It all started when i was watching G4, and they were having a small award section that showcased Indie games.  I saw several of them, then Aquaria appeared.  I was intrigued, and it really stuck in my mind.  Probably because I had recently finished playing Odin Sphere, and the 2-d perspective was the same for both games, both of them having insanely detailed sprites. 

Curious, I went through the basic channels to find out more about Aquaria, you know, Wikipedia, Google searches, Gamespot, but there was surprisingly little out there.  Luckily I found some players and trailers on Youtube.  What I saw there was fascinating.  After searching a bit more I finally found Bit Blot's home site for Aquaria. 

Tried the demo, but I was working on my parents computer.  The demo wouldn't even load up.  I was frustrated and annoyed, but I couldn't get it out of my mind, and continued frequenting the site, drawn by the tantalizing trailers.  Finally I was able to order a top of the line lab top, a Lenovo Thinkpad.  Immediately, I downloaded the demo...and was promptly blown away.  A few days later when my paycheck came in I shelled out the thirty dollars for the full game.

Easily worth two to three times what I payed for.

Aquaria was one of those pinnacle, awe inspiring games for me, like when I first tried FF 7 or Shadow Hearts or NiGHTS into dreams. 

It was a troubling to get through it at times, primarily due to the two hour limit on my computer's batteries, but I finished Aquaria.

The only question that remains...is when is the sequel coming out?

For those who've seen my other posts I suppose you must be sick of hearing me beg for a sequel, but Aquaria was just that awesome.

Anyway, if anyone else has a meaningful, interesting, or heck, even if it's a boring story to share about how they discovered Aquaria, please feel free to post here.  Games like this don't come along every day, so share the discovery 

[Hiro]

You know that (actually rather freaky) picture of Naija's face that shows up at the begining of the game? Well I saw that picture when I was visiting derekyu.com looking for stuff about Eternal Daughter which I've liked for a long time. And so I clicked the link through to the page about the game Aquaria which was a semi-unfinnished single page from the domain bit-blot. That page was cool, I liked the look; so I went and cut out the /aquaria and got myself to the earlyish news posts on bit-blot.com. After seeing the trailor there I was pretty much hooked. Waited and waited with nothing but a preliminary teaser of a few music samples and the trailor music to keep me company. And then a few teasers more and some demos of the mod editor...
Eventually the game came out and yusssss! It rocks!
Got my friends into it straight away, but not all of them liked it so much... Oh well, I'll keep trying to share this gem.

[silverflagon]

My story is even more geeky and boring, I just trawl the game forums and spotted someones description of it, the pity is that I can't recall which one it was?

I decided to find out which web site after all it deserves a mention and it's Jayisgames http://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/12/aquaria_bit_blot.php they did a really good write up on it

[Quemaqua]

I actually followed the development more or less from the minute word of its existence came onto the internet.  So I guess I don't really have much of a story.  I was very eager to play the game right from the start, followed all the news and everything Alec and Derek posted on the site here, got involved in the forums once release came a little closer, and then bought it as soon as it was possible to do so.  Played through it obsessively for a couple days, shared information with everyone I knew, and I think a good 3 of my friends played and enjoyed it as well.

[Xiagan]

Same to me. I'm for years active in Dereks other forum and learned about it quite early. When they popped out this forum I needed a few days to convince myself that I really want to add another forum to the pile I already have, though.
I bought it asap too.

[Glamador]

I'm pretty sure I saw it on Joystiq or Kotaku.  I didn't think much of it at first since I don't usually get into indie games.  But this one got some awards and I figured the least I could do was play the demo.  I will play any game that's put in front of me at least to test it out.  Turns out from the first moment I started I adored it.  Before I was even done with the demo I had purchased the full version.

[ZealousD]

This trailer on GameTrailers is what peaked my interest.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/17138.html

[Chibi]

I started another topic on the subject before noticing this one; anyway:

My first sighting of Aquaria was through a 250px × 188px image in WIRED magazine (a great magazine, by the way), stating,
PC




Aquaria
In this 2-D adventure game from two-man dev team Bit Blot, players control a sea nymph plumbing the depths with seamless strokes of her fins, discovering new powers, and solving puzzles. With its high production values and intuitive controls, Aquaria took the grand prize at this year's independent Games Festival. It's easy to see why.
— Alex Handy

I was immediately floored by the artistry of Nautilus Prime, and downloaded the demo as soon as I could lay hands on my computer. (Sorry Alec, but screenshots don't show programming code  Wink )

{EDIT} Don't look at this if you don't want to be offended, ZealousD: It's "piqued" not peaked. Sticklers Unite!

[Sirensongstress]

I actually don't remember how I originally found the Aquaria website.  I think I'd been looking at an independent gamer blog and saw a link and came to the site about a year and a half before the game actually came out (if it was there at that time D:).  I was blown away even then, even though I think there may not have been very much, except like an opening post, and a few screenshots.  I thought at the time that we were actually going to be singing while playing the game (using a microphone) in order to play the game, and I was just wowed by the thought of such an interactive game.  I'm glad that it's not, at least now, because that would have made me one hoarse gal, and since I've had problems with jaw pain due to grinding my teeth, singing isn't exactly as fun as it used to be.

I kinda checked the site a few times, and then actually forgot about it.  I had gone to another website, something named... like... Guild Cafe, where you put in different MMO games you've played and the server and name and guild, etc, and see if you can connect to people across games.  On that website, I put in Aquaria as a game I wanted to play that was coming out in the future.  Eventually I forgot about this website too, because there just wasn't enough activity on it for the MMO games I'd played.  One day, I randomly came back to it, and saw that aquaria listing on my page, and decided to go look it up, and I've never regretted it since.  The demo was out at the time, and the game itself may have already been out or about to come out in a few days.  I think I bought it with my Christmas money, so it would have been really close to the release day.  While on my Christmas break from university, I played Aquaria so much, it was ridiculous.  I still remember first going into the Kelp Forest and just being like "OMG WOAH, an EVIL FROG CREATURE and plants!"  (Green is one of my favorite colors, so I loved that part so much originally).

Anyway, hope that wasn't too boring. Have a wonderful day!

[Glamador]

Such a tale could never be boring sirensongstress.  Aquaria is the tie that binds us together.