Re: Magic of Aquaria SPOILERS!!!!!!! new pics Feb 15

[Sindhi]

Well, we have been taking a break, but we can always use some help. What do you want to help with... what do you know how to do or have an interest in? You can PM me with details and we can talk, and Yogoda too. I can send you an outline of the story and what is unfinished as yet.

[BishopKayn]

Looks really good. I'll keep an eye on y'all.

[Sindhi]

Thanks! We are still here; just doing other things too. Don't worry, we will finish it!

[iProob]

Yes, a mod is an add-on to the main game, and Aquaria is only available for PC right now. But Aquaria may be ported to other platforms in the future !

Mods should be compatible with the Mac version (which is already out) and the upcoming Linux version (still being ported).

Looking forward to seeing this mod when its done.

but i already have the linux version.

[Widget]

Because that post is over a year old...

[iProob]

oh thanks

[Senorctenophore]

Wow, this is an awesome looking game.  I haven't paid much attention to the mods, but I'll have to get this one when it's done.  Incidentally, do you guys know yet how you're going to distribute it?  Forgive me if someone else has already asked this question-- I skimmed through most of the posts so I could check out the screenshots but haven't really read over much of the text.

[Sindhi]

To Senor: Check out the photobucket site for lots of screenshots at http://s763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/. It will be a mod, part of the Aquaria package, free with Aquaria. That's why I want Alec to port Aquaria to PS3 so we can get some exposure. Yogoda, who lives in Geneva, wants to do games for a living; right now he is a software engineer working in a bank. If Aquaria were more widely seen, it would give some exposure to the genius of the game as well as to the mods by fans, which is one of the best things about Aquaria; the ability to use the editing tools Alec and Derek made available to us, plus the source code. I can't think of another game that gives the player these opportunities. And it couldn't hurt the release of Marian, either. There are a lot of games out there that you play once and are done; about 90% I think. Not so with Aquaria; it fires the imagination and touches the heart.

I'm not surprised that you haven't read the info on our thread. There is so much on the forum to read, it's not surprising most newbies are starting new threads...as a semi-"oldie" I get e little annoyed when some people start a new thread for every question they have instead of reading the forum to get answers first, as I tried to do, using searches to find threads. We all have lives and choose how to spend our time.

Anyway we are not even to the beta testing stage yet; we are starting in again soon.  We will let everyone know when we have something to release. Yogoda wants to release the first half of the game and work on the second part, but we need to finish the boss at the depths of the home map first, and he has some ideas for it that are time consuming and difficult. He agreed to help me make a mod and it turned into a monster..... we will not abandon our mod after so much work, but we are certainly taking our time. And we are doing this for love, not money....

[Nightmareshadow]

I think you and Yogoda are doing a great job Sindhi, especially from all the great stuff on photo bucket.

Figured I should just let you know that, because the art is awe inspiring.  Anyway, since you're doing this for love, it's not making you much money(though if you got noticed that would be great.)  For fans who love Aquaria, we kill for mods like this and Sacrifice. 

Anyway, where I'm going with this is, do you have a website or something that we might be able to contribute to the effort?  Kind of like how Alec asked for anyone interested to donate to Marion.  I'd totally part with some cash to show my support for this mod.

Sorry if this has been asked before, I've been out of the Aquaria loop for a few months and only recently got back to the forums.  But, if you need support, can we, the fans, help out?

[Sindhi]

Hi , Nightmareshadow! Thank you for your kind words and support. It's not money that we need; encouragement helps a lot.  We have had offers to help and to do beta testing, but we are not at that stage yet. We sent the game "as is" to some people and didn't get any feedback. Everyone is busy!

I would like to light a little fire under Yogoda, who told me he would get going again after the first of the year, but who has been very silent lately. I sure don't want to throw all this work away! I know back when he promised to help make this mod he didn't know how much it would grow; it has turned into this huge elephant which is looming in front of him as he tries to deftly sidestep it. We love the elephant but we are not sure if we have enough peanuts to feed it. He has encouraged me to find another animator to help us but there just isn't anyone out there who has the amazing talent he does for inventing new scripts for the animation, and I thought we made a good team, even though he lives half the world away (he's a French-speaking Swiss software engineer and I'm an American-speaking Seattle area retired art teacher).

If the fans were to contribute, the project I would suggest is to send Alec the money to port Aquaria to PS3 so many more people could discover this wonderful game and all the mods. It's like the Humble Indie Bundle; if everyone sent a little it would add up to a lot. I don't know what it costs to make a game playable on PS3, but apparently it ain't cheap. And we could all do the same for Marian when it comes out.

And send a PM to Yogoda telling him that you are supportive and excited about playing the finished mod and hope he will get back to it soon. And for my part, I need to start working on it again, because we each get an e-mail notification when the other one updates changes to the mod. I confess I have found lots of things to occupy my time other than the mod, but I miss it...

[Aristobulus]

Send him a link to the thread, maybe, as well? I certainly want to see it finished.

[Nightmareshadow]

I wonder...I doubt Alec would be up for trying to convert Aquaria to the PS3, considering the work, money, and the fact that he's working on Marion and a new iphone game on IA, but there was a modder who managed to port it to the PSP.  It was in the general forums...maybe he could do it...or other fans.  Me, I'm rock stupid when it comes to programming and debugging, but someone with that skill might be able to make it work.

I kind of feel dumb for asking, but what's the best way to send Yogoda encouragement?  I'd really love to see even half of this mod finished.  What with Sacrifice and Beauty being out for a while, some great new stuff(and the art is just phenominal) would be awesome.

Also, I'm not sure myself what Beta testing might entail, but I've got a bit of free time, Sindhi.  I could give it a try, if you're interested.

[Sindhi]

You can send Yogoda a PM (personal message) by searching for his name in the members list or by clicking on his avatar in the forum, and then click on "send this person a personal message" and then just share what you told me. Tell him how you feel about Aquaria and that you are excited about the mod and ask what you can do to inspire him, I guess...

I don't know if Yogoda has the ability to port a game to PS3 but if there is somebody who can, a fan, then it would involve our contributing some money to him or her and to a fund to pay Playstation. If any fans are listening who want to support this or have any ideas we've kicked round in this and other threads, speak up! Participation in this forum comes and goes; for the past six months it's been rather sparse, and full of Malaysian junk messages (which seems to have stopped, so maybe Derek wrote the software to eliminate it as Xiagan remarked) so if people share their thoughts more, we will get more of the old faithful members as well as new ones to check it again and play. I guess this really should go in the "general" category where people are talking about a sequel. That could happen if more people supported getting Aquaria and the mods out to more of the public, most of who don't know about Indie games at all.

Alec reads the forums; I don't think we need to send him a heads-up. I always appreciate hearing from him.

[Aristobulus]

I think Alec/Derek have given up, but it's really depressing and honestly frustrating and a little angering, because honestly Aquaria isn't like a game that flopped because it's bad - as far as I've noticed, Aquaria is a special case where most people just haven't heard of it or they have but haven't played it and the vast, vast majority of people that play it not only like it a lot, they love it and say it's a really good game.

It's also a game that has aged really well to the point where that it's a few years old is really meaningless when the case is just that people haven't HEARD of the game - you could get someone to play it NOW, and they'd believe it was new if they didn't already know it wasn't, because the age doesn't show at all. Because of that reason, giving up on the game just angers me, it's just as possible for it to succeed now as it ever was, all it needs is the proper publicity.

It just never got it, but if it ever DID, it can still take off. Look at Minecraft - that was a game that existed for years and only a few people knew what the fuck Minecraft was, and even less knew who Notch was. But Notch, unlike Alec/Derek, was lucky enough to get lots of publicity - his game REALLY started taking off when he got those comics made about how great his game was, on Penny Arcade. If Aquaria could be so lucky, it could take off just the same. Even now.

To bring this back to the mods - it definitely helps. That's more publicity, and Aquaria definitely has a really really good modding system, especially considering it's just an indie game, that system really manages to be better than a lot of mainstream official games. Some actual, decent, quality, lengthy mods would really help I think, so I fully support mods with heart in them, especially given how amazing the actual world of Aquaria was.

But I mean, if a mod gets finished that's basically its own game built off of Aquaria, then people can advertise the mod around on its own merits, and in doing so, advertise for Aquaria and get people interested in THAT. Sortof like how Mario World hacks advertise Mario World, if there were someone that hadn't played Mario World, the hacking community certainly keeps it alive so that people can still be introduced to it today.

[Nightmareshadow]

Maybe there's some ways we can improve the publicity of both these mods and of Aquaria as a whole?  I'm a little stumped, without help from Kotaku or whatever, though.

I wrote an Aquaria review using actual images from the game last summer and it's seen a fair number of hits(i even advertised it in these forums,) but apart from word of mouth over forums or what not, what can we really do?  It's not like we can ask Sony to just give it a try and see if they'd put it on the PS3.

Maybe we can draw attention to this Mod and Aquaria as a whole.  If anyone here has a private Blog or wants to put some info or if there were a demo for Magic of Aquaria, we might be able to do something.

Then again, I'm kind of grasping at straws.  It sucks that Aquaria doesn't get noticed...I tell everyone I know about it, but they never actually TRY the game.