DarkPack - Music replacement Mod for Aquaria/Aquaria:Sacrifice/Other Mods

[mattbentley]

DarkPack - Dramatic music replacement Pack for Aquaria/Sacrifice/Other Mods
================================================

I love the music of Aquaria and if you don't you suck. It's beautiful, it's consistent, and it's sublime.
...so anyway, I decided to replace it all.

WHAT?
-===-

Originally I was developing DarkPack for Aquaria's prequel mod, "Sacrifice"... however quickly realising that Sacrifice uses MOST of the Aquaria music I opted to replace the whole lot and give it out for free as an alternative for people playing the second-time through, OR Sacrifice, OR other mods.


WHERE?
--==--

Download here (45MB):
http://www.mediafire.com/?tdyibyx1m0v



INSTALLATION/UNINSTALLATION
-==========================--

Create a backup folder, copy the original music (from the aquaria/mus folder) in there, then unzip the contents of the aquaria-darkpack_-_music_replacement_1.zip above into the aquaria/mus folder, overwriting all files.

To uninstall, simply copy the files from the backup folder back to the aquaria/mus directory.



AGAIN, WHAT? ALSO, HOW?
--===========---


DarkPack is a replacement pack for all of Aquaria's music, designed for Sacrifice but also for second-time-through players of Aquaria who want a very different feel to the game - and for any other mods people want to play.
I've replaced all of the 53 pieces of game music (excluding the BitBLot logo of course...) with my own pieces of music selected from some 2 hundred pieces composed over the past 17 years. In fact, I've remastered and re-edited 10 of my older tracks that've never seen the light of day, just for this mod. It's taken three weeks to do, and constant in-game testing (oh woe is me! Have to play aquaria... "sob").
I've stuck closely to the intended emotion of each area, while devising my own aesthetic based on the emotive undertones of the Sacrifice mod - war, impending doom, lighthearted comedy, excitement and high drama. It's a more dramatic pack, basically.
What it lacks in the game's original lighthearted and charming new-agey tone, it makes up for by bringing a more serious affectation.
It's more "varied" than the original, which conversely is to say "less consistent".
In particular the battles are slightly more - I guess the phrase would be - 'balls to the wall'-


DarkPack - ancienttest ("Fight"):

Listen here:  http://www.box.net/shared/19uox1l1k2



... the dark sections are more melancholic-


DarkPack - Remains ("The cross"):

Listen here: http://www.box.net/shared/897eyyf5df




and the bits with "Fred" are much sillier-


DarkPack - cave ("Playground"):

Listen here: http://www.box.net/shared/iepeal1bco



I'm happy with how it all translates into Aquaria Original - very happy with forestgod, but also the end-battle music and seahorse race.
Give it a go. Who knows, you might like it.
Just don't let me tell you about just how long it takes to select, then properly and accurately loop 50-odd songs and find the optimal bitrates for each of them and and ... what, you don't want to know? Screw you!!!


HOW CAN I HELP?
--=========----

If you spot any mistakes, let me know - contact me: http://www.soulstudios.co.nz
Also tell me good things about myself and the music, I need encouragement!
Go out and support indie talent - buy the game, buy the original soundtrack on CD. Support the developers. Don't pirate music or games.
You could also listen to or buy my music, if you like - see bottom.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-===============-

Thank you for the best game I've played in years Bit Blot (http://www.bit-blot.com).
Thank you for the Sacrifice mod Danny O'Connell (great dialogue).
Thanks to Jules, the original developer of Tracktion (www.mackie.com/tracktion), the awesome music software, sadly discontinued due to Mackie going DOWN.
Thanks to Ogg for making a codec which functions so very well at low bitrates.
Thanks to the cold which made me stay home and finish the crap out of this.


LEGAL STUFF - terms of use
-----------

I've asked Bit Blot about their stance on this and they haven't gotten back in touch, which I personally take as tacit approval. If I wake up tomorrow with one of my arms gone missing, well I'll know they didn't like it I guess. Such is life!

Now for the legal mumbo-babaganush:
Sorry, I have to write this stuff because I run a studio, and the tracks may be used in other contexts.

You're free to distribute this, without modification to any of the files, and without splitting up the pack or adding to it in any way.
You may not under any circumstances modify it, charge for it or charge for distributing it, or in turn derive any form of payment from it's use. The music contained in the pack remains solely under my copyright and ownership, and may not be used outside of the playing of Aquaria the computer game. I reserve the right to change these terms of use under any circumstances or at any point in time. These terms hold for all versions of the pack, in all mediums, throughout the known universe and in perpetuity.
In the above "I" and "my" refers to Matt Bentley (http://www.soulstudios.co.nz), "You" refers to everyone else in the world. "This" and "it" refers to the DarkPack replacement music pack for Aquaria and the music contained in it. "The music" refers to all the music in the DarkPack replacement pack for aquaria.



OTHER WORK
-===------=

I make music here: http://www.mattbentley.net
I also did a music replacement pack for Iji a long time ago, "passivepack". You can find it on the iji forums. It's not nearly as good, and is unlooped, but people seemed to like it.  Iji rocks, too.

[RobertWalker]

...Now I gotta play Aquaria again. Thanks a lot, jerk.

Just kidding, of course. I really look forward to this. In my "copious spare time."

[Alphasoldier]

Sounds amazing, I'll be sure to play Aquaria again with these tracks, is about time too, looking forward to it!

[Lady-Succubus]

A mod of a mod, that turns out to be a mod of the full game. Yays! ^.^

I'll put it on my desktop, which serves as a todo list for me. :3

[Inyssius]

That is a remarkably sad face for such a totally rad undertaking. 

[Lady-Succubus]

Remarkably sad face? Who? Where?

[Inyssius]

Right next to the thread title!

[Lady-Succubus]

Maybe it's highlighting the darkness? :3

[mattbentley]

Lady Succubus is correct, it's a little bit of irony at my own expense, also there's no emoticon for post-ironic emo dramatics.

Glad to hear you guys like this and let me know how you find it , as you progress.
Cheers

[Lady-Succubus]

I'll let you know as soon as I pull myself out of my Pit of Procrastination. :3

[Hiro]

Hey hey! Just listening to the example tracks I like what I hear. I also haven't played Aquaria in aaaages. With the break coming up sounds like a good time. Really awesome job on the composing. I really like your idea (modding the ingame music) too. 

[mattbentley]

Thank you I try.

[Inyssius]

The Verse Cave and main menu pieces were a promising start, and an entirely new take on the game. Sir, you may consider me hooked.

I really liked the Song Cave track, but I thought it sounded out of sync with its location... until I went to open the Song Door, and I realized that the track was built entirely around the door-opening song. That's just effing awesome.

Now, the original Energy Temple music is my favorite piece in the whole soundtrack. It's got a sense of focus about it: what is this place? It's the Energy Temple, that's what. What are you doing here? You're exploring! You're defying fallen gods, fists blazing with eldritch power! You're darting from pillar to pillar pursued by lizards and bolts of flame! It sets the tone of the area perfectly--it's a ruined temple, but it was a warriors' temple, a place of battle and flame; it's no longer that, but life is still thriving there, and the new inhabitants aren't so different from the old so you had better be prepared to dance, buster.

I see you went with a different approach entirely, there--foreboding, haunting, building tension. I didn't think much of it... until I reached the end, and learned what it had been building up to. The Fallen God music was pretty great, and what's more I thought it flowed naturally from the track before it. After that, the March of the Krotites music was just gravy.

Your Miniboss piece is perfect for the Nautilus Prime fight. Absolutely perfect. Fantastic work there (although I haven't met any other minibosses yet, mind you).

I thought the Open Waters and Mithalas Ruins soundtracks were, well, quite good. The Mithalas one reinforced the feel of the area pretty well; and I never really liked the original Open Waters track after the first three minutes I spent there, so this one was starting from a favored position and it didn't disappoint.

The Mithalas Cathedral track was intriguingly off-kilter and quite fitting for two minutes, bewilderingly out-of-sync when I started fighting giant monsters, and migraine-inducingly painful to behold for the twenty or thirty repetitions thereafter. I tried to soldier on after that, and failed: I think the Mithala boss-fight music was pretty neat, but I couldn't be sure given that I was hearing it through a thick red cloud of migraine headache. (Ditto the Kelp Forest track, after which I quit playing to post my first impressions and take some ibuprofen).

Anyway, my overall impressions so far? Overwhelmingly positive. Fantastic work. The mod I'm working on now doesn't have any place for new music, but on my next project I'm definitely going to ask about using some of your music first. Thank you for posting this; it's made my third playthrough considerably more enjoyable.

[Lady-Succubus]

Okay, thanks to Inyssius, I'm scheduling another playthrough of Aquaria. :3

[mattbentley]

The Verse Cave and main menu pieces were a promising start, and an entirely new take on the game. Sir, you may consider me hooked.

Your Miniboss piece is perfect for the Nautilus Prime fight. Absolutely perfect. Fantastic work there (although I haven't met any other minibosses yet, mind you).

I thought the Open Waters and Mithalas Ruins soundtracks were, well, quite good. The Mithalas one reinforced the feel of the area pretty well; and I never really liked the original Open Waters track after the first three minutes I spent there, so this one was starting from a favored position and it didn't disappoint.

The Mithalas Cathedral track was intriguingly off-kilter and quite fitting for two minutes, bewilderingly out-of-sync when I started fighting giant monsters, and migraine-inducingly painful to behold for the twenty or thirty repetitions thereafter. I tried to soldier on after that, and failed: I think the Mithala boss-fight music was pretty neat, but I couldn't be sure given that I was hearing it through a thick red cloud of migraine headache. (Ditto the Kelp Forest track, after which I quit playing to post my first impressions and take some ibuprofen).

Anyway, my overall impressions so far? Overwhelmingly positive. Fantastic work. The mod I'm working on now doesn't have any place for new music, but on my next project I'm definitely going to ask about using some of your music first. Thank you for posting this; it's made my third playthrough considerably more enjoyable.

That's a fantastic review Thank you.
For you I've made a less high-frequency-rife ver of the cathedral music, here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0y0kry2wwj0

and for anyone else who's finding that section a bit grating of course. Should get rid of the headaches
(basically just dropped the volume and reduced the frequencies above 6.8k).

Let me know if it works for you.
M@