Something like a sequel mod

[ClagiusClanlor]

While I also have little to contribute more than lurking, I'd like to say thank you for working on this.  I've been desperate for an extension to the story, even an unofficial one!

My GF is going to finish Aquaria soon and I know she's going to be genuinely sad about the note the game leaves off on, even just the promise of this mod at least gives me some hope to pass on to her.

[False.Genesis]

Cutscenes are annoying. I hate coding them. So much synchronizing and timing work.  

And some code is now running into performance issues when many AI controlled NPCs are on the map. Profiling shows that already >40% of the total CPU time is spent somewhere in Lua. Need to try and fix this at some point, otherwise maps can't be populated as much as i wanted to without lagging to hell.

Did i say AI?

Some humanoids have an advanced AI using a planner -- this actually exists since quite some time, but I didn't write about this.
It's pretty incomplete right now but entities are able to fight, dodge shots, follow, and other things. They have "ears" and memory and can remember where they have last seen certain things of interest, e.g. a health plant, and will go grab it if they are low on health. They will hop on a seahorse and follow you if they figure it is the best way of getting after you. If they have nothing better to do they will go and pick up food nearby. Etc etc.  
And they already did things i did neither implement nor expect, which is a good thing for AI, right?
The AI applies to both friends and enemies, but with slightly changed rules for balancing.


^ This is the current AI state graph of a player character, snapshotted in a harmless situation on the home map.  Incomplete, work in progress!
   Red is the chain of actions that was taken, pink are states that it considered but that were rejected.
   This maze is auto-generated. I'm not touching this madness by hand!

This was inspired by the AI of F.E.A.R. -- It's a good read and you should do so if you are interested how things may work under the hood. My implementation is 100% Lua so there are some things that can't be done due to performance reasons, for example A* search to find most efficient paths through the state graph. Would be too much for any scripting language, and far too slow. Greedy best-first search turned out to be sufficient.


Anyway, now i added a pic to my sig that gets updated whenever i push something to the (private) development repo, displaying the commit message. This is probably better than no apparent updates at all for a very long time.
Now i only hope i won't write anything stupid/emparassing/spoilerish into the commit log...
Warning: Not suitable for children under 3 due to possible swearing.

[EDIT] There:

[Liarra Sniffles]

Ah, it's been ages since I've played Aquaria or been on this site, this mod is still being worked on!? The dedication!
Last time I was here I was only  12 years old or so, so it's pretty nice to see stuff still going on. This mod still looks amazing, I'm almost tempted to go dig up my own mod project from back then, but I'm scared of looking at the abomination that is an un-tutored 12 year old's lua coding.

Right, I'm gonna go see about changing my username and actually following up on a few of these mods which were only idea's when I last saw them.

~~~"Liarra Sniffles [NsP]" is my steam user if anyone wants to contact me, I feel like this should be in a sig, but I have no idea how to use this site yet.~~~

[False.Genesis]

Ah, it's been ages since I've played Aquaria or been on this site, this mod is still being worked on!? The dedication!

Haha, yep
Here, have a WIP screenshot:


^ New menu WIP. Songs are not yet arranged by color. The bottom bar maps to the shortcut keys [1-9,0] and holds songs, food, costumes, etc. Whatever is put in.

Last time I was here I was only  12 years old or so, so it's pretty nice to see stuff still going on. This mod still looks amazing, I'm almost tempted to go dig up my own mod project from back then, but I'm scared of looking at the abomination that is an un-tutored 12 year old's lua coding.

12 ?! I didn't start coding before i was 14 (DOS BASIC, which is totally different from Lua). Respect + Kudos on that!

You should continue yours if you can, this time learning Lua properly. It's super useful to be able to code, and it's a good brain training for later. It's good to have a logic-oriented mindset, believe me
Aside from this screenshot (which was pretty meh), your mod looked nice!

Right, I'm gonna go see about changing my username and actually following up on a few of these mods which were only idea's when I last saw them.

~~~"Liarra Sniffles [NsP]" is my steam user if anyone wants to contact me, I feel like this should be in a sig, but I have no idea how to use this site yet.~~~

PROFILE -> Forum Profile Information -> signature box.

[Liarra Sniffles]

12 ?! I didn't start coding before i was 14 (DOS BASIC, which is totally different from Lua). Respect + Kudos on that!

Well I say coding, the most I remember doing was working out how to add 4 Nautilus Prime's to one big area, and change the shark ai..? so that they just constantly charge towards you. But thinking back on it, I think I actually just broke the ai somehow, not sure if that counts as good coding.

You should continue yours if you can, this time learning Lua properly. It's super useful to be able to code, and it's a good brain training for later. It's good to have a logic-oriented mindset, believe me
Aside from this screenshot (which was pretty meh), your mod looked nice!

Aha! the "hook tree", I remember that. I spent most of my "modding" time screwing around in the editor making huge maps full of stuff. The PC I was working on literally exploded into flames, but I think we saved the hard-drive so I might find it yet. Then again, I might make a whole new "mod" (basically a glorified map pack with maybe some sounds added in) and try my hand at some segment based sprite animation. Right at the moment I am on vacation and this isn't my laptop, so I'm not sure how much I can/want to do here.

I've been looking through some WIP images you have posted, I have to say it looks like a whole new game. I never really liked how the inventory/cooking/loading screens had the statue of her face on it though, so that might be the first thing I mod out of my game.

[False.Genesis]

I've been looking through some WIP images you have posted, I have to say it looks like a whole new game. I never really liked how the inventory/cooking/loading screens had the statue of her face on it though, so that might be the first thing I mod out of my game.

There is a working-but-ugly way to replace the background rock texture (that has the face on it), but this is all you're able to change.
The menu itself is hardcoded in C++ and can't be changed by mods. At all.

... or so it's being said.



Spoiler: I went down the route of madness to customize the menu. You don't want to know.


Oh and while you're here, steam sucks. IRC is where the cool kids hang out.

[Liarra Sniffles]

There is a working-but-ugly way to replace the background rock texture (that has the face on it), but this is all you're able to change.
The menu itself is hardcoded in C++ and can't be changed by mods. At all.

... or so it's being said.


Oh and while you're here, steam sucks. IRC is where the cool kids hang out.

Well I have a few ideas to get around that, including just creating a whole new menu with the same functions on it and changing the key bindings around, or adding some kind of overlay effect when esc is pressed, or just changing every. single. texture. that has anything to do with rocks or statues to one that is transparent (if possible). We will see. I might even create a simple third party program overlay if it turns out to be easier than potentially breaking into the hard code and killing the game itself.

I don't have an IRC program installed, and I don't really know what it is other than a group chat of some kind. That and I really like steam, it has gaemz in it :C

[Daxar]

Ignore him, he just hates Steam for no reason. XD

IRC is indeed an Internet chat protocol that's been around since the dawn of teh interwebs. Fgenesis and I hang out there all the time, and it's basically the center of where mod development goes on. It's fun! I've got a complicated setup now, but in the past I've used Quassel - http://quassel-irc.org/ and other people recommend mIRC - http://www.mirc.com/ . It's all fairly straightforward once you get over a minor learning curve.

EDIT: Even easier, can just IRC online here without having to install anything: http://webchat.esper.net/?nick=&channels=bitblot

[Nightmareshadow]

Ah, it's been ages since I've played Aquaria or been on this site, this mod is still being worked on!? The dedication!

Haha, yep
Here, have a WIP screenshot:


^ New menu WIP. Songs are not yet arranged by color. The bottom bar maps to the shortcut keys [1-9,0] and holds songs, food, costumes, etc. Whatever is put in.

Last time I was here I was only  12 years old or so, so it's pretty nice to see stuff still going on. This mod still looks amazing, I'm almost tempted to go dig up my own mod project from back then, but I'm scared of looking at the abomination that is an un-tutored 12 year old's lua coding.

12 ?! I didn't start coding before i was 14 (DOS BASIC, which is totally different from Lua). Respect + Kudos on that!

You should continue yours if you can, this time learning Lua properly. It's super useful to be able to code, and it's a good brain training for later. It's good to have a logic-oriented mindset, believe me
Aside from this screenshot (which was pretty meh), your mod looked nice!

Right, I'm gonna go see about changing my username and actually following up on a few of these mods which were only idea's when I last saw them.

~~~"Liarra Sniffles [NsP]" is my steam user if anyone wants to contact me, I feel like this should be in a sig, but I have no idea how to use this site yet.~~~

PROFILE -> Forum Profile Information -> signature box.

Four years since I last poked my head in this way and HOLY CRAP MAYBE A SEQUEL AND THOSE SCREENSHOTS LOOK AMAZING!!!

I would totally pay money to see this get finished.  Considered setting up a patreon or a Kickstarter?  I mean, yeah, it's a mod, but still...anything to help it along.  Really impressed with the work and when Chapter 1 is ready, I'd love to give it a try.  God, would, I...

[False.Genesis]

I would totally pay money to see this get finished.  Considered setting up a patreon or a Kickstarter?  I mean, yeah, it's a mod, but still...anything to help it along.  Really impressed with the work and when Chapter 1 is ready, I'd love to give it a try.  God, would, I...

Woo, thanks! Money is not an issue. Free time vs things to get done is the actual problem. And adding money to this would add unnecessary stress i'd like to avoid (and i guess everyone is with me on that).

TBH, we're on a little hiatus right now. But hey, it's the time around newyear, everyone is busy with real life™, but things should settle in a bit. Personally, i'm currently dealing with this and this situation, but as soon as this is over (hard deadline in first half of january) i'll get back to work on the code, and in general things will get rolling again.

Just keep an eye on this topic mkay? There will be updates, screenshots, and... THINGS.

[False.Genesis]

Quick note: Hiatus is over. Back to work!

[Gringamuyloca]

  THIS, is awesome news! 

Happy New Year btw. 

[Trevenant]

just registering to say theres still interest in this 

[Bhoren]

Hi !


Now you can find Lea from CrossCode in the Sequel Mod ! (clic for bigger view)



You can find CrossCode here :
http://www.cross-code.com/en/home
https://twitter.com/RadicalFishGame

[Fayfer]

Just passing by... and MOARing it a little bit.