Aquaria FAQ

[KingAl]

On the subject of Aquaria (tenuous links FTW), I notice Derek and Alec are confirmed judges for the 2008 IGF.

[ArcticSwan360]

If she can get out of water and climb, will there be places where she have to grab onto some area like a pole or something to swing over land and into another pool of water? Maybe even do a bit of pole jumping acrobats to get to the other side, and you get hurt or die if you fall to the ground? that would be neat.

Also, what type of graphics card is this going to need? I don't have a very good one, at all. Mine is pretty old.

[Tosheros]

If it is not in the game, you can add it with the editor

[shinygerbil]

She can survive just fine out of water, so there are some higher areas that you can find by figuring out ways to climb.

It really *is* gonna be Sexy Hiking Mark II...

[Kagenoku]

After watching the 7 minute preview.  An idea came to mind, it seems that one must click on the bottom right corner (button) to bring up the menu, a hot key to do the same thing might prove useful, even invaluable against a hard boss/swarm of foes.

[Tosheros]

Yep, we click near the map (on the map ?) and if we are trying to escape a fatal attack it might be usefulle not to have to let Naija for a second to heal her.

But still, it might be more realistic. I mean if you are fighting a "Giant ennemy crab!!" you wouldn't say "Break time! Just let me cook a small pie, I need to heal to be able to defeat you." or juste make food straight into your mouth in a time equal to 0 second while you were fighting.
This little second of rest that Naija takes is not really realistic (for that Alex & Co would have need to make some elaborated animations where Naija shoots energy bolts with one hand while she is making scrambled sturgeon eggs with the other and it would have meant a tremendous work for not a lot of things in the end...) but stillit makes the thing a bit harder.

And the lack of difficulty is one of the major problems of videogames nowaday.

[Alec]

You can already push Escape to open the menu.

[p3ter_st0ry]

Just wondering, how do you bring up the spell menu? (When you want to sing a song)

[Alec]

Hold right mouse button.

[Xocrates]

And the lack of difficulty is one of the major problems of videogames nowaday.

I disagree! Not about games being easier, but about that being a problem. You want your games challenging, not hard. By challenging I mean that the player will need to employ his skills on a problem that may take time but he can eventually get there (there are many games out there that are virtually impossible to lose. That doesn't mean they are not challenging). Hard means that your average player will lose or be otherwise stuck so often that he will become frustrated and drop the game midway through. And unless it's an exceptionally good game otherwise he may never pick it up again.

[Alec]

Yeah, you definitely want a balance. You want obstacles that make sense. The worst is games that are arbitrarily hard. Like just ramping up the hit damage of an enemy so that you die instantly, or having impossible controls. (although, some b-games that do that are awesome, because they're so insanely challenging and weird) You also want to ramp it up in a fairly smooth way so that the player can grow with the game / characters.

Its hard stuff to get right, especially because everyone is at different levels of play ability. One way is to offer people alternate paths and/or solutions, so that players that may be more interested in exploration don't have to be doing combat all the time, etc.

Its a tough balance, that's for sure!

[Sfiera]

Man, I need to break out Petit Copter again.

As for offering different paths, I do like it in theory. The problem is that most games have a limited amount of content, and following one path can give you the sense that you're being explicitly denied other content (frustrating!). You could theoretically get rid of that sense if there were an infinite amount of content, but that's hard, and we've already seen how useful theory is.

If we're to have a discussion on game difficult, though, might I suggest moving it to Games?

[Alec]

Yeah, that's true. By paths I more meant options. Like different solutions to some situations. Its just giving players options.

[p3ter_st0ry]

And what if...
you don't have a right mouse button 

Wahhhhhh!!!!!

[Sfiera]

Being a Mac-user doesn't preclude you from buying a decent mouse...