Aquaria FAQ

[Alec]

We changed the first part of the full game so that it would function better as a demo (and actually as a more interesting intro to the game as whole), so the demo is going to be the first part of the game.

There's also a pre-title intro that will only be on the full version.

You'll be able to continue playing the full version from the saves in the demo.

[Dencore]

Just over two years I think!

The idea was floating around a year before that. We have like a hundred builds from throughout development. The game went through some pretty interesting changes.

Awesome. How many people were working on this? Also are you planning to move onto PC retail or console development after this game?

[Derek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EapcVSB7U4U

 

(+ Jenna, our voice actress, and our testers and various advisors along the way, of course.  )

[Tosheros]

No day 4? 

[p3ter_st0ry]

Shh... 
They're probably working 

[illithid235]

Haha, I was waiting for someone to post that. I, too, am anxiously awaiting the next update...

[Rook]

Hi, I used the search function to find a thread about widescreen from March  (link).  I was just wondering whether their had been a change recently to enable a widescreen mode.  It seems a huge shame for a game with a focus on it's beautiful art style to then completely screw up the presentation of the game by only offering it in 4:3.   (Yes, games in 4:3 are ugly and stupid!)

3 days!

[Alec]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

We don't support widescreen right now, but it may be possible to add it. The problem is that it would affect the layout of a lot of things and involve a lot of time adjusting things / replaying the game to make sure it works properly everywhere. 

There may also be weird issues that arise from being able to see more of the level than you were originally intended to.

I'd like to experiment with ti sometime, but I think it would be a mistake to add it now because it would probably be pretty hacky. I could see it being a patch later though, if it works out well enough.

[Rook]

Hi, thanks for the speedy reply.  Just goes to show how little I know about game development!  Still picking this up on day 1.

[Alec]

Thanks!

I think next time we'll try to keep it in consideration from the beginning, that way it would be less of a hassle once the game is done, it feels kinda like a game has to have it in mind from the beginning to avoid weirdness. (unless its a 3D game or something and you can just change the perspective with the magic of math)

[illithid235]

  (Yes, games in 4:3 are ugly and stupid!)

3 days!

Well..... I'm not sure if that's necessarily true... it's just what you're used to. You obviously are lucky enough to have access to widescreen stuff, but I've not been wealthy enough in the last 5 years to afford anything widescreen. I'm not used to it though, so 4:3 looks just fine to me.

[Alec]

It can get ugly if it gets stretched to fill the widescreen monitor. And whether or not that happens depends on your monitor and video card.

e.g. on my mac book pro's widescreen, I can run 4:3 in fullscreen at the right aspect ratio. But if I run fullscreen on my separate widescreen monitor, it stretches horizontally to fill the space. Its not the worst thing ever, but its not the greatest either.

[Sfiera]

Black bars look kinda ugly too. As far as I've seen, though, the only UI element that might be genuinely difficult to adapt to widescreen is the red tinge that indicates low health. Otherwise: clip the screen; move the mini map and captions up; scale down the pause/inventory screen and it should be fine.

It would be a nice feature to have by the time of the Mac release, since all of the current Macs use them.

[Alec]

I wonder if people would be upset about clipping the screen. There was a huge stink when gamers found Bioshock was clipped.

(although personally it wouldn't make much difference to me either way)

[luciferin]

I'm sad to hear about Aquaria not supporting widescreen.  Not so much because it wont fill my screen but because my nVidia drivers are so buggy that I can't get 4:3 to display without stretching.  It works perfectly in linux, but the Windows drivers just can't handle it. 
There's no way I'm going to play Aquaria in the wrong aspect ratio.  Is there any way you could work in support for widescreen resolutions to add black bars on the sides?