AQUARIA IS OUT!

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: December 8th, 2007

The Final Teaser.

Aquaria has finally been released! I’ll have (much) more to say about the game later, but as the Bit Blot site is down, I’ll just provide you with some hot, hot links for now.

The links that really matter:
Buy the game here. (Do it.)
Download the demo here. (63 MB)

Enjoy.

Posted in Adventure, Highly Recommended, Windows | Tags: AlecHolowka, BitBlot, DerekYu

http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

Congrats, boys! You made it.

You made it. :)
Mandrake42

Everyone should buy this game, its awesome. Don’t be put off by the relative ease at the start, the difficulty ramps up nicely :) I’m not sure if its just my imagination but the sound and graphics seem a bit better in the full version to the demo also. Anyone else notice this or am I just ingesting the wrong kind of mushrooms? My only regret with buying this game is I still haven’t told my mom I put it on her credit card.
Dusty Spur

I’ll say it again: Shit, money?

Oh well. The demo is awesome anyways!
Paolo

Congrats!

I’m from brazil… the game would cost about eighty of even a hundred bucks (the taxes are a pain), but I’ll try to save some.

Yeah, it’s THAT awesome.
Akhel

Congratulations, Bit Blotters! :D

Also – Paolo, I’m from Brazil too. It’s actually just R$55, since you don’t have to pay taxes for “virtual” purchases. ;)
Gesso

Dude, I’m from Brazil too, and according to the site, it costs R$55,51. It’s an online purchase, you don’t have to pay taxes. I’m definetively going to buy it.
Akhel

Haha. Brazilian invasion! :)
Gesso

Hehe, when I typed my post, you hadn’t posted yours yet. Sorry for repeating it, but still. Paolo should totally buy the game. At that price, it’s very accessible.
King-N

Yay a demo! Now I can see if I really want to shell out the $30.
Gurrah

Lucky Brazilian bastards! In Germany we have to pay VAT for all online purchases, even if you are buying overseas :(. But it didn’t stop me to buy the game – so gorgeous! Good , no great job you two bits.
Mandrake42

They are British? I thought they were in the states and just Jenna was British? I still haven’t had coffee so I’m confused. Plus there is still the whole mushroom thing.
Jad

I’m so DL:ing the demo! O: O:!!

<3 This'll be le ROCK
http://www.overwritten.net Quemaqua

I think he said “bits”, not “brits”. =)

But yeah, I picked it up and everyone else should ASAP. If you’re at all a fan of indy stuff, you can’t help but be impressed. This is up there with the best indy games ever made, period, and there are a lot of incentives to not only buy, but to keep coming back to it.
gustav

i’m probably going to buy it even if my computer can’t handle it…
won’t even be able to try the demo in a while… woe is me, woe is me.
Lackey

I have been wondering what killed the bit-blot site.
Kairos

What are you talking about? You HAVE to shell out 30 for the full version. It’s just totally worth it once you think about it. :P
recursror

Played the demo…definitely getting the game for Christmas. It is beautiful.
some anonymous douchebag

BMcC, is there possibly anything more you can say about this game that we havent heard? how many times are you going to repeat how much you are in love with the game and its developers?
I Like Cake

Man, I hate it when people like things.
http://www.distractionware.com Terry

On computers not being able to handle it: I’ve got a 1.something Ghz laptop with some shoddy built in graphics card, and I can get this to run perfectly at 640x480x16 :) And it still looks lovely, even at that minimum spec.

Well… not perfectly. It’s got a bit of a slow start – it skips a lot of frames for the first minute or so, and there are these big, endless pauses in the first ten seconds. But once it’s warmed up it’s grand!

Also, it’s a really good game – enjoying it a lot so far :)
Mandrake42

Ummm, you want him to say he hates it, that both Alec and Eric should die in a car crash and their families and everyone they knew or ever met should spontaneously human combust?
Mandrake42

Um that should have been Derek :P At least the last part of the name sounded right.
Mandrake42

It ran like a pig for me until I updated my graphics drivers so anyone having performance problems should definatly do that. It runs sweet now
Peter

The demo was pretty awesome. The audio visuals are amazing. Not liking too much the excessive swimming needed to figure out what you have to do though. I think I’ll buy the full version though. Must support indy developers :).
Lurk

Bought it this morning. Great fun, I beat the ruin boss, all the while wondering if I could’nt defeat him in Naija form by deflecting his missiles on the white power globe. Then I got killed by poisonous drunken frogs(I hesitated because I did’nt want to slaughter the tadpole). I learned my lesson.
YMM

Nice, can’t wait to play it. Thanks for all your hard work guys.
Mandrake42

I wonder how Naija cooks underwater?

@Lurk: I tried bouncing his blasts off my shield onto the globe. It didnt work ;)
Greg

I wonder how many hits the bit-blot site got yesterday before it buckled under the weight? Thats pretty legendary when your server gets fried the day your game comes out.

btw (spoiler), the game is about making sushi. :) :0 ;)
xvs07

I bought the full version yesterday before Bit Blot got mobbed, but I forgot to get the patch released for those who can’t get it to boot more than once. Can someone host the patch and put a link in the above post? Thanks in advance to anyone who does!
Paolo

@Akhel, Gesso

Oh!

Now I know what I’ll buy myself for x-mas :D
Paolo

But I’d pay twice if it had a “boxed” version, though =(
Zeno

Hey, their site’s back up now.

Yay.
Chris

Aquaria is a really great game. But I’m not so sure about the part I’m on now.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I’ll just say the fourth (for me) boss is making me angry. What you have to do is clever, but you have to do it way too many times. I’ve managed to die three times now, and my arm is ready to fall off. On the third try I thought I’d finally done it when things went red, but it was a new stage. Once my arm recovers, it’ll take me another 20 minutes of doing the same thing over and over just to get back to the next part I need to figure out. ;_;
Jad

“BMcC, is there possibly anything more you can say about this game that we havent heard? how many times are you going to repeat how much you are in love with the game and its developers?”

It delights me that you had the insight to name yourself appropriately (:

But yeah, I can get that you’d want less subjetively loveydovey posts and more objective informativeness but hey

what are you hoping to change? O: Like the cake liking person said, do you hate when people like things/each other?

Anyhow, the game roXKZ (:
rz.

now time for a post about cortex command build 19. … pre-release
Lailoken

Wow, just wow.

I am denying myself the incredible urge to buy this until I finish my online course due end of Jan.

So instead I DL the demo of course. Stayed up till 6 am making sure I squeezed every last bit out of it. Including translating the Aquarian language… (yes i’m a nerd)

“Not liking too much the excessive swimming needed to figure out what you have to do though.”

That’s part of why I love this game already. Moving is fun. Trying to get good at bouncing so you can move REALLY fast, and you can get through a whole area without slowing down so much you miss a wall grab is fun. Hunting various fish and pulling up leaves while you travel is fun. Spotting some new little detail you didn’t see your first 2 passes is fun. I assume the ancient turtle = teleport from zone to zone so the endless swimming really doesn’t worry me. Glad to hear it gets challenging ^_^.

Sorry for the ramble. This game is awesome.
Space Ranger

wow this is an awesome game :D Congrats :)
Moose

Wow, this looks like a neat game :) Although I was kind of frustrated swimming around trying to find the Song Cave after the introduction bit. And.. save points.. bummer.. no quick, casual games :(

The editor looks spectacular, too, but I couldn’t find the documentation that the tutorial methods to explain what the heck is going on with those nodes.

Is there any way to sing without moving the cursor back onto your character? (Just because I’ve gotten into the habit of singing along with the background music while I’m exploring. *blush*)
http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

WOW! This game just sucked me in. Awesome werk guys!
Stogey

I’m on 56K and I really want to try the demo. Could someone put it in a .zip file pretty please?
http://www.timscheiman.com/blog TimS

Nice work to all involved. Played the demo and it looks to be a very VERY solid example of the love of the craft.

Anyone know what % of the game is in the demo?

Anyway… this game is beautiful.

-T
http://www.thur.dreamhosters.com Thur!

oh… Sure thing an brazilian invasion hahahah im from Brazil too…. Congrats you all guys! congrats Derek Yu… again nice art work :-)

Downloading Demo now! :-)
Simon Love

Amazing demo, guys. This one has got that timeless quality, as it’s both unique and well-executed. I think Aquaria will be an awesome poster child for indie games!

Congratulations!
ssfsx17

Is this like Ecco, except with actual colors and sounds?
Praadur

Tim: I believe I read in an interview that it’s supposed to be around one-tenth or thereabouts.

As for the game, I’m thouroughly enjoying it. Then again, I always did like these exploration games. I have to admit that I came to this game hoping it would be Ecco for the current generation, and in many ways it is, but it’s also so much more.

It won’t suit gamers who absolutely require immediacy (and sadly there are more of those out there than not), but for people like myself… well, it’s time well spent!
http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

@Jad: Heh, I changed his name, actually. ;)

He’s missing the fact that I’m _not_ just some adulating fan — I did a bit of work on the game myself. So I have, like, insight and stuff. :P

But it’s whatever. He’s just a troll.
PHeMoX

Wow, just WOW!! Very nice game, excellent atmosphere, superb graphics and very good gameplay!
Dan MacDonald

I bought it, havn’t regretted it for a second. Honestly one of the games I’ve enjoyed most this year.
Chris

I retract my earlier complaints. There was a better way to do it. ^^;
Gene G.

Well, I think we can take Aquaria off the active development list.

Awesome game, you guys. I commend your hard work. It’s definitely inspiring to see a group of people pull off such a massive effort. I hope to see more from Bit Blot in the future.

I’m playing the demo so far, and I have a lot to critique, but I won’t spoil the mood by listing everything. Every game has flaws, and this game’s flaws are very tolerable.

PS-Anyone else think $30 is a bit much for an indie game? I got into the indie gaming scene to avoid paying so much money for a fun game. :(