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Aquaria Goes Open Source

Posted by Soulskill on from the come-on-in-the-water's-fine dept.

A post on the Wolfire blog yesterday announced that the source code for Aquaria has now been released. Aquaria, an action-adventure, underwater sidescroller from Bit Blot, was part of the Humble Indie Bundle, which was so successful that the developers of four games pledged to release them as open source. This marks the final release, following Lugaru, Gish, and Penumbra: Overture. The source code is available from a Mercurial repository.

58 comments

  1. Aquaria was pretty cool by Pojut · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Very reminiscent of Ecco the Dolphin. I found it a bit weird that the environments were so awesome looking while the main character looked like it was drawn by a ten year old, but other than that it was a great game. Be sure to check it out.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by sammyF70 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Doing "the body" right now, which I assume to be the last stage of the game, and I must concur : the game, despite being 2D and handdrawn (not a fault in itself, but people might get turned off when they see it initially), is very very good and addictive.

      --
      "DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
    2. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by grumbel · · Score: 2, Informative

      The problem with the sprite was that it was 2D with skeletal animation, which naturally ends up looking like a jumping jack. Alternatives would have been full 3D sprites or lots and lots of hand drawn animations, both much more complicated to do then what it did use.

    3. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Here is the full cracked game: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3931139/Aquaria_1.0_(cracked)

      Confirmed working.

    4. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 1

      I found it very cool but it always crashes on me not very far in. (Windows 7 64 bit)

      --
      This space available.
    5. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I found your problem. It appears that you're running an inferior operating system.

    6. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Maybe you could use one of those morphing tools that were all the rage a few years back? They were near-realtime even then, and used a kind of skeletal animation as a control rig.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    7. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I found the play control to be amazingly poor. Having to move the mouse so much was frustrating at best. Then again, it was better than Gish, which has genuinely awful control and a terrible tutorial to go with it.

      World of Goo is the only finished game in the bundle.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by mathx314 · · Score: 1

      You were expecting too much out of the games. Penumbra was a very small team who built their own 3D graphics engine and physics engine and built an incredibly terrifying adventure. Lugaru is a great, if simplistic, brawler written by a single guy (also with its own custom 3D engine). Aquaria's play controls are very good, although mouse controls in general can be a bit frustrating. Gish is... alright I don't like Gish. Still, that's 4/5 games from the pack. Just keep in mind how small these teams were and what they accomplished.

    9. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should we have to take in consideration how many people worked on these games? Why should we care?

      A game is either good or bad. I don't give a shit about how many people worked on it or for how long.

    10. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Penumbra was a very small team who built their own 3D graphics engine and physics engine and built an incredibly terrifying adventure.

      An incredibly buggy one, maybe. I played the Linux version, or tried to. Once I picked up the flashlight the only functions which worked were turning it on and off, ISTR that I could use one of the methods to toggle it but not the other, which is what it was waiting for before it would let me proceed.

      Lugaru is a great, if simplistic, brawler written by a single guy (also with its own custom 3D engine).

      With poor play control and a typically offensive camera, plus too-realistic textures. It does seem to be a workable 3d engine although it also seems to be too hungry for the number of polys being pushed.

      Just keep in mind how small these teams were and what they accomplished.

      I'm not saying I could do better, but that these games aren't worthy of being paid for, aside from Goo. But as always it's IMO.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    11. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lugaru with keygen: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4678708/Lugaru_1.05_plus_keygen
      Gish with keygen: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3501132/Gish_1.43_with_Keygen_%5BYahaa.org%5D_
      Penumbra Collection: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4592314/Penumbra_Collection_Retail
      World of Goo: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4545071/World_Of_Goo_game_%5BENG%5D_%5BPC%5D

      All confirmed working. Enjoy.

    12. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by sammyF70 · · Score: 1

      weird. Penumbra worked very well for me (linux too) and I never experienced crashes nor failing functionality.
      Lugaru was a turnoff at first. once I understood the controls, it was became a great game. Never had any framerate problems neither (pretty constant subjective >50 fps with an old nvidia8800 at 1680x1050, everything on), but well ... YMMV

      People worked hard on those games, and they deliver some very unusual gameplay with some really nice eye candy (Lugaru doesn't really fall in the eye candy department, but its strength is in the content). I finished Goo, I nearly finished Aquaria (still got the endboss to beat), working hard to beat some wolves in Lugaru, and I finished the first Penumbra. Gish is fun and quite innovative, but the save system is incredibly frustrating.
      Most AAA titles can't hold my attention that long, mostly because they sacrifice ingenuity for pure bling visuals and run-of-the-mill content. That really gets boring fast. So, IMO, all of the Humble Bundle games are worth paying for, especially as the guys who wrote them didn't have a big studio behind them paying monthly salaries ... but here again, YMMV.

      --
      "DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
    13. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Bat+Country · · Score: 1

      So attach a debugger and fix it.

      --
      The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
    14. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except there are plenty of better indie games on say XBLA or the iPhone appstore that aren't running on early 2000s quality engines that require the resources of mid-late 2000s computers.

    15. Re:Aquaria was pretty cool by kalirion · · Score: 1

      I found the play control to be amazingly poor. Having to move the mouse so much was frustrating at best.

      You can use WASD for movement, and only use the mouse for aiming. This also lets you shoot in a different direction from movement. You can also use a gamepad like the 360 controller, but I prefer keyboard+mouse.

  2. First Aquapost! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    nt

  3. Fish post by somersault · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yesh

    --
    which is totally what she said
    1. Re:Fish post by nacturation · · Score: 2, Funny

      Epic whale.

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  4. Amazing game! by psyque · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was completely blow away by this game when I bought it in the package. It's very well done and ends with you wanting more. Hopefully with this release the community can create some new stuff and drum up interest in a sequel. Don't have it? Buy it!

  5. and now I await the open source clone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Sorry, I don't think a fat penguin swimming around GIMP Flame generated backgrounds and gradient flares , coupled with obviously lifted copyrighted "free" sounds and Descent explosions is going to be a viable equal.

    Sorry.

    1. Re:and now I await the open source clone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      Would you do me a favor and commit suicide? Thanks.

    2. Re:and now I await the open source clone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      The saddest thing is that these zealots actually BELIEVE that open source games look good or that it's possible to create good looking graphics with GIMP.

  6. They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by gnalle · · Score: -1, Troll

    They opensourced the engine, but not the data. Unless somebody creates alternative data, then this is a non-story. http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/06/Aquaria-goes-open-source#disqus_thread

    1. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Informative

      Quake, Quake 2, et al., are the same way.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    2. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Haeleth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This opinion has come up in every story about these games. It's simply wrong. There is plenty that can be done with the code, even while the data remains proprietary.

      It would be extremely nice, in fact, if it became common practice for commercial games to have open-source code and proprietary data. That way the creators could still have an obvious way to make money, while the community could take care of making the game run on different platforms etc. (I guess it wouldn't work for multiplayer due to the rampant cheating that would ensue ...)

    3. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Or you could port the game and use the resources from the installer.

      Basically you could not be more wrong.

    4. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by DaleGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why a non-story? I have the data already, since I bought the game. The source code was what I was missing to be able to make some improvements I've been thinking of.

      This is exactly what I wanted, and I didn't expect anything more than that.

      If you're the same guy who keeps posting about this on the wolfire blog, just do a favour and stop complaining. If you don't see this as an opportunity for some improvements, then perhaps you're not really able to do any, and what you really want is free of charge game, but that was never promised in the first place.

      On my part, all I wanted is the source, I got it, so I'm happy.

      The outcome of the humble bundle couldn't have been better IMO, and I'll gladly contribute to any future initiatives of the sort.

    5. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Jahava · · Score: 1

      (I guess it wouldn't work for multiplayer due to the rampant cheating that would ensue ...)

      This isn't necessarily true. Adding or changing features in the game client may be easier with open-source, but current game cheats / hacks / mods frequently just operate by modifying the binary (static or runtime), netting the same effect. Any well-designed multiplayer game will have sanity checks built into either the central server (if there is one) or by client consensus that will reject (and ban / blacklist) a client that attempts to perform an impossible action.

      Merely being open source doesn't really increase the potential for cheating or the capabilities of those cheats; it just makes it easier to figure out how to create them.

    6. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Hatta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If open sourcing the engine (and the level editor) is not a story, how are the people interested in making games with it going to find out about the new tools available?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    7. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Peach+Rings · · Score: 1

      The quake sources had at least a few comments though. Aquaria's sources are sprawling and comment-free.

    8. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      The difference is the Quake, Quake II and Quake III engines were still revolutionary when they were released as open source. These game engines (even Penumbra's) are crap compared to stuff that is already freely available.

    9. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

      (I guess it wouldn't work for multiplayer due to the rampant cheating that would ensue ...)

      Quakeworld was an object lesson in this. Very shortly after the Quake source went GPL, you saw speed hacks. There were those in the Quake (specifically Team Fortress) community who believed that this was Carmack's poison pill to finally kill off the game. However, newer server code soon followed that detected speed hacks (among other things). And, for the most part, a game that had already survived numerous cheats before it was Open Source, continued to survive afterwards.

      It should be noted that one of Carmack's discussions around that time was the problem of balancing out latency without trusting the client too much (said trust being the issue that lead to speed hacks).

    10. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by hedwards · · Score: 1

      That's patently false. It means you can graft on extensions in places to make the engine do things that you couldn't previously do. Sure, current, cheats / hacks / mods are probably going to work the same, however, this does open things up for new ones that use different servers. But more than that it allows us to choose what systems to port it to.

    11. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by richlv · · Score: 1

      sure, this is great - having the source will provide benefits for the whole industry, even if only in small part.

      what would have been mighty cool if they had released data as well... these games would go into default distribution repositories, thus increasing interest in their future versions and linux gaming in general. oh well, maybe later :)

      --
      Rich
    12. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by Patch86 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Later is exactly it.

      I'm not saying that the developer ever will, but if they were to release it as a free download then it's not going to be now, while the game is still generating a few sales.

      There's no saying they won't make it free years down the line. In the meantime, bite the bullet and reward them for their hard work with a little hard cash.

    13. Re:They opensourced the engine, but not the data. by soppsa · · Score: 1

      Lol the furry http://daleglass.net/images/dale_small.png plans to make improvements... Does that mean you'll be adding erect penises to all the characters in the WolfFire game?

      --
      Ogre Wedding Planners llc.
  7. It figures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Open source gets yet another shitty third rate bit of code.

    You fucks are so funny with your dumb shit.

  8. open source sucks shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    right out of a faggot's ass.

  9. Awesome game by maugle · · Score: 1

    This game is amazing. Seriously, if I had known how good it was, I would've thrown in at least another $10 when I bought the Humble Bundle.

    1. Re:Awesome game by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      Aquaria was the whole reason I bought the bundle. And it was worth every cent I spent. The rest of the games are just extras and may or may not be entertaining but I'm already satisfied.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    2. Re:Awesome game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can still buy it again from the aquaria website if you want to give them more money.

  10. I have it! by Forethought · · Score: 1

    I bought the Humble Indie Bundle but haven't downloaded/played this game yet. Should I Slashdot?

    1. Re:I have it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      absolutely. The story is very interesting, and very reminicient of Darek Wu's other games (Like Eternal Daughter.)

      The sheer number of hand drawn sprites in the game is astounding. People complain these days that games are all eyecandy, and no gameplay; This one does not go that route. The hand drawn sprites only ENHANCE the gameplay, which is at once both quite fluid, graceful, and dynamic-- and can get outright challenging and extremely difficult, depending on the environment.

      I would very much like to see this game ported to other platforms, especially handhelds with analog sticks, like the PSP, or with touch screens, like the NDS.

    2. Re:I have it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Honestly: no
      Way too addicting, you'll waste a lot of time...

    3. Re:I have it! by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      Is there a gateway game then?

    4. Re:I have it! by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      Do you like Metroidvania? It's just like that except with swimming instead of running. Aquaria is all about exploring, finding new abilities and hidden treasure and then using your abilities to explore some more. There is a narrative (and a good one in my opinion) and it may be the first Metroidvania that actually gives you a reason to explore every nook and cranny - curiosity is the driving impulse behind the protagonist's actions and this is narrated very well.

      Also, some of the acheivments are really fun to get. High Jump would be one that's very satisfying to acheive and Monkey Flinger and Feather-mouth are just fun.

      If you like exploring, this game is for you, big time.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    5. Re:I have it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but it has shitty graphics

      i will rather play something with good graphics

    6. Re:I have it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd love to see it on the wii.
      nunchuck+pointer combo would be much better than mouse+keyboard

    7. Re:I have it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I honestly don't see why anyone has a problem with the graphics.
      It's a 2D game with 2D graphics - what do you expect?
      In my opinion, Aquaria's graphics are much "better" than those in Donkey Kong Country, despite the latter having pre-rendered 3D graphics.

      Movies are not inherently better than books, and books haven't stopped being worth reading because there are pretty explosions to see.
      I'd much rather read a book with a good story than sit through a shinypretty-borefest.
      And the gameplay in Metroid1+2+3 and Aquaria shits over almost every console FPS.

  11. request by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    so can someone make a version of the game that loads up all the files from a single zip file instead of 4788 tiny files! id software does it, but they just rename the zip to pak.

    1. Re:request by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes.
      A ZIP reader is always nice to have, even 7z. But the compression is more for the sake of packing than size in this case.
      Having a mess of files sitting around isn't much fun, especially if they are static.

      Even actually compressing the textures isn't such a bad thing since most will probably compress by 15% at least.
      Texture pack, model pack, video pack, audio pack, etc.
      Also makes it easier to replace them all in one, such as having a new higher-res texture pack or whatever.
      You can't beat bit-blobs.

  12. Side scroller? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Ugh, I have always hated side-scrollers, even when they were modern. Pukeotastic!

    1. Re:Side scroller? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      That's because you're a fucking faggot.
      Go fuck your mother in the ass and play halo.

    2. Re:Side scroller? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      mod +5 !!!!! :) side scrollers are for the aesthetically gifted.

  13. Hooray for Marketeering! by rakslice · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey, I wonder: What's the smallest unit of a software bundle you could open source and still get a front page story on Slashdot?

    1. Re:Hooray for Marketeering! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows goes open-source! Here's the first bit of code:
      {

    2. Re:Hooray for Marketeering! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. That is clearly SCO code.

      Um... I mean Novell code...