Explore DevBlog #4: Aquaria Moments

Accomplished (10/25 – 10/27)

• *  Got some feedback from the forums which wasn’t entirely helpful. But maybe Asher will be able to get more out of it than I will; will try to have another session with him
• *  Met with my composers on Tuesday. Got them settled in with what I need from them. It’s definitely exciting to have more people on the project, and Brent is also going to look into possibly finding me an animator, which is awesome
• *  Messaged my sound person, will set up a meeting with her shortly
• *  Had thesis class yesterday
• *  Changed the water to look a bit more water-y
• *  Implemented the blue terrain sections
• *  Implemented (but have not tested) global territory control recognition
• *  Tweaked some values on ribbonfish so that now jumping out of the water feels really good
• *  Made some slight changes to the visual style of creature 2. More ordinary, but works better for gameplay.
• *  Talked to Luke about the design for creature 2/ribbonfish

Next Steps

• * Implement a way for territorial critters to move from territory to loser’s circle (write a pathing AI that can switch between the wanderer type and the pather type) and back again
• *  Figure out the jitter issues
• *  Debug why territorials aren’t recognizing the player as a rival / get player involved in rival battles
• *  Figure out a third goal for the ribbonfish
• *  Setup meeting and meet with sound designer

So I want to talk about Aquaria. It’s one of the pieces of prior art for this game, for a number of reasons. Superficially, you’re an underwater character that gets to take on a variety of personas, each with their own special abilities. That’s pretty on par with what I’m going for, but it’s not really what I love about the game.

What Aquaria is really great about is moments of emotional intensity. I’m thinking of two points in particular – the first is the first time you leap out of the water. Leaping out of the water is just really damn fun in Aquaria. I may have to play it some more just to analyze specifically what it is that is so fun about it. I can only hope that my game can have water-leaping that awesome. But the very first time it happens, the camera zooms in and the whole game goes into slow motion. It’s this sort of epic expression of joy that I haven’t often felt from other games.

The second moment in Aquaria that really made me feel serious emotion was when I went into the deep water for the first time. The deep is nearly pitch black in Aquaria. You can occasionally make out a little bit of movment, but that’s about it. Eventually you’re supposed to go down there with a light-based ability that lets you see, but the first time I went without one and it was absolutely terrifying. What makes it worse is that you can find light down there – at a price. Some things in deep are luminescent, and if you stay close to them you can at least use them partially as landmarks to help you figure out where you’re going and where passages/edges are. Unfortunately, about half the luminescent things in the deep will also kill you. The lights are attached to giant stinging jellyfish, or the fronts of toothy anglers. Your only grasp at safety is also your primary danger. The tension and paranoia of that first journey down still remains with me.

What I’m hoping for in “Explore” is to have somewhat similar moments of revelation and emotional intensity. I’m looking for “wow” moments when you feel something you didn’t expect, and it sticks with you. I already have a few of them planned – including my own “first breach” as character 2. We’ll see how strongly I manage to author these segments, and how many players find them. I’m curious to see how it will go.