2007-05-20 (updated 2007-09-29)
<b>A beautiful, hand-crafted 2D adventure</b>

Lonely, restless Naija has spent her entire life wrestling with questions about her identity. We join her as she takes her first steps away from the comfort of home and into new, potentially dangerous waters. Through exploration and magical combat, Naija will unearth the history of Aquaria and connect with beings lost in the depths of time. On the search to discover the fate of her people, her destiny and that of Aquaria's will be forever altered.

<b>A massive, underwater fantasy world to explore</b>

Aquaria is an action-oriented, non-linear 2D side-scrolling game. Using an intuitive and fluid mouse control system, Naija can deftly swim through and explore a massive, handcrafted world that is teeming with undersea life. Along the way, she will encounter literally hundreds of different types of plants and animals and explore many ingame miles of hidden caves, lost ruins, and other strange places.

As kids, we grew up playing the brilliant 2D action and roleplaying games of the time. With Aquaria, we've aimed to capture the excitement of those games in a new way, using updated technology, controls, and visuals. This is a game with a very personal touch, from the characters and story to the creature interaction and expansive environments.

<b>Seamless, non-linear gameplay</b>

In order to make the experience as engaging as possible, we created an interface that lets the player easily control Naija with just a two-button mouse. The HUD is minimal (restricted to only a minimap in the lower-right corner of the screen). In place of textual dialogue that most games rely on we used voice acting to drive the story without interrupting the gameplay.

Through a realtime interface, Naija can sing songs and cast spells without going to a menu screen. With practice, these spells can be cast easily to interact with the environment, solve puzzles, or combine them for strategic effect during combat. Certain spells will allow you to change form, creating new ways of playing the game depending on the form chosen.



source: bit-blot.com/aquaria/