Indie Game Spotlight: Aquaria

Okay, time to talk indie games. One of my favorites is Aquaria. It takes a fresh new take on the exploration games by putting almost the whole game underwater and having a deep story that's about as deep as the seas of Aquaria itself.

You can see the 8 note song wheel which you can play songs
with, it's fun to play around with and try to replicate the
title song.

Aquaria is an amazing indie game where you play as the curious mermaid-like Naija trying to find answers about why is she the only one of her kind left. Aquaria plays kinda like Metroid with some puzzle stuff. The name of the game is explore, find and use, over the course of the game you will find a collection of 3-5 note songs which you play on an eight note song wheel, the songs are easy to memorize and have all sorts of effects, such as picking up rocks, creating a shield or even transformation. The art in the game is amazing, the hand-drawn sprites all animate well and have unique designs. The world in which you explore, Aquaria is huge, from the Open Waters, The Veil to the Abyss. The world is open and kinda scary, actually. Another notable mechanic is the cooking system, every food item has an effect ranging from healing to speed boosts, you can find raw materials such as leaves or fish oil and etc and combine them to make new foods that can have even greater effects. The game has tons of little goodies from finding a pot that, in your little home has a constant supply of meat for you to cook with to costumes which have effects and even a giant black pearl. Naija, the lone protagonist is a very well made character and she also has a great voice actor behind her. The game also has one thing that most computer games have, mods. The mods in this game are pretty good, some have large arenas to fight in, there's a map editor and a jukebox to listen to the music in the game. The controls in the game are super simple and really good, you use the left mouse button to do a dash-like movement and swim and the right mouse button interacts with things and uses special abilities, the game is also Xbox 360 controller compatible to an extent. The game is rather boring until you get your first transformation song which lets you shoot at stuff, then you can go around without having to run away from the larger monsters, killing some of the creatures also drops ingredients for cooking. I really appreciate music in games and Aquaria has beautiful music that fits it's atmosphere perfectly, music in some games is just there but in Aquaria you really notice it and you WILL find yourself humming these tunes, guaranteed. Aquaria is one of my favorite indie games and if you like exploration games or if you wanna try something new you should at download the demo here. Naija is also a character in another indie game: Super Meat Boy. Fun.

Thanks for reading!