You can download it here and play it until January 13th: aquaria-beta-installer.run

The installer has beta test details (bug tracker, discussion list) in its README.

Thanks in advance for your help and a huuuge thank you to Ryan!

P.S. The Aquaria: OST is now available digitally!

We’ll be launching the soundtrack on Saturday (November 14) with a live pyjama jam courtesy of yours truly! I’ll be playing all kinds of music over webcam while my beautiful assistants package and prepare your CD orders for shipping in the background.

This soundtrack is a no-holds-barred special two disc release, filled to the brim with fifty tracks. It includes all the music from the game, but also adds a brand new song, “Fear the Dark”. The talented Jenna Sharpe returned to the studio as “Naija” for the first time since finishing her work on the game about two years ago - to record brand new vocals for this track. The result is an epic nine minute piece that explores the light and dark sides of Aquaria.

MP3 Download → Fear the Dark Preview [0:42]

In addition to the new song, the track also features three new remixes by other indie game music artists. Brandon McCartin of “Balding’s Quest” brings his imagination and funky beats to the table with his style-bending adaptations of “Dark Places” (the abyss theme) and “Heart of the Forest”. Danny Baranowsky (of Canabalt fame), who also mastered the project, contributes an upbeat, old-school flavoured remix of “Boss Fraught”. (the mini boss theme)

As an added bonus, a work-in-progress five minute “Marian” track has also been included.

The set comes together with sexy packaging designed by myself, Derek Yu and Katie De Sousa. It features 2 discs with full color labels, an eight page booklet featuring new art and lyrics, and an eight panel poster featuring visuals from the game, notes on composing the tracks, score snippets and more. There will be a few purchase options, including having your poster signed!

So come on down this Saturday, watch some live jams, order some CDs - it’ll be a fun time for the whole family.

UPDATE: The Shop is now live.

UPDATE 2: Newer version of the Shop is up here. Signed copies still available at this address!

Also: in development and nearing release, is TheBear’s epic story-based Aquaria prequel mod - featuring new RPG elements like dialogue trees and shops. I’m really impressed with the programming and level design muscle behind this mod! Check out TheBear’s time lapse video of one level’s construction:

Forum Thread: Aquaria Sacrifice

Also fresh off the graphite pencil is new art work from the talented Vetehinen, who has created two other great Aquaria-inspired pieces.

See the full work here.

I’ve been working on some Aquaria stuff too, what could this be?

Also, there’s this…

I’m not sure how it’ll end up, but its most certainly the work of the talented Ryan C. Gordon.

Hey, guys! Just wanted to drop in and thank everyone for their support, whether you’ve bought the game from our website, or through Steam or Ambrosia. Things may seem quiet right now, but rest assured that Alec and I are always cooking up something game-related. And we couldn’t do it without you, so thanks!

I’ve updated the Community page with four new pieces of fanart, and the Press page with a great review of Aquaria Mac, from the latest issue of Mac|Life. The reviewer, Susie Ochs, gave the game a perfect 5/5 rating, and described it as being “stunningly well crafted with a compelling story, beautiful visuals and music, and hours upon hours of action-adventure.”

I love all the water-related puns that are used with Aquaria. As you can see, even I can’t help myself sometimes.

Looks pretty cool! I like the little cutout enemies.

“Spelunky” is a randomly generated game in which you play an Indiana Jones-esque explorer. The game has a ton of secrets, beautiful art and moments that make you go “woaah”. Derek did all the art and programming work himself.

The game can be a little difficult to get the hang of at first, but its totally worth it. There’s a ton of depth and gameplay value here, and you can’t beat the price.

Download Spelunky Here

Meanwhile, Infinite Ammo has been working on developing a few projects. Our main concept is “Marian”, which is in part a spiritual successor to “Aquaria”. Above is one of Katie de Sousa’s amazing concept pieces for the game. You can find more information about Marian here.

I update the Infinite Ammo site regularly with behind the scenes info, concept art, music, video blogs - the works. If you’re interested in following my game development exploits beyond the realm of Bit-Blot, IA’s blog is the place to go at it.

This doesn’t mean that Bit-Blot is kaput, however. Derek and I have more planned for Aquaria in the coming months. There’s the long-awaited soundtrack release, and we have another surprise up our sleeves. I’d love to be able to work with Derek on a new game as Bit-Blot again in the future, but only time will tell if that’s in the cards or not.

To all the folks at home, thanks for being part of the journey of developing Aquaria. This isn’t an ending, its just the beginning.

Steam also has a really nice gift purchasing service. If you’re stuck thinking of a gift for your friends and relatives, why not give the gift of Aquaria. Odds are, they’ll love the new version.

And last but not least, here’s a little behind the scenes info on the making of the latest HD Aquaria trailer - featuring my ugly mug!

Enjoy!

In case you’re curious why the video says “Infinite Ammo” at the beginning… that’s ’cause it’s my new team! If you guys haven’t heard of it yet, you can learn a lot more at our website. We do a regular video blog and we’re working on a couple really cool 2.5D games.

The new version of Aquaria is here, and now it only costs $19.99!

If you’re new to the Aquaria universe, click here to buy your very own copy.

If you already own Aquaria, visit this thread on the forums for information about how to upgrade your copy to the latest version.

This version of Aquaria includes a lot of new tweaks and improvements over the original; including beautiful widescreen support, a new world map system that allows you to name and drop markers, get hints and more, an improved cooking system that previews recipes, shows recipe effects and is easier to use, an integrated help system, some redesigned puzzles and even more.

To find out more about what’s in Aquaria 1.1.1 and just how awesome it is, check out the last blog post.

Derek and I would like to thank all our fans and customers over the last year for their initial purchase, continuing support and yes, love. I have to give big, individual shout-outs to Robert J. Walker, Kyle Pulver and Tommy Refenes for being instrumental in helping me test this new version of the game. Thanks guys!

And to everyone else, enjoy the game.

(Featured: Kyle Pulver’s Aquaria fan art)

NOTE: Our webstore’s backend is being really slow and unresponsive for me right now. Apologies in advance if I don’t get to your reactivation request right away.

This weekend we’ll release the new Windows version of Aquaria, 1.1.1. This version includes widescreen, graphics and audio enhancements, improved puzzles, a new/awesome map system and more. It even improves on the recently released Mac version - and it will be released at a new price.

And last but not least, we’ve made a new trailer to celebrate. This one was made in 1280×720, and looks absolutely gorgeous. The files involved in making it are taking up about 82GB of my hard drive! You can check out the embedded video here at standard def, but head to YouTube or Vimeo for the option to watch it in HD. If you want the original source AVI file, just send me an email (zaphire@gmail.com) and I’ll hook you up.

Happy belated Aquaria anniversary, everybody.

Thank you for your patience, Mac users! Its Alec here, letting you know that Aquaria for Mac has been released today. Go play the demo and buy the Mac version for $30 over here at the Ambrosia website. (Beware, there may be some spoilers in the screenshots on there. They may be spoiler free in a bit though! I’ll update this post when I know.)

But this is not just a straight port of the Windows version, oh no - Aquaria for Mac includes nearly a year of work in new features, bug fixes and improvements - bringing the version number up from 1.0.3 to a big shiny 1.1.0. With new and beautiful wide screen support; a new world map system complete with progress recording, location names, user-created markers and beacons, user-friendly improvements to the cooking system, changes to make puzzles more intuitive, additional graphics, auto updates, a built-in help system - and more! Even some of the music tracks got a bit of polish.

In fact, these features will be exclusive to the Mac version of Aquaria while we put together a beta test of the new Windows patch. I also like to consider this temporary exclusivity a small gift to our patient Mac fans who have waited many months! You folks really deserve it.

But there are more people to thank, specifically some very helpful employees over at Ambrosia software who did a lot to make my workload more manageable. I’d like to single out John Champlin, for testing the game probably a 100 times, demoing it at Macworld and for helping manage the beta list. I’d also like to thank Matt Slot, Mike B. and Rudy Richter who did a lot of the Cocoa programming involved in creating the start-up sequence and GUI launcher for Mac Aquaria, as well as giving me help figuring out how to support older Macs. A huge thank you goes out all the Beta testers who went through the game countless times to be sure that issues were fixed, and for coming up with some good suggestions on how to improve the game. Also, a big thanks to Derek for creating new art for the game, fixing levels for widescreen support, creating a sexy OSX icon and for making the awesome painting you see on this post to celebrate the release!

Its been a crazy ride getting to this point, one filled with a lot of frustration and a feeling I’d like to call “banging your head against the wall”. A lot of that was trying to figure out how to improve the game based on feedback from players, while still keeping true to what works so well in the first version and all the love that Derek and I put into it. Turns out, it was totally worth it. Its not too often you get to sit back and watch your baby go out into the wild, crazy world. This is our second time, and I’m still excited.

P.S. I now use a MacBook Pro for all my game development purposes, and so does Derek.