Ever wonder what those esoteric Aquarian messages in the backgrounds say? You could laboriously decode them, or just employ the following harmless hack.

Right click on Aquaria.app, and select "Show Package Contents". Navigate to "Contents/Resources/gfx", and take a look at the files "aquarian.png" and "aquarian_alt.png", which contain sprites of the Aquarian alphabet and their translations into English respectively. Rename "aquarian.png" to something else, make a copy of "aquarian_alt.png", and name the copy "aquarian.png".

Now the Aquarian text in the game will be displayed in the yellow English letters in aquarian_alt.png--not nearly as cool looking but much easier to read (except when the game uses a custom sprite with the letters already painted on. Those won't change). To undo, just replace the modified "aquarian.png" with the original copy.

What I did was take the original "aquarian.png" and overlay the "aquarian_alt.png" with some transparency, distortion, and hue shift, so it looks a bit watery. Nothing fancy, but it lets you see the original Aquarian while still being understandable. Here's what Naija's home cave looks like with this:

If anyone wants to use it, it's here.

This post has been edited by PiSketch : 13 December 2008 - 11:17 PM

Neat-- I think I might try it! I've decoded them all already (mostly), but maybe now I'll be able to read what it says in the background during the fight with

Spoiler

Mithala

. Or the

Spoiler

Sun Worm

.

This post has been edited by SoItBegins : 14 December 2008 - 05:47 PM

PiSketch: Ever think of submitting this to the addons page?

Not much of an addon, is it? All I did was take files from the game and tweak them for five-ten minutes in Pixelmator. Also, does Aquaria even have an addons page? I can't find it, if it exists.