Aquaria Goes Open Source

And a small cheer is heard from open-source enthusiast forums across the land, shortly followed by labored panting and a smug stroke of a neckbeard. Aquaria, the charming Metroid-vania indie title, will probably now see a lot of freely distributed versions where the main character is topless, or replaced by pedobear, or something else equally stupid. Alex Holowka, the game’s creator, posted some insightful and heartfelt comments about the game’s development when announcing the release.

“Releasing code is hard for me. It’s always imperfect (or in my case, mostly a mess) and it feels extremely personal. Especially with Aquaria – a game that involved a lot of stress and heartbreak over the course of its development. (a significant portion of the code was written while under the influence of Canadian Club Whisky)” Holowka said, which may explain a lack of proper commenting or indention in the code.

Holowka goes on to describe the spiritual impact of programming.

“Although programming is foremost a technical pursuit, it feels organic to me. Maybe switching between code, music and design frequently enough makes you appreciate how similar these areas of game design are – rather than thinking about how different they could be,” Holowka said. “That might be why my code is more like a weird tangled evolution of the game, rather than a clean, factory-built design.”

I don’t think anyone can start casting dispersion on the man for his code, no matter how much of a mess it is. Well, maybe if you make an awesome game all on your own.

[via Infinite Ammo Blog]

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