Oops, I didn't notice the jellyfish description! The first two costumes I found had no effects, so I just assumed that all the descriptions were flavor text. So whose fault is that? The traditional approach is to say that it is the player's fault. I should have been paying close attention to all of the nested text boxes in the inventory screen.
However, the modern approach to design that drives viral mega-hits like Portal, Braid and World of Goo is to take responsibility for all misunderstandings like that. As a designer, if the player doesn't understand something, it is my fault, and I should change the design to make it more clear.
I don't mean to say that Aquaria is a bad game: it's not! It has a great setting and great presentation, and a lot of thought was put into the design. However, in my own observation of other gamers trying Aquaria for the first time, I saw that most of them cannot proceed far enough into the game to see its depth. I only have time to talk about a couple of the more important points in these design tours, and that experiment showed that accessibility was a vital topic. I also wanted to talk about the story and voice acting, but most people don't make it far enough to experience them!
David20321
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