More on Neo Aquarium: King of Crustacean

Continuing from yesterday's post. After a bit of trying around, I discovered another mechanism of the game. That being that holding down the R button doesn't merely enable you to detach limbs, but while engulfed by the blue sphere your crustacean radiates you can recruit the smaller animals which litter the stages, like the jellyfish and starfish, who in turn will aid you by attacking your foe.

Also here be four more videos.





Two more after a click on the link below.

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Neo Aquarium: King of Crustacean

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a video of a game and after a bit of research discovered a few others on Nico Nico Douga, as well as the site of the developer. Not much else was to be found, yet the site promised a trial version to be released in due time, whose release I hotly anticipated. Today I somehow felt compelled to look again, and to my joy there was a new tutorial video on NND and a site for the game, which hosted a demo: http://www.neoaq.net/

Excited like a little kid on Christmas Eve I immediately began playing, and goodness gracious it did not disappoint, at all. After a few rounds I immediately searched for a working screen recorder and after a while had finally found one and started recording, here's the two videos I uploaded to YouTube:





Now as to the game itself. Neo Aquarium simulates a tranquil underwater world presented in humble 3D. You select to play as one of currently 5 crustaceans, including a cancer, a lobster, and a hermit crab. Once you have chosen your maritime avatar, you set out to swim and wander around the sea floor until you encounter another of the characters. You thus engage in battle with it, which involves using your claws to strike them, shooting bullets all over the place, FIRING LASER BEAMS FROM YOUR PINCERS THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER

The game seems to be tailored to joypad controls, primarily PS2 ones. I personally used a 360 controller and it worked very well. I can't say anything about the optional keyboard consoles as I never tried them. Nonetheless, let me explain how you play the game.

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Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 15 (Final)

La grande finale! I had reached my goal of being able to erect a cathedral but then kept playing a little longer until all the houses on my main island had become ones housing aristocrats.
This last update will consist of but images and names of the islands I possessed at the end, as there is nothing more to say, other than that I went around and upgraded the harbours of most of my islands just because I could and to have more storage for all the excess goods I was producing. Except perhaps that in my honour another statue was be built. I'm so cool.

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Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 14

Because this game is uncomfortably addicting, I couldn't wait until tomorrow to keep playing.
The first thing I encountered was a shortage of jewellery. upon looking at Abendsonne's depot however I found a lot of excess unrefined gold and therefore built two more goldsmiths, which solved the problem.



I also built one such along with a gold mine on Neupersien (new Persia), which is what I entitled my newest possession, in memory of the ship Darius which was consumed by the waves in the first battle.



On Rhenus I also created a few more stonemasons and tool factories; the former to take care of my constant shortage of bricks hampering the growth of my city (although later I discovered that assigning a few ships to carry stuff hither and fro would have solved the problem as well) and the latter because I had so much useless iron stocked up that I could have plastered the streets with it!



The ore mine on Victoria, which I called my first spoil of war, was also replaced by a deeper one after it had reached its limits.



To ensure that my rapidly growing populace would have enough food to stuff their abysses of stomachs, I furthermore built yet another couple of wheat farms, mills, etc on Victoria.



And then, lo and behold, I had reached my goal. 2500 aristocrats without any unfulfilled desires populated my city, and I was finally able to build the greatest building in the game, the mighty cathedral.



The next update will be the last one.

Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 13

Between the two invasions, cocoa was getting a bit sparse. Therefore I used the empty island in the south whose ore mine had emptied to set up a few mote plantations for the good.



Rhenus had grown quite a fair bit, and my aristocrat count reached 1500. This gave me the honour of being able to build a palace!



It has no purpose whatsoever and does nothing but waste money and space, but it looks shiny and a solid proof for my success, and that's all that matters! I also built a few more houses and streets for my city to look more complete; I don't think it will need any further expansions.



I had to restrict the further increase in my population numbers however, as due to my warfare I did not have the time to concentrate on their growing needs. In particular tobacco was getting rare, and since Delirium was almost completely filled with plantations already and I was currently still trying to seize another island able to grow it, I had to start buying it from flying merchants. It worked out in the end however.

This was all the more pressure on me for conquering the red player's remaining island. After having built up quite a sizeable army, I set foot on it.



Unfortunately, I forgot to take screenshots here. There was not too much going on though - I split my troops into two groups and took on two of the island's marketplaces and cannon towers each. The latter, much to the disadvantage of my men, kept being rebuilt, but fortunately (after some reloading of saves and thus luck manipulation) the CPU opponent started erecting them within the reach of my ships' cannons, able to destroy them much more easily than my frail musketeers and artillery. For the last attack wave against the remaining tower and marketplace I had to bring in fresh troops however, as my initial ones had been decimated quite a bit.



They did their job well.



Some of my ships had been damaged in the battle, so I sent them to my two wharfs for repairs and transported my now useless units back to Festung Erpel. Who knows if I might need them again in the future, hohoho!

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Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 12

I shipped over a few newly recruited men and destroyed the second-to-last cannon tower. One remained, but I lacked the manpower at the moment to get rid of it immediately.



I decided I should already settle down on the island however, as I would just remove the leftovers of my enemy's settlement later on and thus already built a small harbour.



Not losing any time, I erected a marketplace (later followed by two others after I had a new ship of mine bring over a couple of resources to my new colony) to expand the territory on which I am able to build. I made sure that the radius of the buildings would also encompass the area yet to be... "liberated".



Immediately I started building a few vineyards and wheat farms. By now reinforcements had arrived from Rhenus, and at last I was able to end the rest of the red player's influence on the island, albeit with some losses.



After having gained complete control of the area I tore down the buildings that remained and has passed over to my possession, as they were of no use for me and only consumed some of the taxes I earn. I also built a few more mills and bakeries, and assigned the ship so diligently having supplied my new settlement with raw materials to now carry over the goods produced there to Rhenus. And since it also harboured a small mountain with ore in it, and iron mine was soon established which was particularly welcome as one on one of my southern islands had recently become exhausted.



Lastly, since I now had more than enough space for vineyards, I tore down two of them on Delirium to make way for two more tobacco plantations, as my people all seem to be heavy smokers. In the long run this won't be enough however, and I shall have to also wrestle the red player's remaining island to the north-east under my control to expand my cigar production towards it. But this is something that shall be undertaken at some later point in time!

Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 11

With the Red fleet being sunk, crushed, destroyed, wiped off the surface of the- Well, anyway, the time is ripe for an invasion of the island itself.
To prevent any further ships from being produced I bombarded the wharf already. In order to conquer the island entirely, I have to destroy all the marketplaces and towers on it. Fortunately, some of them are situated nicely in reach of my ship's cannons and thus I already began to decimate them after breaching holes into the island's fortification walls.





Since I also did not want to waste too much or my army on eliminating my enemy's one, I postponed my setting foot on the craved soil and rather lured the opposing land units towards the shore where my ships could open fire on them. (Guess who won.)



After the area was clear thanks to the use of my unfair and not very honourable tactics, I finally landed my troops and sent them to destroy as many marketplaces and cannon towers as possible.





Sadly the latter tend to be quite costly when taking and I ended up with most of my soldiers having fallen to their spherical iron projectiles, forcing me to postpone the rest of the invasion until I had trained enough fresh troops again. They had nonetheless done a good job and after the fall of the targeted facilities the land surrounding them automatically deserted, although on one occasion the enemy had rebuilt a tower.



In the meantime I had to witness my main island's alcohol depot rapidly depleting, forcing me to temporarily build two more vineyards on my main island.



This was later followed by another, and yet a fourth newly erected plantation on Delirium. Fortunately I will be able to tear down these unpleasantly situated ones as soon as I have taken the red island and am finally granted its vast, untended, and fertile ground.

After taking care of that matter, I had my ships destroy the rebuilt tower, which yielded the desired effect.





I also found another marketplace I could easily shoot upon with my fleet, which I promptly did. By now a sizeable enough number of new soldiers had finished training and equipment, allowing me to penetrate deeper and to launch a second wave of attack. But this will be something for the next update!

Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 10b

And here we go! After the announcement that our peace treaty is expired, I waited until the three ships of my opponent in the area were separated and attacked each with a group of mine.



The initial attack was successful, and all three enemy ships had been swallowed by the waves. Of course now the rest of his fleet was joining the battle, yet fortunately they were all far apart enough for my combat vessels to always remain in the majority.



The deadly thunder of a hundred raging cannons filled the air, and wherever the eye fell sails were torn apart, the planks burst forth from the swimming warriors in flaming explosions.



The first of my ships had fallen victim to the man-made storm, but on the sea-floor it sunk upon it could be greeted by the wooden corpses of at least a fivefold of enemy ones.
I had also moved the first group eastwards since the red player was coming solely from this direction now.

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Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 10a

As you may have guessed, this war is anything but a spontaneous step. I have already expanded the fortifications on Festung Erpel through the addition of a few cannon towers and a large wharf for the repair of my battleships. Likewise, I already transferred over to it a large part of my army.



The other half is still on my main island, however I will now also ship it over to my future base of operations.



Time for my fleet to assemble!

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Let's Play Anno 1602 - Part 9

My city has been expanding and most of my industries are overproducing. However, they are insufficient to support a further growth of population.



My tobacco production is unable to expand as both of my fertile islands, Delirium, Tabakplantage (and Rhenus, but since my capital is located there it's out of question and space anyway) are already filled to the brim with plantations.





Likewise, my vineyards cover the other half of Delirium and more of Rhenus than would be desirable, as they hinder future expansions of the city.



Which goes along with my food production already no longer confined to my capital's outer shores; Zeeland too is completely buried under wheat and mills by now.

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