Inky and the Alien Aquarium

ABOUT THE GAME

Inky's Story

Inky, a flapjack octopus, along with several other sea creatures have been abducted and put on display in an aquarium on the alien mothership. Being a clever octopus with an abhorrence to captivity, Inky immediately makes a break for it when the aliens drop and break Inky's tank. To escape the aliens Inky must find their way out of the aquarium, explore the mothership, and find a way back to Earth. Hopefully saving their fellow sea the creatures along the way.

Gameplay

Inky and the Alien Aquarium is a push puzzle game with an open map. Solve puzzles to help Inky make their out of the aquarium through the mothership. Rescue fellow abducted sea creatures and collect unusual items to unlock more sections of the ship. 

Each room is a block-pushing puzzle Inky must escape! The open map allows for puzzles to extend more than one room and have different solutions depending on the direction from where Inky enters the room. 

Don't let the simple mechanics, silly story, adorable creatures and upbeat music fool you. Inky must solve some very challenging puzzles to save all the sea creatures. In the spirit of the Witness, there are no direct instructions in the game on how to solve the puzzles. 

Though we like tough puzzles, we want our games to be approachable to puzzlers of all levels. For players who would like a little help getting started we made tutorial videos. The game is also designed so the most difficult puzzles do not need to be solved to beat the game.

Features

• Classic block pushing game with new mechanics and a fresh feel.
• A map open to explore or ignore (if you are willing to leave sea creatures behind).
• Unusual items to unlock new areas of the map in silly ways.
• Adorable hand drawn pixel art to make you smile.
• Challenging puzzles to make you scowl.
• Catchy chiptune soundtrack that to keep your head bopping even if you are stuck on puzzles. 
• Unique feel of a game made from scratch with love by a small team in love.

ABOUT THE DEMO

We created the demo after we finished the development of the full game. We made a new map and puzzles to give players a taste for the gameplay, music and puzzle style without spoiling any of the surprises of the full game. 

Another purpose of the demo is to give people who are new to retro gaming a free game to get experience with an emulator. Emulators are incredibly easy to use and there are a lot of fantastic free ones out there like mGBA. 

You will need an emulator installed on your computer to play the demo. If you do not have one, we recommend mGBA. It's free and we have written detailed install instructions here.

If you need help with the puzzles in the demo we made this walkthrough video for you!

COMPLETE IN BOX EDITIONS (CiB)

Periodically we will have physical editions of Inky and the Alien Aquarium available in our Etsy store. Purchase of a CIB edition includes:

• Cartridge (6 month warranty)
• Printed Manual
• Pocket Pulp Sticker
• Cartridge Case
• Itch.io Download Key for:
  • Game ROM file
  • Manual PDF
  • Soundtrack

BONUS GAME

Because our Kickstarter backers are so awesome, we were able to release bonus levels for Inky and the Alien Aquarium. The bonus level puzzles are quite challenging so we encourage you to play the full game before attempting the bonus levels.

If you are interested in our design process, check out this video on our puzzle design workflow.