Aquaria: Native Linux Game, Free Until January

Aquaria is an action-adventure single-player game by independent game company Bit Blot. The game is commercial and runs on Windows and Mac but as we don't usually write about commercial stuff, I will only present the Linux native version which is in open beta and is free until January (full version).

Aquaria won the Seumas McNally grand prize from the Independent Games Festival in March 2007, and has been praised by reviewers for its visuals and atmosphere.

The game follows Naija, a mermaid-like woman, as she explores the underwater world of Aquaria. Along her journey, she learns about both the history of the world and her own past. The gameplay is focused on a combination of swimming and singing, through which Naija can interact with the world. Songs sung by Naija can move items, affect plants and animals, and change her physical appearance into other forms. These forms have different abilities, such as firing projectiles at hostile creatures or passing through barriers inaccessible to her in her natural shape.

Here is a video with Aquaria in action:

Aquaria system requirements

1.6Ghz CPU
256MB RAM
Mid/High-End Video Card
Latest Video Card Drivers w/ OpenGL support
Sound Card
200 Mb Free Hard Disk Space

But these apply to a Windows PC so I am unaware if they are exact for Linux too.

Installing Aquaria in Linux

The installation is pretty easy: once you download the .run file (download link at the end of the post), simply open a terminal, navigate to the folder where you downloaded it (cd /path/to/download/folder), then make it executable:

chmod +x aquaria-beta-installer.run

And then run the installer like this:

./aquaria-beta-installer.run

A window will pop-up which will guide you through the rest of the installation process:

Download Aquaria for Linux

[via reddit]