Derek Yu is kinda my man crush around here, the Tim Schafer to my Mitch if you will, so you’ll understand if I’m quite excited by his recent announcement that he’s making a brand new game called Aquaria. His new gaming company, Bit Blot, is developing it and they currently consist of Mr. Yu himself and Alec Holowka (funnest name to say, ever), a fellow member from his other gaming company.

Now I know that any game that has the hand of Yu in it is likely going to be a great looking and fun indie classic, but after reading a description of his vision for the game over at his personal blog, I really believe that this may turn out to be his best game yet. Check it out:

imagine this possible scenario: you’re swimming around fluidly (using the mouse to control), and bouncing off of rocks, just having fun moving around. Maybe you encounter a school of fish that you swim alongside for awhile. Eventually you come across a small cave sticking off the side of the map that you hadn’t noticed before and you head in (out of curiousity’s sake). A crablike monster scuttles idly by as you do so, and you can ignore him or kill him. If you’re feeling murderous, you can sing a magic song to change to a form that let’s you blast him away. Or maybe you want to sing a song that let’s you pick up a rock and then crush him with it. Or maybe you wait until he gets on the rock and then pick up the rock with him still clinging to it! And then when you go inside the cave, it’s just a cave. Not necessarily a dungeon or level or a “key to the next area” or what have you. It’s just a damn cave! And your experience tells you that there could really be anything inside, from ancient ruins to treasure to mythic angry killer unique monsters…

Oooh, can’t wait until the spring release of this one. Head on over to the game’s homepage for some screenshots and a teaser trailer.

Aquaria Official Site