 "Aquaria" was developed by Derek Yu and Alec Holowka over the course of two years, off of a concept that Holowka had thought of a year prior.Yu was the lead artist, and Holowka handled the programming and audio components.Both designers had previously worked in video games; Yu had made several freeware games, including "I'm O.K" with Holowka and others, while Holowka had worked for several video game start-ups, none of which had ever gotten a game published.