Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs Discussion Topic Part 4

[bugmenot]

I find it disheartening that they took out some of the gameplay mechanics from Dark Descent to focus more on story. One of the reasons that Dark Descent was so scary was because it was so well designed. Everything really came together to leave you constantly in fear. Not being able to have your lantern on all the time was ESSENTIAL. Not only did it make it more difficult to see and navigate the environment in the dark, but because of the sanity system, staying the dark had consequences. Your vision was hampered; your screen became blurry, it stretched and bowed, bugs crawled across your vision. And it was so brilliant because the game forced you into the dark in order to escape your enemies. There was this awesome back and forth not only in the gameplay mechanic, but also in player emotion. The game gave you tools to stay out of the dark, the lantern and tinderboxes. Tinderboxes were important because they were a way of saving your lantern oil. by smartly using your tinderboxes you could have certain areas lit and therefore you don't need the lantern to see, allowing for its use in more necessary areas. But at the same time, when a monster appears, you want to be out of the light and preferably in a nice corner, where the monster can't see you. But of course you can't stay, because of the aforementioned sanity effects. It creates this system where the game encourages you to be in the light for the sake of navigation and general safety, but the moment you need to escape an enemy, the dark becomes the only place you want to be. I constantly engaged in this waffling emotion throughout the game. I wanted to be in the light and have my lantern out as much as possible, because I felt safe that i could see what was around me, but as soon as I engaged with a monster I ran for the dark. This love/hate relationship is greatly enhanced and promoted by the sanity system, and adds to the atmosphere and general tension of the game. An integral part of a successful horror game.

Amnesia was so good because it didn't rely on jump scares to provide horror. Yes they were there, but they were most used in the early game before you ever see the monster, and a lot of them were empty. Doors slamming shut, or a sudden flash of light as you entered a room. Wherever there was a jump scare there was nothing behind it. Anything that could hurt you in the game was never a part of a designed jump scare. Nothing spawns suddenly in behind you or on the other side of a door as you open it to hurt you, it's usually just a hallucination that poofs as you run into it, and usually they appeared as a result of your sanity. Instead the game relies on the tension of the atmosphere it creates to provide a general sense of dread and terror. From the sound design to the incredibly disgusting abominations you encounter, everything is designed to make you fear for your life.

The sanity system and the consumable lantern oil/tinderboxes were, I believe, instrumental in providing that atmosphere and I'm sad that they were discarded instead of expanded upon. Even if you're completely stuck in the dark, with no lantern oil and no tinderboxes, the game still gives you a way to recover sanity, by advancing forward. Solving puzzles and entering new areas recovered your sanity, usually at a faster rate than just by being somewhere well lit. And by exploring more, in the search of a way to advance, you more often than not found more oil and tinderboxes to resupply, with sometimes finding story elements like pieces of paper, or flashback sequences that you normally wouldn't run into had you not explored looking for oil and tinderboxes. The sanity system not only provided a mechanic to enhance the atmosphere, it provided motivation to continue onward, even if you didn't want to because of the inevitable horrors you would face in a new area.

Sanity and the conservation of items were key to developing the horror of Amnesia and it doesn't sound like a flickering lantern cluing you in to enemies appearing and the removal of consequences for staying in the dark seem like a good replacement. Obviously we won't know for sure until we play it ourselves. But i don't think its a bad thing to be wary or disappointed about it.