Blog: "Why Trial and Error will Doom Games"

[wcer]

I agree with your blog, that said I'm wondering if this is something you guys learned from trial and error and plan to avoid or if it's something we're going to see more of in Amnesia.

I only recently played through the penumbra triad (after reading said post in fact), and I couldn't help but notice the games tended towards exactly what you say the problem is as the series progressed. A deep immersion grasped me in Overture, Black Plague started to lose me, and Requiem completely butchered my immersion with precisely these sort of trial and error mechanics. For some reason the

Spoiler below!

"oh I need a way up there and there just happens to be a perfectly coorindated series of moving pistons/platforms/exploading barrels/whatever to do so" makes it painfully obvious that it is a game for me. Likewise with things like the blue ball + blue lasers = do it over, combined with your engines at times frustrating control scheme and physics it really ruined the fun for me.

That said I did pre-order Amnesia, and while your games are cool and have atmosphere despite the issues you discuss in your blog I do hope your post means you are going to try and avoid these mistakes. Then again to be fair maybe I just wasn't playing BP and Req. right, and the error was on my end rather than yours.