Amnesia as Interactive Fiction

[Alpha23]

For everybody who wants to contribute, in super_secret there's the "chapter01_design_doc.doc" which includes maps (!) and some practical developer's hints we could use when programming.

I've taken a look at the very first area where you wake up and I noticed something that is important to tensen the atmosphere: All areas that haven't been visited should not be named and need a special message when entering. That means, when you wake up you don't know what's behind the first door until you've opened it. Even if there is no door, the area behind it won't be mentioned, just that there is some room/area north/east/west/south of where you just are. When entering the area in the beginning there should always be some message like "Carefully you pass through the big arch, your heart pounding." This is vital to build atmosphere.
I see now that keeping track of the room names could be a problem:
I've coded the first area and I already have 17 rooms (a room with two doors at the same wall needs to be divided into two parts as far as I know - correct me if I'm wrong)... However I've used different printed names so we could also name the rooms after their location (e.g. ROOM_C1A1_Hall1)

The following hints are just some thoughts I had on the overall design but aren't important for the basic structure (i.e. map design, doors, descriptions):
- I don't think we need all the object interaction from the game (grabbing books, chairs and so on) if not necessarily needed. That means that a helmet from an armor won't be taken unless there's something to shatter nearby. Some objects are not really necessary like brooms or rubble.
- for the tinderboxes we'll need a counting system, but that's not too difficult.
- more important and more difficult is the implementation of varialbes like light, sanity and health.