Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs Discussion Topic Part 1

[GrAVit]

Goddamn, I love this game!

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

There is a very fine line between simplicity and insipidity and I think they are crossing it.

Maybe, but even if they are, I'm still in favour of them doing it. For even "failed experiments" are better than having innovation in games stagnate.
I thought Mirror's Edge's attempt to combine first person and high-speed platforming was a horrible motionsickness-inducing failure, but I still applaud the fact that someone tried it out instead of relying on as proven formula instead
Maybe we need games that try out the extremes of the medium every once in a while, to learn from them and to get inspiration. So even if this game turns out to be too simplified and thus boring and shallow in the end, I will still be supporting the "sciency mindset" that led to it's creation.

[maarten12100]

No invent will be a bummer but everything will be adapted to make it (too) realistic.

[MyRedNeptune]

@Bridge: we've yet to see what they implemented in place of the inventory system. I wouldn't judge it until I've experienced it myself.

If Frictional's ideas don't fit into the Aventure genre, perhaps it is time to create a new genre?

[Kein]

They never said there will be no inventory system. Since they can't reveal much without spoiling -perhaps what he said is that there will be no classic system. Perhaps we still will be able to stash and drag few items, just in bit.. different way.
This reminds me about some other puzzle/adventure (or was it RPG?) game for 2013 that promised to "re-think inventory system". Wish i could remember it.

[bluel0bster]

There's just a couple of things I've thought of having watched the newest teaser several times and reading various peoples' opinions.

Firstly is regarding the humanoid(s) seen twice in the newest Halloween teaser and the little girl narrating at the beginning and end. It seems a lot of people seem to think this may be an enemy of some kind, but I had a couple other ideas as to what it/they/he/she might be, having watched the trailer in 1080 in/ full-screen.

1. What I'm most excited about, that the figure might be Oswald Mandus' daughter. This may seem like a stretch, but it makes sense to me. The little girl narrating the trailer at the very beginning and very end seems to be more important than just a cliche creepy little girl voice, as it literally bookends the new teaser. Additionally, the last thing heard in the trailer is "Daddy?" leading me to believe that the girl is not only in the game, but most likely the protagonist's daughter. However, having seen the figures in the video in fullscreen, the first one looks like a little boy, rather than a little girl, and the second one looks like a full grown man, so I'm not sure about this theory.
2. It's possible that this is an enemy/hallucination/vision/etc. If this is the case, it would seem to be very F.E.A.R.-esque, as all the amnesia monsters, including the one in the trailer, are very obviously present, due especially to the noises they make, while the figure in the teaser was barely noticeable.
3. It could just be a friendly npc/guide/character.

Something else I wanted to mention is about the term "Damascus." To those who played the first game, people will remember this word as a reference to the Damascus Rose, the only known ingredient in the amnesia potion which was so central to the plot in TDD.

So recently I picked up "Dear Esther" developed by thechineseroom who as most of you know are now developing AAMFP. While playing through Dear Esther, I noticed something very strange and out of place. Near the end of the game, scrawled on a cliffside in massive chalk-like letters, was the word "Damascus." Those who have played Dear Esther will know it is very cryptic, but that word Damascus particularly stood out to me, as it had nothing to do with the story whatsoever. I probably would have forgotten about it, if it hadn't been for the connection between frictional games and thechineseroom with AAMFP. What I find most interesting is that, at the time Dear Esther came out, I'm relatively sure nothing was known about the connection between the two companies. This is probably a huge stretch, but I can't stop thinking there's some sort of connection because of the occurrence of that word in Dear Esther, even if it was just hinting at future involvement together.

[Bridge]

There is a very fine line between simplicity and insipidity and I think they are crossing it.

Maybe, but even if they are, I'm still in favour of them doing it. For even "failed experiments" are better than having innovation in games stagnate.
I thought Mirror's Edge's attempt to combine first person and high-speed platforming was a horrible motionsickness-inducing failure, but I still applaud the fact that someone tried it out instead of relying on as proven formula instead
Maybe we need games that try out the extremes of the medium every once in a while, to learn from them and to get inspiration. So even if this game turns out to be too simplified and thus boring and shallow in the end, I will still be supporting the "sciency mindset" that led to it's creation.

First off, sorry for the quintuple post, for some reason my posts didn't seem to register and so I tried a few times. Looks like they were stuck in purgatory between pages 72 and 73. Anyway, I'm not against experimentation at all, I just question their motives for this simplification. I won't pretend to be an avid reader of Thomas' blog but I have read quite a few articles and I just find myself disagreeing with him on the fundamentals, even though he does have great ideas. I think his insatiable lust for "immersion" sometimes gets in the way of actual game design. He is dissatisfied with the cold fact that video games are limited by what you make them do and that the player can never have full control (and there is always some metagaming involved - always).

But instead of designing games around that imperfection he seems to want to simplify it to the point where the player really has no options at all except for psychological ones. Why don't I find this fascinating? Because the majority of games give you close to no options for interacting with your environment, and it's boring. Totally lifeless, you're stuck doing what the game wants you to do and most important of all - all immersion is gone. Not being able to do something you could easily be able to do in real life is really frustrating, and that's when I first start consciously realizing I'm playing a video game, not when I can interact with everything. Just because some people throw barrels around and make funny voices doesn't mean that everyone will inevitably follow suit. That's also one of the reasons I like Penumbra more than Amnesia, the fact that you can click on almost everything and get a text pop-up with some info. Usually it's pretty pointless, but it gives you a little feel for the environment. In Amnesia, all you have are notes which tell you only what you have to know. I don't find that a step up at all, in fact it separates you even more from the environment. I think Call of Cthulhu did this best, where you could examine pretty much every conspicuous item and get a voice acted monologue. It just builds up the atmosphere because you get some info your character would know but you don't.

I think he (and I don't pretend to know anything about him) doesn't understand that the human mind can cancel out almost anything with a little dedication. It can fill in the blanks with some imagination and the experience won't be any less immersive. For example: having an inventory system. In real life you don't see a screen pop up and you click on the items you want from your pocket, but I don't even think about it when playing games because it's just a natural thing to have to interact with the game world in this way. To me taking away items is not a solution, it just makes the game more sterile and boring. I don't care how good the story is, at that point you may as well be watching a movie or reading a book.

[Ossie]

Bridge - don't you think that you're kind of over-reacting?

Now here's a radical thought - why not reserve judgement until you've actually PLAYED the game???

[Bridge]

Bridge - don't you think that you're kind of over-reacting?

Now here's a radical thought - why not reserve judgement until you've actually PLAYED the game???

Just talking. I never said anything about what the game will actually be like, I'm just discussing some of the ideas that are floating around with Hirnwirbel.

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Because the majority of games give you close to no options for interacting with your environment, and it's boring. Totally lifeless, you're stuck doing what the game wants you to do and most important of all - all immersion is gone.

Yeah, but I think the logical effect of not having an inventory is that it forces the game designer to think of even more ways to make the environment interactive. The classic Adventure basically based its puzzles around having the player collect items, then having him rub those together or against stuff in the environment to make things happen.

If you remove the inventory, the environment has to be more flexible to allow for the same depth of gameplay. (Assuming of course, they still want to make a game and not just pretty scenery that you walk through )
For example one of the oldest puzzles is find key > use on door. Now if you wanted to present the player with the same problem - a closed door - in a game without inventory, the solutions would have to have more to do with the environment instead. Maybe open a window to climb around, find an air duct, tip a heavy piece of furniture over so it smashes the door, trick an NPC into opening the door for you, pull some burning logs out of a fireplace so the carpet starts to burn, which makes the fire alarm go off that causes all doors to unlock... I think that if the game world is interactive and organic enough, the game can still have a lot of depth.

I think it is wrong to assume that they will remove the inventory system without compensating for the loss in another area of the game... but we won't know for sure until the game comes out, eh?

---

First off, sorry for the quintuple post, for some reason my posts didn't
seem to register and so I tried a few times. Looks like they were stuck
in purgatory between pages 72 and 73.

Argh I'm having the same problem...seems my post is in the nether somewhere. I hope it reappears soon