Things that would have made Amnesia scarier

[w3sp]

What would have made Amnesia a LOT scarier would have been nasty stuff with closets.

For example I played a custom map a while ago and at one part you were in some area (styled like the prison looks in the original game) with tons of rooms and you'd hear constant zombie growling but it never appeared.
Opened all the closets, all the cupboards etc and collected what I found...no zombies there. Then I found a key which I used to open locked closets or so. And on one of them once I used the key the doors jumped open and a Zombie literally just jumped right into my face...Haven't screamed like that for years. I was streaming it and the people had fun obviously

TL;DR
Closets are something that make you feel secure because you can open them and hide in them. If there was a zombie in one of them it'd have been a totally different feeling from that moment on

[kailip]

What would have made Amnesia a LOT scarier would have been nasty stuff with closets.

For example I played a custom map a while ago and at one part you were in some area (styled like the prison looks in the original game) with tons of rooms and you'd hear constant zombie growling but it never appeared.
Opened all the closets, all the cupboards etc and collected what I found...no zombies there. Then I found a key which I used to open locked closets or so. And on one of them once I used the key the doors jumped open and a Zombie literally just jumped right into my face...Haven't screamed like that for years. I was streaming it and the people had fun obviously

TL;DR
Closets are something that make you feel secure because you can open them and hide in them. If there was a zombie in one of them it'd have been a totally different feeling from that moment on

Lol, there are no zombies on amnesia. you're doing it wrong

btw, there is no reason for a monster stay inside the closet, LOL. this could be scary, but nonsense.

[NyteMyre]

More randomness

If you play the game for a second time, you know where the monsters will spawn. I mentioned in another thread that I encountered a random water lurker in the sewers due to low sanity because i was screwing around. But I guess if you play normally, you don't get such low sanity in that part of the game and the encounter would be pretty rare.
I think it would be great if these kind of encounters would be more common. Not just with Waterlurkers, but also with the grunts.

Next thing is the lack of different enemies. You only have the:
- Water Lurker (which you only encounter in the Cellar Archives and randomly in the Cistern)
- The Grunt/Brute (which i count as the same enemy)
- The Shadow (which is more of an event then actually an enemy and was all but scary)
You quickly learn the patterns of the the Grunt/Brute since they use a very distinct "Here-I-come-you-better-hide-Growl" before they appear.
The shadow was also I disappointment actually. I was more thinking of an actual shadow-figure thats following you. Kinda like the "fog" in a scrapped version of RE4 (Video).


Last are the graphics. I know FrictionalGames is a small studio and I'm glad I could still play the game on my low system, but if were talking about what would make the game scarier it would be graphics. In my opinion, Resident Evil Remake has some of the best settings when it comes to a creepy environment. (Video)

[blackakari]

Just thought I'd add one here. Keep in mind I haven't beaten the whole game (just fixed the elevator, dreading the prison), so I will add more later.
-The piano in the library. They could have done some scary things with it. The scariest moment of the early game (except the wine cellar) was that part for me. Just hearing a piano playing in the distance with nobody to operate it... that was freaky. What would have made it better is if they somehow made it where if you made a loud noise or waited to long, the playing would end in a loud terrible note, and you would here footsteps running towards your position. That would have made me crap myself.

[Spinalcord]

What I felt I missed was something that is in fact a natural thing for humans. You know when your're in a dark room och walking in the woods at night, you'll se shadows that look somewhat like people and your mind will be scaring you with thoughs about it being murderers or rapists (My personal favorite is when I go to bed at night and my mind tricks me into thinking I see the girl from The Ring in the mirror.) or whatever, until you are close enough to see that it is in fact something else. Like a jacket draped over a chair or something.

Work that into Amnesia and the darkness would be even scarier.

Edit: The mirror thing many of you is so excited about wasn't an option because of one thing; Frictional wanted the player to BECOME Daniel. Therefore Daniel couldn't have a face, that would have separated Daneil and the player from each other.

[NyteMyre]

ooh, i forgot one thing that scares the crap out of me :p

BANGING ON DOORS!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APDua__YcFo

[Iddington]

A lot of great ideas in this thread!

A lot of them I'm really keen on such as the one from the OP about the prison doors. Really the most horrifying parts of the game for me was at the beginning when I fully suspected that I was up against a ghost. The phantom footsteps and the groans were so terrifying that I didn't even make it to the lantern before I had to quit the first time. I was so high strung that I would have sworn that I'd heard footsteps coming at me.

Another is the working under pressure. After several playthroughs the most intense part of the entire game to me is

Spoiler below!

in the sewers when you have to lure brute away from the exit and he comes after you.

I would suggest though that you have no monster in chains before the cave-in. A constant working theme behind Amnesia has been that the monsters are scarier the less you see of them. An alternative suggestion might be to not have a visible monster locked up in chains. The chains could just come alive when you're there or in the area. I think it would be extremely scary if they suddenly went silent or limp and we'd be wondering if they suddenly escaped and if they're in the room prowling around us.

One area that I disagree on is mirrors. I agree that mirrors can be very scary but mirrors seem to contradict one of the rules of immersion that Frictional wanted to go by in Amnesia. We are Daniel and so he must look like us. If he looks like anyone else then we aren't Daniel. Windows could possibly work as a replacement.

More random monster placement and sudden encounters would DEFINITELY be scary. Though I believe that if sudden encounters (i.e. you turn a corner and you're suddenly being pursued) it would require that the next game's engine be tweaked so that throwing something at the face of a creature could stun them for a short time. Imagine if you were in the prison holding a rock and you turned a corner to find Grunt about 10 feet from you and closing fast. Toss the rock in his face and stun him for about 5 seconds. 5 seconds gives you just enough time to turn the corner and find a cell to jump into, but you'd better hope that it's enough cover because once that time is up Grunt is going to enrage. Letting out a deafening bellow he's suddenly at maximum run speed, capable of shattering a door in 1-2 hits, and very unhappy with you.

My last point I would like to suggest the elimination of the auto save function. I've seen on Youtube people saying that they just thrown themselves onto the monsters because after respawn they don't come back. Make people manually save or at least limit autosave to each major hub (the safe halls) and combined with more randomized encounters and I think you'd have a big step up in that feeling of helplessness and dread.

P.S. Yes to natural scary environments too.

[Bek]

Sleeping enemies that you have to sneak past without waking

[Splint]

One area that I disagree on is mirrors. I agree that mirrors can be very scary but mirrors seem to contradict one of the rules of immersion that Frictional wanted to go by in Amnesia. We are Daniel and so he must look like us. If he looks like anyone else then we aren't Daniel. Windows could possibly work as a replacement.

A lot of great ideas! Just an impractical thought, but what if you went to an object like a mirror and when you looked into it, it took an image from your web cam on your computer, so it'd be of your face. That'd scare the crap out of me! I know it's 100% impractical but it'd be really good.

[kailip]

lol, a whole bunch of dumb and not-scary ideas there.

thank god only frictional decides what to put in their games...