(12-14-2012, 02:20 AM)atilathegun Wrote: 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.

(12-15-2012, 12:28 AM)Jack OLantern Wrote: By removing the pop-up inventory (a 'game element' that does not exist in the real world), players will need to learn to think for themselves. Players will go into the game, realise that there is no classical inventory system and react exactly as you have: "Argh! How the hell do I pick up items! How do I combine?!". They will be stripped of the simple 'collect, drag-and-drop and combine' element, and will be forced to apply logical, real-life thinking to the puzzles and dilemmas. To take the words from your mouth, the player will "need to "think" more how to get forward" and "learn thinking himself" to solve puzzles that are "plausible, hard and logical, and use physics and your brain".


I, for one, can't wait to see where they take it.

Quote: I'm thinking of the Storage Level in ATDD, and the drill you had to use.Without the inventory you'd have to stash the pieces in one location, then build them, then when it came to using them it wouldn't be automatic (except for the drill placement) then the player would have to rotate the mouse to literally drill through the barrel (e.g. not let the game do 1/2 the work ).

Quote: IMO Amnesia and Penumbra had a very emergent design philosophy as well, but you can only simplify up to a point. After that you just start removing core aspects.

Quote: Nobody is worried about them making improvements to the adventure aspectof their games, but having items you pick up is not the huge immersion breaker you make it out to be.

(12-15-2012, 11:53 AM)Hirnwirbel Wrote: Both is very much true. But after some thinking, I've come to the conclusion that they are not trying to make improvements to the adventure aspect at all. I mean they also said that sooner or later they wanted to abandon puzzles almost entirely. (Not with AAMFP of course, maybe with the secret project...?)
I'd conclude that they are instead trying to create a new genre. I'm not sure what they'd replace the puzzles with... but it has to be something, otherwise it's like you said, there are no core aspects anymore so you're just walking around like you're in Dear Esther without narration and with boxes you can fling around ^^
Maybe it will go a bit of a sandboxy-approach where you just have a relatively open, highly interactive environment in which you...faff around? It could be called the Immersionbox - genre.

I guess it could work. Like you are thrown into this world and the game just allows you to use the simple (physics?) controls given to do pretty much everything that you would naturally do in that situation...with tons of possible reactions to your actions? (For the glorious feedback loop ^^) I dunno, I'm starting to ramble, too

Quote: Randomly generated areas/item placement/dynamic enemy reactions/whatever you want to call it are hugely overrated in my opinion.[...]The flawless pacing is one of the things that makes Penumbra and Amnesia so scary in my opinion.

Quote: The design that we have come up with is something I will refer to as the "Scene Approach". The basic idea is that you give the player an area, a scene, where they are free to roam. When appropriate players are able to leave and enter the next scene. Each scene should have a strong focus on some form of activity and/or theme and be self contained. Moving on to the next scene should be evident, either by a very simple interaction (e.g. opening a door), some form of activity (e.g. starting a generator) or by reaching some sort of state (e.g. waiting for a 2 minutes).