Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs Discussion Topic Part 1

[Gilligan's Hell]

you do know that AMFP will be completely ruined once its released because of PewDieDick

[Nice]

you do know that AMFP will be completely ruined once its released because of PewDieDick

who knows, maybe he'll take it serious I hope so

[Gunslingerjh]

you do know that AMFP will be completely ruined once its released because of PewDieDick

who knows, maybe he'll take it serious I hope so

I hope he dies of a heart attack because the game's too scary

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Re-read my post. I was talking about Dear Esther in a first part.

I'm sorry, I thought you were referring to all those wild speculations going on in this thread in general. (That's why I was so surprised) Please disregard what I said

In my opinion, [...] art isat its core communication. An artist's highest aspiration (in my opinion) is to communicate something which he thinks is worthwhile to his audience and by doing so somehow improving their lives or at least leaving them with knowledge or experience they did not have beforehand.

However, I think there can be no doubt when you are dealing with fragments of a story that appear in random order. It is not thought out at all and is intended to be confusing.

Yes, it is indeed intended to be confusing. Have you heard the talk Dan gave at the GDC Europe about Dear Esther? I think you might find it interesting...Here's the link that got posted eons ago in this very thread. Can't find the actual video right now tho...hm. maybe I 'll stumble across it later.

Basically, what he's saying there is that Dear Esther has no message. It has no "right" interpretation and he never had a complete, coherent story in mind when writing and arranging the monologue snippets.
This is because the intention behind the experiment was not to have the player passively listen to a story or make him unravel some mystery with a predefined answer. Instead he merely wanted to inspire the player to come up with his own story. I think he calls it a "toolbox" in the talk. Just how you can give someone colors and make him paint his own painting, or a physics engine to play around with, he was giving the player snippets of hints and metaphors, so he could form his own version of what happened.
That's also why the texts are placed semi-randomly (not entirely randomly though), so that there could be many variations and every player could come up with a unique story that was his own creation.

I think I remember him jokingly calling Dear Esther a "story-Minecraft" in that talk...

So yeah, what I'm saying is, you can of course think that experiment is a dumb/pointless/pretentious/whatever one, but you can't deny that it succeeded in a way: I have never heard two interpretations of Dear Esther that were exactly the same. (Personally, I found the experience quite engaging... it felt kinda like a creative brain-exercise. Unlike Braid, which was even more cryptic but had a predefined interpretation. That was pretentious as hell in my opinion! ^^)
Eh... maybe we should open a Dear Esther thread instead. I'm starting to feel kinda bad, adding to this already bloated-as-hell thread.

[Bridge]

I think he calls it a "toolbox" in the talk.

That philosophy just doesn't do it for me I'm afraid. I understand a bit more what he was going for, but I actually think it is worse than telling a complete story in fragments. Seriously... it's not a new idea. Every good western RPG ever made, Choose Your Own Adventure-type stories, tons of similar concepts, all have the central idea that the player should make up the story as he goes along (to a certain extent, you can't have an infinite amount of choices), and those have fully fleshed out storylines. What TCR did is essentially relinquish their writing duties and delegate them onto the player. I might have found it more interesting if the story hooks were more intriguing, but I just found them stale and boring. To each is own though, I guess.

[felixmole]

Would be awesome if the game didn't alert you when a monster is near.
Maybe the sound of steps, so the player wants to know where the sound comes from.
That would make players be more surprised of a monster appearence.

The music itself is very scary, and is the only thing that protected me from a heart attack. Jump scares are not the only way of scaring people; there is also warnings to the player that danger is near and that they should be very careful. The point is to scare you, not to kill you (in-game obviously). See for example the Archives, which are anything but dangerous, but which are intended to be dreadful.

[h4xx0r]

Would be awesome if the game didn't alert you when a monster is near.
Maybe the sound of steps, so the player wants to know where the sound comes from.
That would make players be more surprised of a monster appearence.

The music itself is very scary, and is the only thing that protected me from a heart attack. Jump scares are not the only way of scaring people; there is also warnings to the player that danger is near and that they should be very careful. The point is to scare you, not to kill you (in-game obviously). See for example the Archives, which are anything but dangerous, but which are intended to be dreadful.

If you actually were in Brennenburg, and a monster was near, you wouldn't hear music nor see white letters suggesting you to hide.
That's a detail that would make the game a bit more realistic.
The atmosphere music and sounds is a MUST though. As well as the chasing music.

[Jack O'Lantern]

The problem with jump scares is that they startle the player, and then the player laughs at themselves and it takes them out of the game. It breaks the atmosphere and immersion.

Jump scares have to be very well planned out for them to work. An example of one that could work:
You are exploring a dark and creepy area, with the occasional sound of monsters in the distance. As you are walking you hear a sudden crash - very loud and very close. You turn around to see that it is a vase you have knocked over. You are frustrated with yourself for knocking it over and embarrassed with yourself for freaking out so much. And that's when you hear the sound of rotten feet scraping across the floor - getting closer each second.

And for the rest of the game, the player is terrified that they will knock over a vase again.

[Kreekakon]

who knows, maybe he'll take it serious I hope so

From what I've seen of Pewdie over all this time, I know that he can simmer down, and have full respect for a game if he feels the need for it, and AMFP is definitely one that he will respect.

[Gilligan's Hell]

who knows, maybe he'll take it serious I hope so

From what I've seen of Pewdie over all this time, I know that he can simmer down, and have full respect for a game if he feels the need for it, and AMFP is definitely one that he will respect.

Well he better or I'll kill him