Things that would have made Amnesia scarier

[tbirds]

To all of you who are complaining about the scripted encounters with the monsters, I kind of agree with you and I kind of don't.

Yes, having encounters be non-scripted and the monster roaming freely around the map would make the game a lot more unpredictable and make the player constantly feel vulnerable. But I feel that having some scripted events at the right times does make the game scarier. For example, having the monster attack you in a brightly lit room could catch the player off guard as opposed to having him appear in a dark room where most players would expect it.

In addition, think about the beginning of the game. The player does not encounter the monster for the first time until a they're a good portion into the game. But before that, even though they had not seen seen a monster that whole time, they were probably scaring themself. When I first started playing, I could barely go through more than two rooms before quitting the game because the sounds and the environment scared me and convinced me that I would encounter the monster at any moment. But it took me a while to see him for the first time and I kept psyching myself out. But if the monster roamed the map randomly during the beginning, the game wouldn't have messed with head nearly as much. If I had seen the monster as soon as I entered the first hallway, I'd be scared at that moment, but I wouldn't be paralyzed with fear later on while walking through empty rooms because the game wouldn't create that same suspense.

[XboxMySocks]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkLu3cxJgE8&t=5m9s

Now, I don't know about you, but watching that in full screen, made me wet myself far harder than any moment in the actual game. Definitely needs to be implemented.

[gandalf91]

That story seems kind of jam packed to the point those tense, eerie build ups. Does look pretty fun though, might have to download that later. I sort of agree with the one particular scenario you're referring to though.

[cyborgJed]

Okay, im new, but ive played through the game twice already, and i have a few points.
One: i agree with the monster chained up scenario. and for those of you who wondered "who would chain it up?" i would think that alexander just recently created a gatherer, and he had to chain it up for the re-animating process. from this point i imagine two ways for it to happen: when Daniel enters the rather large room, he see the monster, which appears to be dead, chained up against the wall. the item Daniel seeks lies near the monster on the table. Daniel picks up the item, and turns to walk away, then the Shadow makes its appearance and halfway across the room, Daniel is knocked out by falling debris. As Daniel wakes up and begins to move the first piece of rubble,and the monster wakes and begins thrashing about, and then he must escape. situation 2 would involve the beast being already awake as Daniel enters the room.

Also: i love the idea of a Female Gatherer.it would make it more scary if this version had high pitched shrieks and squeals while chasing. (she could have a pickaxe for an arm)
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/1...3kp3kv.jpg

A potential idea for a good scare would be, apon entering an area, there is a hallway ahead, with an entrance to another on the left. there is moonlight coming from that hallway, and as the player walks forward, A gatherer walks across this hallway, casting a slowly moving shadow on the wall.

[hollowleviathan]

You don't need to make a creature female for it to be shrill or shriek.

I do agree that there was a lot of potential subtle scares from shadows, both Gatherer-shaped and otherwise unnatural. Imagine approaching, say, a box, that casts the shadow of a body tumbling out of a coffin. But it's just a box.

[cyborgJed]

Yes, but a female characters have somewhat of a creepier edge, plus their designs have VERY haunting potential ( http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/1...3kp3kv.jpg )

[Clord]

AI Director (AI Horror Director). Those who know about L4D and L4D2 probably knows about feature like that. It basically analyzes your performance and customizes experience for you and your party.

It would make cool New Game+ DLC. Basically when player has no oil quite while, AI Director places some oil to nearby "node" what player has not yet seen. Also from not spending your Tinderboxes and Oil would make AI Director not to give you any (which would obviously turn out that player crashes to scary place and finds itself running out of stuff).

Player makes quite progress and has not indicated being actually scared quite while, he enters to room and suddenly AI Director decides that it is time to pull something off like. Placing monster behind still not opened door and making it break it down and searching the room. There could be even minor chance that monster sometimes discovers your hiding place to make player run. Also make it so that sometimes it is just hallucination.

Also it would not be odd if Alexander would have some guards in the late parts of the game what are not so human. Like undead Dogs, Birds and more made by using his method to do the Servants.

[SkyTheGreat]

It would be cheap, but I would have died of fear if during the portion where you jumped from window ledge to window ledge, a grunt stood behind one of the windows you were jumping across.

[A Luna]

It would be cheap, but I would have died of fear if during the portion where you jumped from window ledge to window ledge, a grunt stood behind one of the windows you were jumping across.

I definately +1 that. Would scare the living crap out of me.
Another part, I really thought the dark storage was scary, but after that, I seriously didn't mind at all in the dungeons that there was a monster running about. I was comfy, had a buttload of tinderboxes and oil and lighted up everything. I just kinda got used to all of that.
Sometimes, it's way scarier if you don't let anything happen rather than make a scene where the monster walks past. The thing that scared me the most was when I walked around a corner and looked in the face of Mr. Monster. No warning, suddenly: monster.

[SkyTheGreat]

If the music when the monster wasn't there, it would have made the experience much more frightening, for me. I would have LOVED running around the mansion wondering where the monster was, walking slowly and trying to hear it.