A friendly open letter to FG, from a Psychologist

[Paddy™]

Hahahaha

I don't think it's off-topic (with regards to cheating), I think it's actually pretty illustrative of what I was saying above, in that I don't think the prospect of dying is the main fear in this game, because you never truly "die" anyway; the fear the game creates therefore comes from somewhere else. I think it's just so immersive and so brilliantly atmospheric that you feel as if you yourself are in danger, not just the character with his limited health. In other words, whether Daniel is invincible or not doesn't make me feel any safer when a brute is squeaking its way towards me.

Like I said above, even though I've played the game several times and know what to expect it still has an effect on me, so being stocked up on oil, tinderboxes and oodles of health doesn't really damage the experience when the experience is so independent from the "character" you control anyway.

The results of the poll Thomas posted shows that only about half of us have that experience, however; the other half felt they were Daniel and acted accordingly, and in that case cheating would probably have a drastically different effect.

Maybe our resident psychologist can talk about that: the fact that brains are wired differently from one another resulting in vastly different experiences with/approaches to games like Amnesia. My brain is obviously wired in such a way that learning the patterns and knowing what to expect doesn't dampen the dread, nor does repetition.

Ahhh if only one of Dr. House's team were here...