Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Dark Shadows

[Adny]

*SPOILERS - Oh, and these are my opinions about this mod*

I played it up until the infirmary, and after exploring all the rooms couldn't find any way to progress; regardless, I think I got the gist of the overall quality of the mod. Here are my thoughts on things to improve for the future and a overall review:

Story: Unless there was some awe-inspiring plot twist at the end that I didn't experience, I'd say it was a pretty average story. For me, the story itself wasn't an issue, but the way it was told to the player was. The grammar, spelling and overall content of notes/diaries left a lot to be desired, I shouldn't need to spend 5 minutes figuring out what you're trying to tell me in a note. The actual information in the note was very bland as well, and in some cases didn't make any sense, be sure to add as much detail as possible; a bad note is just as immersion breaking as bad sound and bad visuals.

Intro: Camera work was a bit jerky, but overall good; I'd suggest adding some screen effects to simulate the grogginess when you wake up. Also, try to avoid dumping a ton of resources on the player at the very beginning of your mod, it takes away the feeling of accomplishment when the player searches through the environment and finds these things on their own.

Lighting: I found the lighting to be rather poor; it seems that in every level you didn't use a box light or any point lights. The way light travels and expands in the real world undoubtedly requires both of these things to be present if you have any major light source. It doesn't make sense to have a very wide open window with a significant amount of light coming through and have a pitch black corners in a room. Also, it seems many of your light sources cut through the walls they were mounted on, and spreading into the next room, which isn't very appealing visually. In terms of atmosphere, you need less overall lighting, it felt like everytime I looked around a corner there was a light; there's no mystery or build up when that happens because the player can see everything.

Environment: Some decent level design and a few cool hubs. It seems the extent of your detailing was adding a bed, some furniture and a few chairs. There were a quite few flickering/overlapping textures, I'd suggest you set up developer mode if you haven't already and test out your maps much more often. Most rooms felt empty; I'd rather see one small highly-detailed room than 10 large, rushed maps.

Billboards: Every window needs billboards. No exceptions. If done properly, it can look very beautiful.

Fog: You are using way too much fog. Fog is supposed to be a really subtle element, but leaving it default white and not fixing the fade distances looks very bad, especially when the fog cuts through walls and other objects in the environment. I'd suggest fixing the fade distance, setting the alpha value to 0.5f, and try to make the color of the fog match the nearest light source to it (i.e. orange if it were near a torch).

Scares: Far too many jump scares and flying naked guys for my taste. Amnesia is built around subtlety; jumpscares are a bore-fest o' snores. Focus on using very small, subtle sounds and environmental things; this is what Amnesia is all about. Also, there were a few very cool events that I haven't seen before and really enjoyed (i.e. the brute in the dungeon that breaks down the door/the surgery in the infirmary).

Design/Game play: A few of your level transitions didn't make sense, they didn't seem to follow any sort of logical progression (i.e. a mansion set bedroom to cellar/castle set dungeon). There were key hunts (sometimes multiple) in every level, try to think of more creative ways to have the player progress, or at the very least use items other than keys (i.e. crowbar, needle, etc). The level design in some areas felt a bit overwhelming, it felt like some of the hubs had hubs inside of them; I'm all for giving the player choices and the freedom to explore in their own desired order, but there has to be some limitation. Perhaps you could combine some of the very small levels together and decrease the total number of levels? Finally, one of the things that bothered me the most was that at the start of every level, the player would fall 2-3 meters. Please for the love of all that is good, make sure the PlayerStartArea and the floor the player is spawning on have the same vertical (y-axis) height. If the floor's y height is at 2.5, the PlayerStartArea should be as well.


Overall, I'd rate this 2.5/5. An average mod with a few unique events, and a cool story (bro).