I wanted to create a game like Amnesia...

[hawgdriver]

Well, who didn't? Just finished again. I can't wait for another world from Frictional. Amnesia is the best game I've ever played in 30 yrs of playing. It drew me in more completely than any other game. Sure, other games have been much more ... fun? ... but only in the spectator sense. Amnesia offers an immersive experience unlike anything, or at least the maximal iteration so far. I like hot sauce and jalapenos, ok?

Yeah, I wanted --and perhaps one day I will get my act together-- to create something as majestic as Amnesia in the sense of a work of art, this was my description of it circa 2009 on another forum. My main motive is to share some ideas that I had not yet encountered, but my gaming exposure is quite narrow, so this may be my big Captain Obvious Entree Fail moment...I'm sure the link is available on google using a unique bit of expression, if you want to find the original for some reason...

This is something I want to do, create a video game.

I want to do it for the same reason writers feel compelled to write, rock stars to rock, painters to paint, and poets to poe. I feel like this could be my ultimate artistic statement, my expression of me-hood-ness. I want it to be a game for the ages, a once-in-a-generation experience that transcends the genre of video/audio/electronic fantasy simulation. Or at least ten people might really love it and it could become a cult/underground thing, and that's cool too.

So the idea is that it's a fun game and all, probably a FPS or TPS type interface, with RPG type stylings. The plot/driving purpose is still up in the air, which is the toughest part for me. The things that I do know about it are really fragments...

There will be several visual interfaces. Some segments of the game will be sharp with grays, others will be more blurred with saturated color. The contrast/color factor will often vary in surprising and unsettling ways to carry the drama of the game. There ought to be transitions from monochromatic to primary hue to balanced graphic schemes. Color itself (http://www.colourlovers.com/) will be a central aspect of the game. We might even shift the graphic schemes in terms of overall impression, like from realistic to world of goo, to anime, to cg, to stick figure, etc.

The general ambiance/atmosphere is bleak. Dark. There will be contrasts here as well. Some parts of the game will be 'flashbacky' to the earlier parts of the plot sequence when all was happy (bright), but only to make the utter despair of the main plotline more stark.

Literature and philosophic influences are important to me. In the game I would like to incorporate some of the same themes from artists like Kafka, Conrad, TS Eliot, Dante, Orwell, and McCarthy. Lovecraft. I don't want too get to involved in the details (and bore you), but the overall spine of this beast would be TS Eliot as found in Prufrock, Hollow Men, and The Waste Land. McCarthy's Road is also where I want to go with this. Both of those are echoes of Dante and Conrad to a large degree...as far as philosophy goes, I would like the game to bring about some of the major paradoxes and sublime contemplations of human thought. I would like to be able to weave together the action/background with concepts like Wittgenstein's 'language limit => world limit' (world limit => language limit, too) in ways that are not pedantic but enhance the unsettled mood. The philosophic interludes should undermine the player's views on reality until he is unsure of his own moorings. At the same time, there will be a strong effort to create a Zen atmosphere as the backdrop/foil.

There will be a 1984 type conspiracy element of power elite.

Other games that influence this might be Doom/Quake, Resident Evil, Half-Life 2

Music will be important. We all know about how a score can affect emotion and suspense in a movie, so same thing goes here. I would like to use G. Ligeti (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hNl_skTZQ) in particular for some of the more maddening sections. I do earnestly want to make those that play my game brush against insanity. I would like the 'soundtrack' to kick ass though, overall. Here's another gem I want to include, at least Richard's intro...see if you can name it (it's on bottom if you want a listen, my focus is on the first 50 seconds):

Richards had been working on the song's signature opening in London while Jagger was working on the film Performance. The song takes the form of a churning mid-tempo rocker. It begins with a rhythm guitar intro by Richards, followed by Jagger's lead vocal. On the recording of the album, Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, "Well, it's a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense..." On the song itself, he concluded, "That's a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse; the whole record's like that."

Fractals.

Love element similar to Final Fantasy VII.

Characters will exhibit nuanced facial expressions conforming to FACS as found in Ekman's (http://www.paulekman.com/publications/re...-websites/) research. The idea is that characters will exhibit facial expressions in contradiction with their speech. Deception will be an element. Emotional sophistication on a level of literature, not video games.

Some weapons in the games will modify moral outcomes instead of simply damaging. Or the effect will have some similar nonlinear result.

I want to include the concept of entanglement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement) and other oddball quantum details in different ways. I enjoy lateral thinking and false logic puzzles; that's the general idea. Not weird Myst/old school adventure game 'click on the weird fissure in the catacomb to find the ivory key' garbage, but a direct assault on reason and capacity for puzzle solving. Yes, I'll put a ESRB "G" for genius rating on the cover, so then everyone will want to prove they can defeat the game so they can have their merit badge...

There will have to be the contrast of entire cycles of civilization and the smallness/inconsequence of a single life (in this case, the player's/protagonist's). This type of contrast would be most effective when the player becomes as insular/claustrophopic as possible...

Likely to be set in a nuclear holocaust or similar setting. Nocturnal blizzards. Constant disorientation.

Literal biblical stories.

Real violence (castration, torture, hanging, etc...rape is taboo, right? These are things I detest but most of all I detest death and that is the main antagonist of this game)

The goodness of water that is only revealed with painful thirst.

Those are the fragments...now I just need a strong plot to fit inside.

Reading it again, it's no surprise that I enjoy Amnesia as much as I do.

Frictional, you are making special things. Thank you.