Blog: Thoughs on Amnesia: The Dark Descent

[nemesis567]

Well, first of all, this is only a thread, but I think you can understand the title. The thing is that our dear Frictional Games Team loves to criticize games that they randomly play. Well, I've played Amnesia, so why not give it my thoughs?

First of all, some things must be noted: I am not a game developer, such as FG is, so don't expect a flawless article.

Getting to the point, why have I chosen Amnesia?

Well amnesia has a lot to improve and I've now been a member of this community for a while. Now, I'll start by mentioning the greatest problems in amnesia(imo):

Repetition:

One of the biggest factors of boringness. It repeats the puzzles over and over again. Find the key, open the door. Now pull the lever. Water, watch out, there might be a lurker. Battle sound, MONSTER alert. Pick item, monster comes(NOTED: only works on main items except for the first landanum found). The list goes on and on. And NO, the engine's capabilities are not an excuse for this kind of repetition, as there are different scenarios which could've had different specific puzzles in each and every one of them(besides the main puzzle for each scenario which tends to be different).

Puzzles Creativity:

There are some good puzzles, yes, but it could be much better. The developers keep talking about giving the player the ability to interact with the environment. Well, it's not by being able to open doors, push levers and open drawers that this will happen just like that. There are not enough interactions, and by this I could say, the number of interactions is very, very small. There are doors, moveable objects, levers, buttons, ladders and that's about it. After sometime doing the same thing, the player gets bored. Let's be specific for once. Let's pick up the chemical mixing puzzle. Well, the idea itself is good, but the means to the end are not so good. The player gets flasks, places them RANDOMLY into the "machine" that heats and mixes them, rotates the valves randomly, and magically the thing actually comes to sense. Why not place 10 chemicals, a book somewhere, an order to add the items and actually allow the player to build different chemicals? Maybe one would be what he wanted, maybe other could even come of some use later. This tunnel vision that's forced into the player is very common in the game. So, even if the player thinks he has any kind of decision to do, he does not have.

Interactions:

As said before, in my opinion, this game is missing interactions. And being able to merge two items together is not an interaction, because it is a one time thing, it doesn't actually make the game less repetitive. The player can move items, open things, open doors with keys and so on. Buy why can't he lock the door he just opened with the key he just used? Why can't he take an item and break a RANDOM door with it? Why can't he take book of the many available and read it. Maybe it's something that matters, maybe not, just a random book with few pages would give the player something to do. Let's be specific about the levers interactions. The levers are all the same, they do something, and they BLOCK, you can never undo what you did, and even if it does not matter the lever puzzle is a one time interaction, something you know that happens only once in life, that it's not just like opening a door. I believe that some puzzles(lever like) could be used as frequent things, let's guess, a button to turn lights on and off(maybe not because candles are not like that), but you get the point.
About the interactions with the monsters. Telling they have a basic AI because they're meant to be stupid is not enough, they should at least have some reactions to the player. If the player threw something at them, why not let them run away, in a random fashion of course, but it would make it Different! Why not give them an animation with them eating someone, something, and most of all and one of the biggest flaws of the game, WHY AREN'T THERE FRIENDLY NPCS. THat's the most essencial factor in the game, someone else besides monsters. Someone that you think you can find and learn about instead of only monsters, someone you can see and speak to and learn from and follow and feel ALIVE, feel that you came out of the game for a while and are in REAL LIFE.

The inventory:

Is it a good idea? Maybe, maybe not. It has it's advantages, that's for sure, but it's a bit old fashioned, ain't it? You can perceive while playing the game that the items int he inventory are mere references, you can never take them out, wouldn't it be better if they were like items in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls/Fallout series? At least they would actually exist, you could take them off, play around with them try to fit them into their positions, try to use them, by yourself without god telling you what to DO! Okay, it's an easier solution, that's more than right, but was it the best?

The Lantern:

In my opinion a bad idea. Why give the player the ability to pick up items if he can't actually use them for anything usefull? Why is the lantern a special item, wouldn't it be better if it was a random torch, or lantern you actually found and could refill or drop somewhere in hope that you would find a candle up ahead? Be carefull to turn the candle on and off not to waste it and be carefull with the matchbox so you have how to lit it up? Isn't it redundant to go back to fixed items when you have such a good system to pick and drop objects?

Game flow:

Another thing I must deeply disagree. Why does something stops you from going back, check out what you missed, maybe there was some note or something else you needed, or you just want to check out something else. Again it's like you're watching a movie, not playing a game since you can do nothing besides what's meant to be.

Game flow 2 and Guns/New Items:

But a problem would come up, what would you go back for? Oil? It actually gets boring and you can play the game without oil because of the so fantastic Night Vision. So, there's nothing to go back to. That's no excuse for nothing, the solution is to place something for the player to go back to. Well, if there were guns, there would be guns and ammunition. Even so, this way there are things that can be done, maybe sleeping pills, bandages, disease pills, calming pills, food, things to protect yourself anything that you could interact and maybe change the course of actions once and for all.

Mapping and Scenario:

Was the space in which the action occurs the best? It's an interesting one, no doubt, but I can't stop feeling that castle halls are an awfull space, it's not familiar at all, besides non cluttered spaces generally look bad. Why should a place be familiar? Well it not only gives you a sense of reality but also makes you look around and check out the place around you. Exterior mapping? There is none which is one of the biggest flaws of the game. Don't tell me it was not necessary, because it would extraordinarily improve the game.


Story telling:

Notes and diaries, notes and diaries. Who would always write notes and diaries? Wouldn't it improve the game to have an NPC tell the story to the player? Maybe the player could actually even solve a puzzle based on the story, like a date of birth as code, a place as a secret entrance? Why not?
NPCs are also not the only way to tell the story, and you got that well with the flashbacks, and some well placed notes and Agrippa and Alexander.

Horror:

This is something the game got quite well. Maybe stop repeating the same monsters over and over again or change a little bit when they appear, make you be able to get rid of one only if you could trap him, kill him or something similar. But overall it's good enough.

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And that's it. You probably think I didn't mention the good things at all, but the main point here is to focus the flaws and get the team to improve them. The ones they agree with of course because this is just one's opinion...


Please discuss. This is my thoughs and yours can totally differ.

Thank you for your read.