Among the Sleep

[plutomaniac]

If you make the player care about what he's doing, the experience is going to be much more rewarding than if you just don't let the player do anything.

I agree with the second thing about caring. This is a very common problem especially with games that seem to focus more on immersion and I have to admit that one or two times maximum I saw this in Amnesia as well. Certain puzzles were there just to delay you and in reality they did not have to do with the plot or story. Instead, if they had a meaning and not a delaying purpose then as you said the experience would be much more rewarding. However, I don't know exactly how this can always be done. But I don't think he meant that the player will not do nothing. I think he meant that the player must avoid doing stuff that are irrelevant because that's when he starts to lose immersion.

Thus I believe that such games should focus on the scary environment and care less about puzzles and tricks that will help you to just move on to see what happens in the end. However, you can not make this a rule otherwise the player will get bored eventually because of lack of activity. I conclude that someone, and I mean the developer, must find the sweet sport between feelings and actions, immersion and puzzles. I think that the Penumbra series failed at that sweet spot by focusing a lot more on puzzles. That's why Amnesia became so popular and that's why it is better(I have to say though that the Penumbra ending was way better in my opinion).

Indeed, this is a hard topic to discuss.