AMFP Member Review Thread

[padme]

To be honest, I found the notes to be boring and anti-climatic. In TDD at least the most important ones were narrated by Daniel and we could feel the fear and desperation in his voice which blended nicely with the environment.

And I don't understand why people say the story is better than TDD. I mean, it's basically the same, the protagonist awakes with a memory loss, goes down through a path he's been but he can't remember, discovers all the horrible things he's done and tries to make up for them somehow. Although I think the story in TDD was better introduced, that first note ending with "Your former self, Daniel" really puts some interest into the player.

And I think it has more memorable lines than AMFP like the one "Paint the man, cut the lines", only that scene puts much more perspective than the whole AMFP, it's in this scene we can see that Daniel had become.

I invite you all to rewatch the scene and feel the cruelty in Daniel's voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVvDROSxrDE

The scene with the huge room with the purple atmosphere was also really scary. And the scripted scene where the monster catches you and you can't escape was something too.

None of the parts in AMFP can make up for this littles details present in TDD. That's why I don't this is such a good game.

I noticed that many people have criticized A Machine for Pigs for the elements that didn't carry over from The Dark Descent (sanity, oil, interaction, etc.), and I just thought I would share my thoughts here.

Firstly, I prefer no sanity meter. It made things stressful and scary at times in The Dark Descent, but overall it was just annoying. There were times when it wasn't even a scary part of the game, but Daniel's sanity was low. I'm not scared, why should Daniel be? I don't need the game to tell me how I am supposed to feel. It's a unique idea, but not necessary for A Machine for Pigs. The only sanity meter I need is the one in my head.

It's not supposed to be a meter but an experience enchancer. Like if you saw monsters, you would start the see things that weren't there.

Sure, it wasn't perfect in TDD but why not improve it?

Searching for oil and tinderboxes was kind of frustrating in TDD. Obsessively searching every corner of every room for some oil got kind of annoying. Later in the game, the lantern became a "too awesome to use" item for me, and I ended up barely ever using it in order to conserve oil, and by the end of the game I had plenty of oil (which was useless by then). Tinderboxes only came in handy a few times, and I had around 30 or more by the time I beat it. Again, it did make things stressful and scary, but I can live without it.

The oil and the tinderboxes were a way of telling the player not to abuse of the light otherwise you wouldn't have any. It was a strategic element. Again, it was not perfect but why not improve it?

As far as interaction goes, it worked for The Dark Descent. But honestly it's not needed in A Machine for Pigs. Would it make sense for Mandus to run around his house, smashing pots, throwing his things around, and making a mess of his bookshelves? No, not really. In TDD, most of the items that you could interact with were kind of pointless anyway. Woohoo, I can throw these barrels around and stack boxes! If anything it can distract players and can ruin immersion for some (not everyone of course). It's an interesting and very cool feature, but it's not needed to make the game immersive and enjoyable in my opinion, and didn't make much of a difference for me. Additionally, since most of the "puzzles" in AMFP involved carrying around items (because of the removal of the inventory system), it might get confusing trying to figure out which items are important. Also, didn't the devs state that making many items interactive like in TDD decreased performance by a lot? That's a valid reason to remove the feature, at least I think so.

To be honest, performance is not a valid excuse for me, it's not like we are running games on Nintendo 64.

And by taking all the interaction, solving puzzles in AMFP became a matter of finding what items are interactable or not.

Also, interaction would give players an excuse to explore. What's the point of going around if you can't do anything?