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.

________________

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.

[Xanatos]

Repetition:

There wasn't that much repetition. And why did you even mention water? There was only one instance where being in the water was any kind of threat, and didn't it succeed in turning you off water for the rest of the game?

If you think about it most games are repetitive: the majority of action games consist of you walking into a new area, enemies spawn, and you kill them. The trick is pulling off the rest of the game well enough so people don't notice the repetition so much. Call of Duty, for example, relies on keeping the player constantly alert to any situation they find themselves in in order to stay alive. Devil May Cry has a fun combat system that keeps the player occupied with stringing together new combos & raising their style rank. Amnesia creates a truly tense & immersive atmosphere that keeps the player on edge throughout the entire game - they're too busy worrying about what could be around the next corner to pay attention to level design.

Interactions:

Why can't he lock the door? Because he'll have to unlock it again when he goes to leave, and locks don't stop monsters from breaking in since they usually tear down the entire hinge. Why can't he break a random door? Because Daniel is not a tank; if he was he wouldn't have to be cowering in dark corners. And reading books... really? Do you have any idea how many books there are in the game? Do you really expect the developers to write something different for each and every one? This isn't The Elder Scrolls, this is a short horror game by an independent developer who don't have the resources to sit around typing literature that would be overlooked by most players (people don't play videogames to read books - there are BOOKS for that).

Why would anyone want to UNDO a puzzle they spend ages trying to solve? Once a machine roars to life most survival horror players would avoid touching it at all costs in case they happen to fuck something up. As for using puzzles for "frequent things"... I thought you wanted to avoid repetition? And which Amnesia player honestly wants to extinguish an environmental light source? In fact I believe it's the times when the lights go out that players get truly tense.

The reason you can't injure or scare monsters away is because the player is supposed to feel weak & vulnerable, you're missing the point entirely. You can in fact throw objects at monsters to stall them a little bit, but how many of us take the time to do that instead of just running away?
There's no point in giving enemies idling animations since the player is supposed to avoid looking at them entirely. There's only one instance in the game that you can actually sneak up on an unaware stationary monster, and even then you can barely glimpse it before you slowly go nuts.
As for friendly NPCs:
1. The player is supposed to feel alone and helpless in Brennenburg.
2. Programming friendly AI is hard.

The inventory:

The inventory does what it's supposed to do, and nothing more. It's simple and effective. The inventory system in TES wasn't that far advanced anyway; the most you could do was drop items on the ground only to be picked up again. And the only reason you'd want to drop something was if it was either useless or weighing you down. Since Amnesia doesn't have an encumbrance meter and EVERYTHING you pick up has a vital use, there's no need for a drop feature. And who really wants to backtrack several levels just to retrieve an item they dropped and didn't realise they'd need later? The developers were careful to design the game in such a way that the player was unable to progress until they had found all the unique items in that particular level, which encouraged thorough exploration.

The Lantern:

Again, the lantern was simple and did what was required, nothing more. Who really wants to rely on a light source you had to pick up and carry around everywhere with the mouse button, having to put it down while you interacted with a door or drawer and hope it didn't glitch into the map geometry?

Game flow:

Most players are glad to finally be out of the previous area, what with the Shadow & creepy monsters & all. With the atmospheric gameplay being primarily exploration-based it's unlikely that players would miss anything of any importance, making backtracking rather pointless. In fact backtracking is something that should be avoided in games as it's a sign of lazy design (see Devil May Cry 4 level design).
Game "flow" is exactly that - it flows in every direction except backwards.

Game flow 2 and Guns/New Items:

Tinderboxes and oil aren't necessary items for completing the game? Have you completely forgotten about the Sanity mechanic? Without light you'd spend half the time dragging your face along the ground, which you wouldn't find much fun I would wager. As for the "fantastic Night Vision", I think you're confusing this game with FG's previous game Penumbra, in which you could survive quite happily on night vision alone (which I did on my first playthrough because I was afraid to use any light sources for fear that I might be spotted). The great thing the developers addressed in Amnesia was the use of light sources; forcing the player to stay in the light and avoid the dark as much as possible, unlike their previous game where (ironically) players could feel safest in the dark.

And I thought everybody was clear on why there are no weapons in the game, especially guns.

Mapping and Scenario:

I'm not quite sure what your main criticism is here, one of the things the level designers got well was that each level had a unique look & layout such that you can easily recall your journey through the castle, or see a few seconds of gameplay footage and immediately know what part of the game it's from. I don't see how exterior mapping would improve the game and it would bee a wasted effort; so much effort for so little gain. The atmosphere is such that people are too focused on what's going on inside to worry about what's outside.

Story telling:

Because this style of storytelling suits the gameplay & atmosphere; you're alone in a mysterious place and have to piece together clues you find in order to find out where you are and what's happening. It just wouldn't flow with the rest of the game if you have some NPC blatantly tell you what's going on. And, as I've mentioned before, programming friendly NPCs is hard and this is by far the most cost effective means of storytelling. This is a small company after all, and they're very resourceful with what they have. Always remember K.I.S.S: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Plus this style makes a refreshing change from most current games that practically hold you by the hand the whole way through the plot and treat you like a child with ADD.

Horror:

There isn't much to complain about in terms of horror, as I'm sure 102% of the population is aware, but a lot of your criticisms seem to attack the very things that makes Amnesia scary: mysterious atmosphere, limited resources, reliance on light, keen observation, utter helplessness, etc. This game focuses heavily on establishing an oppressive atmosphere, which it does in ship loads. You only need to focus on enemy variety in games such as Dead Space or ones that focus heavily on monster encounters, which Amnesia doesn't. In fact the player isn't even supposed to LOOK at the monsters, further eliminating the need for a variety of character models you aren't supposed to see. Again this adds to the atmosphere of the game; people are generally more afraid of that which they cannot see.

[nemesis567]

Can't deny anything you said as your opinion differs from mine.

As said, I tried to criticize everything that could have been better. So the things mentioned about are the ones I think that need improvement. Most of the things that are actually useless, which is true, would make you feel in CONTROL of the game. That's an essencial feeling. I'm trying to think out of the box, and that's why some of the things above look redundant, I'm trying to compare what it is to what it could've been.
Now I'll comment on what you said.

The thing about the monsters is that when you look at one for long time enough, you won't fear for the rest of the game. It's true that they achieved what they wanted in this terms. Damn, I can't deny how good this game is(not to mention that it is an "independent" release).

About the NPCs, it isn't easy, but sure as hell making a friendly NPC would be worth the job. Get the idea from Alone in The Dark. They are rare, but it just gives you a feeling of immersion.

I guess I was specific enough about the mapping. Again I compare what it is to what it could've been. I'm not associating with the FG capabilities or budget.

About the inventory, when I meant drop, I meant more like drop it to use it without the old-fashioned point 'n click.

One way or another, thank you very much for your opinion. You surely have interesting points, again an opinion.