Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs Discussion Topic Part 1

[samueljustice00]

There's just a couple of things I've thought of having watched the newest teaser several times and reading various peoples' opinions.

Firstly is regarding the humanoid(s) seen twice in the newest Halloween teaser and the little girl narrating at the beginning and end. It seems a lot of people seem to think this may be an enemy of some kind, but I had a couple other ideas as to what it/they/he/she might be, having watched the trailer in 1080 in/ full-screen.

1. What I'm most excited about, that the figure might be Oswald Mandus' daughter. This may seem like a stretch, but it makes sense to me. The little girl narrating the trailer at the very beginning and very end seems to be more important than just a cliche creepy little girl voice, as it literally bookends the new teaser. Additionally, the last thing heard in the trailer is "Daddy?" leading me to believe that the girl is not only in the game, but most likely the protagonist's daughter. However, having seen the figures in the video in fullscreen, the first one looks like a little boy, rather than a little girl, and the second one looks like a full grown man, so I'm not sure about this theory.
2. It's possible that this is an enemy/hallucination/vision/etc. If this is the case, it would seem to be very F.E.A.R.-esque, as all the amnesia monsters, including the one in the trailer, are very obviously present, due especially to the noises they make, while the figure in the teaser was barely noticeable.
3. It could just be a friendly npc/guide/character.

Something else I wanted to mention is about the term "Damascus." To those who played the first game, people will remember this word as a reference to the Damascus Rose, the only known ingredient in the amnesia potion which was so central to the plot in TDD.

So recently I picked up "Dear Esther" developed by thechineseroom who as most of you know are now developing AAMFP. While playing through Dear Esther, I noticed something very strange and out of place. Near the end of the game, scrawled on a cliffside in massive chalk-like letters, was the word "Damascus." Those who have played Dear Esther will know it is very cryptic, but that word Damascus particularly stood out to me, as it had nothing to do with the story whatsoever. I probably would have forgotten about it, if it hadn't been for the connection between frictional games and thechineseroom with AAMFP. What I find most interesting is that, at the time Dear Esther came out, I'm relatively sure nothing was known about the connection between the two companies. This is probably a huge stretch, but I can't stop thinking there's some sort of connection because of the occurrence of that word in Dear Esther, even if it was just hinting at future involvement together.

Wrong sex. It's a boy.

[Statyk]

[Deep One]

@Statyk

Nope.avi

[Tetrafish]

By removing the pop-up inventory (a 'game element' that does not exist in the real world), players will need to learn to think for themselves. Players will go into the game, realise that there is no classical inventory system and react exactly as you have: "Argh! How the hell do I pick up items! How do I combine?!". They will be stripped of the simple 'collect, drag-and-drop and combine' element, and will be forced to apply logical, real-life thinking to the puzzles and dilemmas. To take the words from your mouth, the player will "need to "think" more how to get forward" and "learn thinking himself" to solve puzzles that are "plausible, hard and logical, and use physics and your brain".


I, for one, can't wait to see where they take it.

I'm sure I'll echo the obvious/already-been-said... I'm thinking of the Storage Level in ATDD, and the drill you had to use. Without the inventory you'd have to stash the pieces in one location, then build them, then when it came to using them it wouldn't be automatic (except for the drill placement) then the player would have to rotate the mouse to literally drill through the barrel (e.g. not let the game do 1/2 the work ).

And removal of puzzles? Eh, I know better than that. Especially with the electro-parts you'll need to use. & having to think of what to do, where to place things (maybe inserting and turning a key to open a door) all the time while under pressure... That would be very intense! ...and also make for some carpet f-bombing should you mess something up.

[Bridge]

You guys are really missing the point. Nobody is worried about them making improvements to the adventure aspect of their games, but having items you pick up is not the huge immersion breaker you make it out to be. Do players usually resort to trying everything on everything until something finally works? Only if the puzzles are unfairly designed. Penumbra for the most part solved that problem. In fact, through the majority of puzzles I sat down with the info I had and figured it out before progressing, because in Penumbra you really do have a good chance of piecing it together yourself. Plus, roughly half (at least a quarter) of the puzzles in Penumbra/Amnesia did not use any items at all. Those were really good, but how many of those can you go through? Using items all of a sudden becomes a huge nuisance or an immersion breaker because you either a) have to hold down the mouse button and drag it all the way to the place you want to go or b) design the game so that the items you need are always right next to the puzzles, which is not good game design.

[Ossie]

atilathegun wrote: "So recently I picked up "Dear Esther" developed by thechineseroom who as most of you know are now developing AAMFP. While playing through Dear Esther, I noticed something very strange and out of place. Near the end of the game, scrawled on a cliffside in massive chalk-like letters, was the word "Damascus." Those who have played Dear Esther will know it is very cryptic, but that word Damascus particularly stood out to me, as it had nothing to do with the story whatsoever."



Wrong.

Going completely OT, but Damascus has everything to do with the story in Dear Esther and is to be found many times throughout the game (in the narrative and scrawled on various surfaces).

Google it.

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I'm thinking of the Storage Level in ATDD, and the drill you had to use.Without the inventory you'd have to stash the pieces in one location, then build them, then when it came to using them it wouldn't be automatic (except for the drill placement) then the player would have to rotate the mouse to literally drill through the barrel (e.g. not let the game do 1/2 the work ).

The point is, however, they are not ripping the inventory out of a game that was created under the assumption that the player would have one, they are building a game around the fact that there is no inventory. So obviously, this puzzle would have been replaced by a different puzzle that works better with environment interactions only.

@Statyk: No, I'm quite excited, actually, to see how they will change their game design to work with this new system and what effect it will have on me as a player.

IMO Amnesia and Penumbra had a very emergent design philosophy as well, but you can only simplify up to a point. After that you just start removing core aspects.

Nobody is worried about them making improvements to the adventure aspectof their games, but having items you pick up is not the huge immersion breaker you make it out to be.

Both is very much true. But after some thinking, I've come to the conclusion that they are not trying to make improvements to the adventure aspect at all. I mean they also said that sooner or later they wanted to abandon puzzles almost entirely. (Not with AAMFP of course, maybe with the secret project...?)
I'd conclude that they are instead trying to create a new genre. I'm not sure what they'd replace the puzzles with... but it has to be something, otherwise it's like you said, there are no core aspects anymore so you're just walking around like you're in Dear Esther without narration and with boxes you can fling around ^^
Maybe it will go a bit of a sandboxy-approach where you just have a relatively open, highly interactive environment in which you...faff around? It could be called the Immersionbox - genre.

I guess it could work. Like you are thrown into this world and the game just allows you to use the simple (physics?) controls given to do pretty much everything that you would naturally do in that situation...with tons of possible reactions to your actions? (For the glorious feedback loop ^^) I dunno, I'm starting to ramble, too

[Bridge]

Both is very much true. But after some thinking, I've come to the conclusion that they are not trying to make improvements to the adventure aspect at all. I mean they also said that sooner or later they wanted to abandon puzzles almost entirely. (Not with AAMFP of course, maybe with the secret project...?)
I'd conclude that they are instead trying to create a new genre. I'm not sure what they'd replace the puzzles with... but it has to be something, otherwise it's like you said, there are no core aspects anymore so you're just walking around like you're in Dear Esther without narration and with boxes you can fling around ^^
Maybe it will go a bit of a sandboxy-approach where you just have a relatively open, highly interactive environment in which you...faff around? It could be called the Immersionbox - genre.

I guess it could work. Like you are thrown into this world and the game just allows you to use the simple (physics?) controls given to do pretty much everything that you would naturally do in that situation...with tons of possible reactions to your actions? (For the glorious feedback loop ^^) I dunno, I'm starting to ramble, too

Some good speculation, but honestly nothing would worry me more than a sandbox type game. Randomly generated areas/item placement/dynamic enemy reactions/whatever you want to call it are hugely overrated in my opinion. Unless someone comes up with a really, really good idea on how to make it work, it's never going to be an enjoyable way to play a game (unless you're only in it to run into monsters, get scared and run away). The flawless pacing is one of the things that makes Penumbra and Amnesia so scary in my opinion. Immersionbox kind of goes against all that. But hey, I'm game. Maybe it will be the best thing ever.

[MyRedNeptune]

@Hirnwirbel: FG's goal is to evolve games as a viable storytelling medium. I think that's it, basically.

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Randomly generated areas/item placement/dynamic enemy reactions/whatever you want to call it are hugely overrated in my opinion.[...]The flawless pacing is one of the things that makes Penumbra and Amnesia so scary in my opinion.

Oh yes indeed. It's why I called replay value overrated a few pages ago, when everybody was talking about randomized monster encounters and dynamic behaviour. (ok, more like ~20 pages ago ^^)

Reading through the latest post in the dev blog, it seems they are quite aware of the problem that's caused by open environment/sandboxy and exploration-focussed gameplay vs. nicely paced storytelling and are trying to find something inbetween:

The design that we have come up with is something I will refer to as the "Scene Approach". The basic idea is that you give the player an area, a scene, where they are free to roam. When appropriate players are able to leave and enter the next scene. Each scene should have a strong focus on some form of activity and/or theme and be self contained. Moving on to the next scene should be evident, either by a very simple interaction (e.g. opening a door), some form of activity (e.g. starting a generator) or by reaching some sort of state (e.g. waiting for a 2 minutes).