[IDEA] punishment for look at the monter's face in Amnesia

[Bridge]

I like how all the junior members pretends to know anything about horror games.

What the hell man… You know that just because it says "Senior Member" under your name it doesn't mean you're actually senior. It's a post count; It increments every time you post a new message. Now how does that translate to horror game knowledge?

[pimpinitalian]

I like this idea because you have a valid point they can lose their scare factor, but people like me never lost their fear of the monsters when I saw them up close; the grunt might look derpy, but its just the fact he is there which scares me and the brute is always scary to me; I hate encountering him. Another thing is I believe I read they're removing the sanity meter in A Machine for Pigs; so they would have to make this a new update in The Dark Descent unless they change their minds about A Machine for Pigs.

sorry, i have to say this,
but why the hell do you use this fontsize. it's just annoying, and i read this with a strange voice, because it looks like someone who's in the first grade and just learned reading/writing. please. just use the normal font size >.<

You're complaining about a font size on a topic about monsters. I use Times New Roman which makes the font very legible, but smaller for some reason so I make it larger so it's not too tiny. is this better? or will you still complain about first grade reading and writing even if font size has nothing to do with those.

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

The main problem is this: If you add punishment as a gameplay element, the player is in danger of starting to perceive it as exactly that. Sanity drain had more drastic effects on gameplay at first, but Frictional Games toned it down to a mere "atmosphere feature" because having it have a real impact on gameplay put players in a "gamey" mindset and took them out of the immersion. (Am I the only one here who's reading the Dev Blog? Have a look at this my friends, and download the pdf, its very enlightening!)

Another problem is that you cannot let the player die, for the same reason. Once the player dies, he's taken out of the game flow and reminded that he is only playing a game. This is explained in the pdf above as breaking the "feedback loop":
After a while of playing, the player starts to believe (subconciously) that he is really in the game - he doesn't think about the controls anymore and the monsters cause him to feel fear as if they were a real threat - when they appear, his heart starts to race etc. Once they "kill" or even only attack him however the feedback loop is broken, because he is not really feeling any pain. (thank god for that! ) so the act of dying in the game snaps him out of his immersion. Even things like opening the inventory do that, although to a lesser degree. (I guess that's why thechineseroom said something about having no inventory in AMfP in an interview...)

Now, of course the effect may vary from player to player and some might not be less immersed after dying, but personally I could feel that effect when I played Amnesia - every time I died the game lost a bit of its scaryness.

Still I agree that something should be done to make the player fear the monsters more - but I think that in order to do that, he needs to have way less direct contact with them, not be attacked or even killed. The trick is to make the player think something horrible is about to happen, if the monster gets him, not try and make something happen - it will always be less terrifying than what he expected. Instead of punishing the player for getting close to a monster, try to avoid those situations in the first place.

[Kman]

this actually would be kinda interesting; though it would be a really buggy addition for situations where, lets say, the monster chases you into a corner.


though, another idea would be to give sanity loss a penalty.. maybe dying? not too sure. thats atleast my input on the matter.

if monster chases you into a corner, you should be beated up almost to death, and our player should automactly fall down on the kness and turn away eyes from the monster (as on the beggining of game, when we hear something and he is falling down on the kness despite there is no monster there)
or YOU SHOULD DIE because it is your problem to find a good way to escape and if you are in corner you should die or loos your mind and all controls should be blocked for few second (in that time, monster can disapear)

One of the main gameplay elements is using the dark as hiding, in fact there's one part in the Storage where you're damn near forced to hide right next to the Grunt in the dark. That entire element would be broken, which would ruin a lot lf the game's best parts for me. On top of that, if I started to get chased by a Grunt or Brute and randomly in the middle of the chase I fell to my knees and got insta-killed I would just end up raging. Even if you look past these flaws, one of the scarier moments in the game for me was when I peaked out the closet in the Guest room and saw how utterly gruesome the Grunt was, and to be honest all it did was make me more scared to encounter it again. It's an interesting idea, but it would break so many things that it's not really worth it, and to me sanity drain is enough of a punishment.

[darkely]

I like how all the junior members pretends to know anything about horror games.

Your one to talk all you do is come onto he forum troll, and spam threads.

[Damascus Rose]

I like how all the junior members pretends to know anything about horror games.

Your one to talk all you do is come onto he forum troll, and spam threads.

Don't do this darkely. The forum doesn't need this.

[darkely]

I like how all the junior members pretends to know anything about horror games.

Your one to talk all you do is come onto he forum troll, and spam threads.

Don't do this darkely. The forum doesn't need this.

Ok ok I'm sowwy I have a bad habit of accidentally derailing threads...

Back on topic

[Ghieri]

I think the feedback loop is more important than our perception of the monsters

When not playing Amnesia, the monsters are kind of cute, loveable characters.(Except suitors)

Inside of the game, though. Suspension of disbelief sets in, and millions of years of evolution are telling you to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THAT FLOODED CORRIDOR, or something.

In that respect, I think the game works out just fine. They aren't trying to add gameplay mechanics, they are trying to trick your brain to think Castle Brennenburg is real.

[Adny]

I like how all the junior members pretends to know anything about horror games.

Implying that the little title under someone's name means anything at all. It's solely based on the number of posts, all of which could be complete crap. I could write 500 meaningless posts and be a senior member; it has nothing to do with someone's intelligence or knowledge of gaming.

[Robby]

Generally, a great idea of punishment is "SCP-096". Read it up.