Human Brain's reaction to Scary Stuff

[Melvin]

I think depending on the person's personality, combined with human nature, leads to different fears. For me, I actually fear creatures with many legs like centipedes more than spiders. My personality is that many-legged insects are harmful, even though they usually aren't.

Darkness is a major contribution to horror media because of the simple fact that our retinal system cannot detect things as well in darkness. If Amnesia: The Dark Descent was never dark, it would not have the same effect that it did when we played it because we didn't know what was in the dark. We wanted to stay out of the darkness, so the lantern was used. This fear of the dark ties in perfectly with the sanity system. You can be terrified of the darkness and hear hallucinations or you can use the lantern constantly for light but be scared even more when the lights went out.

Awesome, how was your experience in Amnesia: the dark descent/Justine when being in the dark? Just like you just described or different?

I tended to use a lot of tinderboxes but not in places like the Prison where I knew there were monsters. I always kept a bit of emergency oil in case it was extremely dark. I mostly kept the lantern on at all times because I was very nervous.

That feeling of knowing that there are monsters, but you don't know when one is going to pop-up.. Kinda messes with your head too right? What you said, you get nervous and stuff, even when there aren't any monsters there. The magic of Amnesia