What has discovering Amnesia/Frictional Games done for you?

[Froge]

I discovered that Frictional is pretty bad at storytelling

Penumbra was awesome...

It was. I considered it to be one of the most powerful societal statements made in videogame history.

I didn't like it.

Spoiler below!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason why Philip An Heros is because he thinks himself as being powerfully individualistic and refuses to join the Tuurngait hivemind. He also notes that returning to society is no different than joining the Tuurngait as in both ways he is a slave to the collective mindset.

So is the game's message telling us that we should all An hero ourselves? No one lives without society having some influence on their beliefs and actions, and we can still find happiness in our lives regardless.

[eliasfrost]

I discovered that Frictional is pretty bad at storytelling

What?

Don't get me wrong, the story in itself was ok. The story telling was very bad, notes and flashbacks? I mean, that's the cheapest way to carry a story that I know of, and it's disengaging and immersion breaking. I really hope that the chinese room improve upon this with AFMP.

[failedALIAS]

Don't get me wrong, the story in itself was ok. The story telling was very bad, notes and flashbacks? I mean, that's the cheapest way to carry a story that I know of, and it's disengaging and immersion breaking. I really hope that the chinese room improve upon this with AFMP.

Well when you're alone in an abandoned fortress beneath the ice in a forsaken land with a horrific virus, you might find yourself the only kid on the block. . . except Red.

[eliasfrost]

Don't get me wrong, the story in itself was ok. The story telling was very bad, notes and flashbacks? I mean, that's the cheapest way to carry a story that I know of, and it's disengaging and immersion breaking. I really hope that the chinese room improve upon this with AFMP.

Well when you're alone in an abandoned fortress beneath the ice in a forsaken land with a horrific virus, you might find yourself the only kid on the block. . . except Red.

That doesn't make the storytelling any more engaging than it is, I still think it's cheap and lazy.

[Nice]

Don't get me wrong, the story in itself was ok. The story telling was very bad, notes and flashbacks? I mean, that's the cheapest way to carry a story that I know of, and it's disengaging and immersion breaking. I really hope that the chinese room improve upon this with AFMP.

It made the most sense to do it that way. How on earth heavens name was it immersion breaking ? Your character suffers from Amnesia, which is memory loss and its quite logical that he would have flashbacks coming back to him. Reading notes is far from immersion breaking aswell, atleast for me.

So yeah, it's different opinions but i completely, wholeheartedly disagree.

How would you carry out the story ? have it all written down before you start the game ? Or would you leave the player completely ignorant throughout the whole game and maybe if its smart invidual with a very imaginative mind he'd figure out what it was all about.

Even with notes and flashbacks, i know that a lot of people still don't have any clue about whats going on when they're playing the game

[Bridge]

I agree with Dogfood; it was a stroke of genius on Frictional's part. There are not that many people that could take such a cliche premise and make it interesting. If anything, my opinion is the opposite of Naked? No's, which is: Meh story, great storytelling.

EDIT: IMO, they just help pace everything so perfectly. In addition to just being exposition they help create mystery for whatever is about to happen. Plus, they are pretty badass. I don't see how anyone could dislike them. They could have been done so much worse (that's not to say they couldn't have been done better though).

[Wooderson]

Thing I loved about Overture was mainly Red.

A sole survivor. Traversing down into the mines, discovering the history of them and what happened to Red, seeing how he grew up and became depressed and lonely.

FG got us to use our imagination so we could make our own interpretations.

[rtjhbfvsrry]

I don't see how flashbacks and notes are immersion breaking or bad at all, especially in the contexts Amnesia used them, where the flashbacks were literally ourselves thinking back on it. I can think of no more effective and immersive way to deliver backstory. What did you want, a speaking character giving an exposition dump? Conversations are boring and expositions dumps are the bane of storytelling. In movies the old adage is show, don't tell and Frictional did 'em one better - not show, but experience.

[failedALIAS]

May this tormented soul rest in peace.

[Rapture]

Well let's see, I started out on SC1 when I was 7. Loved it and the custom maps, tried the Map Editor (Even the hacked/custom ones, but still allowed.) Couldn't figure out how to do any of the Triggers.

Fast forward 5-6 years, fell in love with Warcraft 3. Loved the custom maps, tried doing Triggers, failed horribly. But I loved making detailed maps, things that just looked as good as TKoK RPG maps, some a little better or worse.

Fast forward another number of years, sophomore high school student. Heard from this girl next to me in computer room (Bullshit class, fucking Word / Excel / Powerpoint for 3-year olds) that this game Amnesia the Dark Descent was super scary. Tried it out, loved the demo, bought the game actually later during christmas.

Got hooked on Custom Stories (I think TTP was my first, because it looked so fucking amazing at the time.) And I learned how to do scripting (After about 10 years of procrastinating) Now I'm into Modeling/Texturing...

Big props to Frictional Games. The biggest reason to helping me stepping over that procrastinating stone and doing something related to "Game Development" to which I have been dreaming about ever since I was 1.