Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs Discussion Topic Part 2

[Slanderous]

Yo, new to this forum, just a massive Amensia fan who has decided to pass the time waiting for A:AMFP by obsessively thinking up theories on that the storyline will be about. It's really interesting to read through all your ideas about what might feature in the game. Is the titular 'Machine' literally a machine, or is it a metaphor? Did Mandus' kids/family die in Mexico, or are they the kids we see walking around in the trailer?

Anyway, thought I would throw in my thoughts. I reckon somebody close to Mandus died in Mexico; it's hard to think what other 'disaster' could affect him on such a personal level. Either one child, more than one (I have no idea how many he has/had), maybe his wife and kids. Even so; the loss of a family member driving you to create some machine to bring them back to life which feeds on humans? Seems like a longshot, unless Mandus had some kind of pre-existing mental condition and the loss of his family pushed him over the edge.

Makes me think maybe Mandus even caused the death of his family. Perhaps some supernatural force - think the Shadow in the original Amnesia - possessed him, or heck, just a result of irresponsible action/negligence on his behalf. So, wracked with Guilt, Mandus comes back to England with the idea of making a huge machine which consumes pigs to somehow bring his family back to life. Somebody on this forum mentioned the whole concept of 'vitae' - some vital essence that can be extracted from the living to bring back the dead. Perhaps this is the crux of how the machine works.

There's not enough pigs to feed the machine - or maybe their vitae isn't powerful enough - and in his desperation, Mandus starts feeding humans to the machine (we've all heard the quote from Mandus on this subject). Maybe these are adults - or maybe children. Something about that is even more disturbing, and I expect the disappearance of street urchins in industrial London would probably have been a regular occurence. Less questions asked about orphans or homeless kids than adults...

That gives us a potential premise for the game, but doesn't really shed any light on what the actual gameplay itself will focus on. Imagine the machine did work, but not as Mandus expected. His family did come back to life, but are not fully human - the vitae of the pigs and humans combined has turned them in to some kind of half-human, half-swine abomination. The central plot of the game could be Mandus realising what a terrible mistake he has made, trying to kill his family again so they can rest in peace. The reason I like this idea is that there could be a limited number of distinct enemies that we feel some connection to - not just faceless/nameless hordes that mean nothing to us. Think Justine, instead of The Dark Descent.

All of this is just wild speculation and I am probably way off the mark, but I'm interested to see you guys pick apart my theories and submit your own.

Very nice vision, I love it!

[Deep One]

Nice wall of quotes

[Pablodius]

Cheers all! Glad you liked my ideas, although I bet you anything when the game actually comes out it will be completely different. There are a couple of things that don't really fit with my theory at all, and I can't figure them out. If you have any thoughts it would be interesting to hear them.

The first is Mexico. The guys developing A:AMFP could have chosen anywhere in the world for Mandus' expedition, but they chose Mexico - why? Historically it has been the site of a lot of bloodshed, both before, during and after the Spanish conquest. Think about the countless human sacrifices to ancient Aztec gods - perhaps a link to the human sacrifices that Mandus is making for his family? Perhaps there is some kind of ancient evil in Mexico that is driving Mandus to do these things.

The second is the Mors Preamatura song that has been released, and which I know some of you have done some awesome work translating. As with my point above, the guys behind Amnesia don't do anything by accident, so from that we can infer that this song means something, and isn't just a series of haunting, rad-sounding latin phrases (although they are haunting, and definitely rad-sounding).

Does anyone know exactly what Mors Praematura actually means? Mors is death, but I can't find anything on Praematura. The stem 'Prae' seems to mean ultimate, main, foremost, top - think of the Praetorian Guard in ancient rome, or even the modern term 'Prime' Minister. Matura is more confusing - although it seems to mean something along the line of Maternal, or Mother. What this leaves us with I have no idea - some kind of ultimate death? I'm stuck on this one. Any linguists out there might be able to get further on this one...

[Ashtoreth]

Hi Pablodius, welcome!

Mors praematura means "premature death".

[Pablodius]

Hi Pablodius, welcome!

Mors praematura means "premature death".

Cheers Ashtoreth. You know what - I reckon this machine eats kids.

[Bucic]

Pewdie should just play as intended instead of being a view whore.
I don't see how it funny or worth watching I would rather watch the most agonizing gore instead of giving him my/any views.

He gets the views so he keeps producing crap. Don't blame him. Take a look at another clown http://m.youtube.com/user/markiplierGAME

[cantremember]

Isn't the idea that they enable ads and then get money for many views? There's a handful of people selling themselves on youtube as "freaks of nature" to get many views.

Some well known being MissHannahMinx, Nichole337, supercoolwillow and probably many more.

[zlanj]

Hi guys, new here usually a lurker but figured I should talk eventually.
I can't wait for this game to come out.

To shed some light on the PewDiePie topic. It is good that he plays these games, because it brings interest of up to 10 million (as of now) people seeing this game. People like him help the indie gaming community a ton, whether he markets to younger kids or not. I don't think Minecraft would be anywhere as near successful if it weren't for YouTubers. Look at modders who make custom stories as well, most of them would give up form lack of people interested in playing their stories. He also has a very good right to play it, he played the original even before he marketed to little kids, back when he was a (much) smaller channel.

Just my 2 cents. Looking forward to reading more of this thread

[Dyjamster]

Yo, new to this forum, just a massive Amensia fan who has decided to pass the time waiting for A:AMFP by obsessively thinking up theories on that the storyline will be about. It's really interesting to read through all your ideas about what might feature in the game. Is the titular 'Machine' literally a machine, or is it a metaphor? Did Mandus' kids/family die in Mexico, or are they the kids we see walking around in the trailer?

Anyway, thought I would throw in my thoughts. I reckon somebody close to Mandus died in Mexico; it's hard to think what other 'disaster' could affect him on such a personal level. Either one child, more than one (I have no idea how many he has/had), maybe his wife and kids. Even so; the loss of a family member driving you to create some machine to bring them back to life which feeds on humans? Seems like a longshot, unless Mandus had some kind of pre-existing mental condition and the loss of his family pushed him over the edge.

Makes me think maybe Mandus even caused the death of his family. Perhaps some supernatural force - think the Shadow in the original Amnesia - possessed him, or heck, just a result of irresponsible action/negligence on his behalf. So, wracked with Guilt, Mandus comes back to England with the idea of making a huge machine which consumes pigs to somehow bring his family back to life. Somebody on this forum mentioned the whole concept of 'vitae' - some vital essence that can be extracted from the living to bring back the dead. Perhaps this is the crux of how the machine works.

There's not enough pigs to feed the machine - or maybe their vitae isn't powerful enough - and in his desperation, Mandus starts feeding humans to the machine (we've all heard the quote from Mandus on this subject). Maybe these are adults - or maybe children. Something about that is even more disturbing, and I expect the disappearance of street urchins in industrial London would probably have been a regular occurence. Less questions asked about orphans or homeless kids than adults...

That gives us a potential premise for the game, but doesn't really shed any light on what the actual gameplay itself will focus on. Imagine the machine did work, but not as Mandus expected. His family did come back to life, but are not fully human - the vitae of the pigs and humans combined has turned them in to some kind of half-human, half-swine abomination. The central plot of the game could be Mandus realising what a terrible mistake he has made, trying to kill his family again so they can rest in peace. The reason I like this idea is that there could be a limited number of distinct enemies that we feel some connection to - not just faceless/nameless hordes that mean nothing to us. Think Justine, instead of The Dark Descent.

All of this is just wild speculation and I am probably way off the mark, but I'm interested to see you guys pick apart my theories and submit your own.

I'm sort of new too!

Your theory is well thought out but I hope this isn't the case.
This is because I think the plot/twist is too obvious.

If you think about it. Oswald from the trailers and stuff is probably killing pigs and humans but for a seemingly noble cause ("I admire your vision I truly do"). He is looking for his children (from latest Dan Pinchbeck interview) who seem to be haunting him at the factory (shadows in Halloween trailer). Your theory joins the dots to cleanly that he's using the machine to bring back his family to life.

The tesla coil concept art suggests electricity is being created by the machine as in this period, electricity was a new scientific development thought to be the source of life (Frankenstein was based on this paranoia of science idea). Perhaps vitae is also important. Also it would follow that perhaps the mutant pigs are not enemies, but your family that is trying to be accepted by you again but as they cannot speak due to their deformations, you run away from them and attempt to kill them.

With this in mind, this is why I think it is unlikely or why am uncomfortable with this being the plot:

It requires only the information given to us before release, most devs keep a tight lid on major plot areas - I hope there is more!

It is essentially a glorified Frankenstein novel - you bring back a loved one(s) who dies, it is deformed and you run away, the monster is shunned and thus becomes aggressive against the creator wishes to kill it.

I just want the plot to be much more unpredictable and groundbreaking

[LordGubGub]

I still think it's going to be about the swine flu