AMFP Member Review Thread

[Damascus Rose]

Do all players need to be spoon-fed their visceral horror onscreen? I found the content of the very well written notes to be far more horrifying and disturbing than anything depicted visually in The Dark Descent (or Outlast for that matter). A Machine For Pigs mostly relies on the player absorbing the atmosphere and the content of the notes and so letting the player's imagination come up with the visuals, and that to me is far more involving than anything any graphics artist can come up with.

No, definitely not. But can you accomplish actual horror only by using cryptic notes? Sure they were kinda effective to make you uncomfortable with whats going on, but it just felt they they were a tease. You never got to see any of the actual scary stuff from the notes (or from the trailers) happen in the game. The notes show you what will scare you, then the game doesn't scare you. In TDD they showed you what would scare you then they did. My imagination can only scare me so much when the game doesn't even try to show you anything scary itself.

I only brought up outlast because the stuff they showed was pretty fucked up, and they obviously could've put more stuff like that in AMFP, it's not like it was 'going too far'.

[WALP]

I dont know if you need to be human to understand or anything, but at no point in the game did the notes actually creep me out, make me uncormfortable or disturb me. Mostly they were just confusing me having me be unsure if I really understood what it was about while at some points I would understand it and think "oh cool" or "interesting". But in my AAMFP experience the notes certainly did not have any place on the horror side of it.

[Froge]

I found the content of the very well written notes to be far more horrifying and disturbing than anything depicted visually in The Dark Descent (or Outlast for that matter).

A Fever Dream

I wake alone, to a house in silence. That missing sound of children playing is like a dark and fecund sepulchre, beckoning me to begin a descent to the loam where surely only bodies may be found.

the subtlety is killing me

[padme]

To be honest, I found the notes to be boring and anti-climatic. In TDD at least the most important ones were narrated by Daniel and we could feel the fear and desperation in his voice which blended nicely with the environment.

And I don't understand why people say the story is better than TDD. I mean, it's basically the same, the protagonist awakes with a memory loss, goes down through a path he's been but he can't remember, discovers all the horrible things he's done and tries to make up for them somehow. Although I think the story in TDD was better introduced, that first note ending with "Your former self, Daniel" really puts some interest into the player.

And I think it has more memorable lines than AMFP like the one "Paint the man, cut the lines", only that scene puts much more perspective than the whole AMFP, it's in this scene we can see that Daniel had become.

I invite you all to rewatch the scene and feel the cruelty in Daniel's voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVvDROSxrDE

The scene with the huge room with the purple atmosphere was also really scary. And the scripted scene where the monster catches you and you can't escape was something too.

None of the parts in AMFP can make up for this littles details present in TDD. That's why I don't this is such a good game.

I noticed that many people have criticized A Machine for Pigs for the elements that didn't carry over from The Dark Descent (sanity, oil, interaction, etc.), and I just thought I would share my thoughts here.

Firstly, I prefer no sanity meter. It made things stressful and scary at times in The Dark Descent, but overall it was just annoying. There were times when it wasn't even a scary part of the game, but Daniel's sanity was low. I'm not scared, why should Daniel be? I don't need the game to tell me how I am supposed to feel. It's a unique idea, but not necessary for A Machine for Pigs. The only sanity meter I need is the one in my head.

It's not supposed to be a meter but an experience enchancer. Like if you saw monsters, you would start the see things that weren't there.

Sure, it wasn't perfect in TDD but why not improve it?

Searching for oil and tinderboxes was kind of frustrating in TDD. Obsessively searching every corner of every room for some oil got kind of annoying. Later in the game, the lantern became a "too awesome to use" item for me, and I ended up barely ever using it in order to conserve oil, and by the end of the game I had plenty of oil (which was useless by then). Tinderboxes only came in handy a few times, and I had around 30 or more by the time I beat it. Again, it did make things stressful and scary, but I can live without it.

The oil and the tinderboxes were a way of telling the player not to abuse of the light otherwise you wouldn't have any. It was a strategic element. Again, it was not perfect but why not improve it?

As far as interaction goes, it worked for The Dark Descent. But honestly it's not needed in A Machine for Pigs. Would it make sense for Mandus to run around his house, smashing pots, throwing his things around, and making a mess of his bookshelves? No, not really. In TDD, most of the items that you could interact with were kind of pointless anyway. Woohoo, I can throw these barrels around and stack boxes! If anything it can distract players and can ruin immersion for some (not everyone of course). It's an interesting and very cool feature, but it's not needed to make the game immersive and enjoyable in my opinion, and didn't make much of a difference for me. Additionally, since most of the "puzzles" in AMFP involved carrying around items (because of the removal of the inventory system), it might get confusing trying to figure out which items are important. Also, didn't the devs state that making many items interactive like in TDD decreased performance by a lot? That's a valid reason to remove the feature, at least I think so.

To be honest, performance is not a valid excuse for me, it's not like we are running games on Nintendo 64.

And by taking all the interaction, solving puzzles in AMFP became a matter of finding what items are interactable or not.

Also, interaction would give players an excuse to explore. What's the point of going around if you can't do anything?

[LuckyBlackCatXIII]

I think many people will disagree with what I am about to say right now but here it goes: the soundtrack was bad. I know this is just about personal preference so what can you do. In the previous Amnesia and in the Penumbra -games the soundtracks by Mikko Tarmia were a major part what made those games for me. The soundtrack in AMFP just couldn't wake up the terror in me. I am a composer myself too so don't get me wrong, it was not badly composed or anything. Just not a soundtrack for a horrifying experience.

I'm glad someone mentioned this because while I don't agree it was straight up bad, I will say that I don't believe it was as amazing as people try to make it out to be.

Don't get me wrong, I thought the music was fine but, to me, it was just something 'pretty' to listen to and that's all it invoked in me while I played. With the Penumbra, but more so ADD, OSTs I always felt a sense of atmosphere and dread that to this day still manages to get to me a little spooked when I listen to it (It makes getting lost on the roads in the country all the more an exciting experience let me tell you).

AMfP's soundtrack, like I said, only went to 'oh what pretty cellos' territory and that's as far as it went with me. It was kind of like 'scary music 101' and came off all together as shallow in my opinion, which is a reoccurring theme in this game for me. I can understand how some people enjoyed it though.

[Damascus Rose]

I think if they wanted to have a form of sanity but improved, they could've used the whole 'sickness' thing. Like, if you look at a monster it gets blurry and the screen distorts because you're sick, or you see something that isn't really there.

About the music, I think it was just ok. It was good music but it seemed too much like Dear Esther to me. Also, there were no memorable moments in this game where the music stuck out like there were in TDD. TDD uses the music better.

[Froge]

Some of the music in AAMFP is creepy, specifically the opera pieces, but much of it is also over dramatic. I also dislike how the beginning portions of the game are mostly silent (exploring the mansion) while all you can hear when exploring the machine is mostly the sound effects. The only part of the game where the silence contributed was in the pig pens below the church.

In contrast, the music in ATDD was phenomenal. In the archives, you heard a sort of low wheezing noise in the background that can make you feel paranoid that there's someone breathing right beside you. When you first enter the Wine Cellar, the ambiance that plays is very dreadful and foreboding, and it only gets worse as you progress further down Brennenburg. Storage and Prison themes are memorable as always, but what really did the job was the transept theme (amb_023 I think). I don't even know what sort of instruments they used to produce the "arrrhhnnnnnnnnnnng" sound in that.

[WALP]

Some of the music in AAMFP is creepy, specifically the opera pieces, but much of it is also over dramatic. I also dislike how the beginning portions of the game are mostly silent (exploring the mansion) while all you can hear when exploring the machine is mostly the sound effects. The only part of the game where the silence contributed was in the pig pens below the church.

In contrast, the music in ATDD was phenomenal. In the archives, you heard a sort of low wheezing noise in the background that can make you feel paranoid that there's someone breathing right beside you. When you first enter the Wine Cellar, the ambiance that plays is very dreadful and foreboding, and it only gets worse as you progress further down Brennenburg. Storage and Prison themes are memorable as always, but what really did the job was the transept theme (amb_023 I think). I don't even know what sort of instruments they used to produce the "arrrhhnnnnnnnnnnng" sound in that.

TDD actually had some parts without music as well, but it worked much better there because of the contrast from the usual musical parts.
of what I can recall right now both the rainy hall and the sewers in TDD had no music as for ambience.

[Damascus Rose]

Are the sounds we hear in the archives or wine cellar for example in TDD really music? I think they seem like more ambient sounds. Ambient tracks basically. The actual music I remember is coming into the back hall after the shadow chase scene, which really conveyed a sense of safety, as if to say 'the terror is over, for now'.

The ambiance in AMFP was weak and didn't do much at all. All I remember is a couple random sounds, which were alright but weren't as effective as the ambient tracks. The ambiance in TDD was threatening and made you uncomfortable, the ambiance in AMFP was pretty much not there most of the game.

[LuckyBlackCatXIII]

Some of the music in AAMFP is creepy, specifically the opera pieces, but much of it is also over dramatic. I also dislike how the beginning portions of the game are mostly silent (exploring the mansion) while all you can hear when exploring the machine is mostly the sound effects. The only part of the game where the silence contributed was in the pig pens below the church.

The opera pieces were just laughable for me, especially near the climax of the story. It was pretty ridiculous and what felt like a last ditch effort to make you give a damn about what was going on/be impressed by the 'horrors' of it all. They were nice to listen to but how they were presented was somewhat silly.

Are the sounds we hear in the archives or wine cellar for example in TDD really music? I think they seem like more ambient sounds. Ambient tracks basically. The actual music I remember is coming into the back hall after the shadow chase scene, which really conveyed a sense of safety, as if to say 'the terror is over, for now'.

While you have a point I'd still call it music but more so categorize it as ambient music. It's sounds and what not but it's formulated in the way you would with music itself so that even if it is just weird drone noises and all it still has a 'tune', so to say.

Actual music-music, yes, would be during monster encounters/chases, shadow chases and the occasional Daniel's or Alexander's theme that played at points.