Opinions on how TCR & FG are dealing with AAMFP criticism

[Alardem]

There's a big contradiction between the children quite clearly being ethereal freaks having free rein over your house and the voice on the phone claiming they're 'trapped'.

[Froge]

i cared more for the arsonist in tdd than anyone in aamfp

[Cuyir]

@The Mug: Yep, I agree.

I'm usually the type of person that when there are children involved, especially children of the protagonist or that are really close to the protagonist, gets more involved in the story. Ignoring the obvious TLOU example with Ellie, in Dishonored Emily Kaldwin gets introduced spectacularly well. She runs into Corvo's arms and he raises her like a proud uncle or father would. She then asks to play hide and seek with a man that's known for his "special" skills. So that character building moment helped me a lot to get immersed in the story and their relationship, so when the plot moves on and

Spoiler below!

she gets kidnapped, I was feeling pretty angry that she was stolen and pretty worried, for a virtual character, about her safe being.

And there are a few other character relationship building moments with Emily and Corvo which help in the whole experience.

TCR basically just, from my point of view, plopped the kids there and let it be. Will say though, the notes and hallucinations with the children were done really well but it's just a shame that they're basically just ghostly kids running around.

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@Chrono: I cared more about the children and that woman that were moaning, screaming and whining from time to time in TDD to be quite honest. The children mostly seemed like a prop to me...which is amusing considering that the children and women were literally just sound props.

[Mechavomit]

I'm usually the type of person that when there are children involved, especially children of the protagonist or that are really close to the protagonist, gets more involved in the story.

Same. That's why I was extremely exited for AMFP when I was told it involved saving your children. At that point I didn't care one single bit about gameplay mechanics. But then it was.. yeah, just ghost kids.

[Froge]

they needed a scene similar to atdd's "paint the man cut the lines" where you hear oswald going batshit insane and then seeing a closeup of his kids' scared faces before it cuts black and you hear the killing

That's cruel, but you need scenes like that to get emotional attachment to a games' characters.

[WALP]

Well at the very least we just needed them to actually be characters

[Paddy™]

We knew full well that a decent chunk of the audience came to Amnesia because of the Let's Play culture of jump scares and recording yourself shitting on your desk chair, and the chances were that a significant number of them wouldn't have the slightest interest in the story or reading the notes, and as a result would probably hate the game.

What a condescending hypocrite. Compare that to his earlier, pre-release statements:

Pinchbeck: It has to be absolutely, bone-shatteringly, terrifying. That was the key thing, Thomas said “If we don’t get as many Youtube videos of people spazzing out, then we haven’t done our job.”

"If we don't get as many cool YouTube videos of people having fits, then I'll be disappointed," Pinchbeck jokes.

He's all "pally" with those intellectually bereft YouTubers before release, then complains that they didn't try hard enough to enjoy the game properly after release. I'm sure if the Let's Players and game critics gave the game 9/10 across the board he wouldn't be telling them "actually your glowing reviews don't count because I don't think you paid sufficient attention to the story".

[Ghieri]

Seems to me that he is letting his PHD get to his head. The fallacy lies in the fact that you do not actually have to be intelligent to get a PHD, just hard working. It also explains how MFP can be such a well-polished game, but lack so much substance. But it also explain why he is so baffled that he isn't being showered with accolades.

[Froge]

Seems to me that he is letting his PHD get to his head. The fallacy lies in the fact that you do not actually have to be intelligent to get a PHD, just hard working. It also explains how MFP can be such a well-polished game, but lack so much substance. But it also explain why he is so baffled that he isn't being showered with accolades.

Actually, I'd say that it's due to the indie dev culture. Indie games have a strong reputation for being divergent thanks to mainstream arthouse games such as Braid and Limbo. Indie devs have the mindset that they have the freedom to do whatever big companies and their casual games can't. Unfortunately, too much divergence leads to their games being less revolutionary and more "not actually a game."


Not that this is my opinion of aamfp. It was indeed a game, just significantly less of a game than atdd.

[LuckyBlackCatXIII]

I think the main issue though lied in the children, who the protagonist cared so much for, yet we were never given much reason to do so ourselves. Really they did not feel like being the characters Edwin and Enoch at all, but rather just "some children" that were running around the facility and mocking you. To do this day I still cant even make a distinction between them at all.

First of all I have to say, TCR's reactions to criticism is exactly how I thought they would act. Playing AMfP I kept getting that air of pseudo-intelligence and egotism from the game so it's not surprising the creators behind it all would be exactly the same. Seriously, grow up, if you're all about art then you have to be ready for criticism. It's people like this that make majoring in the arts a real trial at times because they are abundant in the field.

Onto your comment, I felt like your statement holds the same water for all the characters in this game, as small a cast as it was. There was a whole lot of "you should feel this way for ____" throughout the game and I just never bought it. There were no honest connections made like I did with Daniel or or the rest in ADD and I'm going to blame that fully on the writing/dialogue or lack thereof.

All the notes you come across are written so similar to one another (excluding the kids' but even they bleed close) and are completely smothered in purple-prose that there's no unique or honest tone to them to mold an actual character. In ADD I could distinguish a note by Alexander from Daniel's, Hell even Herbert has his own bubbly asshole tone in his notes to separate himself from the others. Oswald and co. I remember just constantly rolling my eyes at what I was reading because it was all just so vapid. Even when we're told about his wife's death along with his kid's there was just no care to be found because at this point I was so indifferent towards the man. And I agree with what you said about the twins, there was no way of even distinguishing the two from one another which is real poor writing when you're dealing with twin characters especially when they're your leading macguffin.

The lack of audio dialogue, that didn't include self monologuing, would be a main issue as well, I'd say. That and the acting. I know people praise the voice acting but I just don't understand (then again there's a lot in this game people praise that I can't agree with but that's something that will always happen on either side). Oswald in the beginning kept asking where his kids were but he didn't sound concerned at all so why should I care either?

I think that's what was the biggest disappointment to me with all this. I could live with not being pants-wetting scared but I really enjoy a well told, good story in video games. The main plot of your game is important but characters are just as important since they're the ones who make a story what it is. If TCR is going to continue spouting off they're all about story then by all means please try to make a strong one for once with actual characters instead of something I'd read in a writing class.