Reflections/thoughts on Amnesia

[LJFHutch]

I was surprised there wasn't already a general thread for people's thoughts or impressions.

*

I played a little bit of Penumbra ages ago, a demo perhaps? It was on a friend's PC. While most certainly scary it didn't really click with me then, anyhow, fast forward a few years and I picked up Amnesia on Direct2Drive after playing the demo and enjoying that quite a bit.

In terms of graphics Amnesia is really impressive, however everything looks a bit "shiny", not in a literal way (although a lot of it certainly is wet/shiny), the graphics just look a bit glossy, not enough definition. Sound was incredibly good but I felt it was certainly lacking in sound technology and variety of subtle small sounds (sliding sounds would have been nice, objects sometimes felt a bit lifeless under some conditions). I'm not sure, I didn't really test it extensively but does it have audio occlusion - walls blocking/muffling sound?

Onto the more subjective side of things. I played through the game only after having read the blog and I agreed almost 100% with everything said there. Although I really did enjoy it I felt a few issues held back the immersion and fear for me.

(this may contain mild spoilers depending on your definition)

First of all the scripted events were very noticeable: I would often be distracted by the triggers, a lot of the time they were quite predictable. I mean in the world of triggers they were good, but even if sparsely placed they were still quite predictable and I kept thinking of the game rather than the monster, instead of "I made too much noise and the creature heard me" it was "I walked through the invisible trigger".

Although having no weapons really improved the feeling of helplessness I feel it also had unwanted side effects. When you have absolutely no way of defending yourself it also increases your sense of security - you know that because you can't defend yourself you're not going to have to. I'm not saying I think it's entirely bad, but that's how I felt anyhow.

Another thing that bothered me is the puzzles, oil and sanity. Some of the puzzles were quite difficult to get through, not because they were hard to figure out but because they were hard to figure out how to figure out. I'm still not sure what took me out of the game world more, alt-tabbing and reading a walk-through or running around trying to put a book shelf into a glass beaker in the hope it would open a door - note that I didn't actually try to put a book shelf into a glass beaker, although

Spoiler below!

in the end I certainly tried to stick Agrippa's head on one of those glowing columns (yeah I know, I didn't read the text properly, I was trying to concentrate on what Alexander was saying hehe) There was one section where you had to align the levers with the roman numerals, I got them 8 up 8 down like in the instructions yet it didn't work, only after randomly pulling some up and some down did I find the "right" 8/8 combination. Early on where the roof collapses and knocks you out and you must remove the rubble from the door I was quite confused, I actually built a rather impressive tower from the barrels and crates (I noticed there was an abundance of them in that particular room) to get up to the loft but found it empty and impassable. So far I had not come across any rocks or large wood I could move so it didn't even occur to me that Daniel was capable of moving them, but suddenly he became strong enough to?

. They can sometimes pull you out of the game world, in some ways I found trying to complete the puzzles more immersion-breaking than dying and re-spawning without any monsters. The oil and sanity felt quite gamey to me also, perhaps it was how fast they were but I was constantly aware of my "stats" and lantern "ammo", often not using my latern or only using it enough to keep my sanity bar up, instead relying on my blue headlamp with dying batteries.

From my rather blurry recollection of Penumbra and some videos I recently watched on YouTube it seems that Amnesia is quite a bit simpler, though this probably had a lot to do with the inventory, more streamlined design and time period however.

The story was brilliantly told, I loved the diary entries and the way that the player's memories mimicked Daniel's throughout was very clever.

I suppose after agreeing so much with the blog posts I was expecting perfection. Some parts of Amnesia struck me as odd considering what I had read earlier, such as ammunition hunting which to me bore a striking resemblance to tinderboxes and oil. A great game no doubt though and I certainly look forward to the next

[Gharren]

I don't agree with you in all of the points, but a nice reflection anyway.

[gandalf91]

Yeah, I don't agree with much of that at all. Sorry.

[Caterpillar]

In the forum I always frequent, there is a very cool post in the topic of Amnesia, you (developers and customers) should read it.
It is in Italian, so I suggest to use Google Translate, or ask to me for some phrases that you do not understand
http://gaming.ngi.it/showpost.php?p=1443...tcount=211

[Bek]

I'm not sure, I didn't really test it extensively but does it have audio occlusion - walls blocking/muffling sound?

It's quite a bit to expect an indie dev to do something most of the audience wouldn't notice/appreciate especially when AAA titles don't bother either mostly.

Although having no weapons really improved the feeling of helplessness I feel it also had unwanted side effects. When you have absolutely no way of defending yourself it also increases your sense of security - you know that because you can't defend yourself you're not going to have to. I'm not saying I think it's entirely bad, but that's how I felt anyhow.

Interesting. I know what you mean, and as a sideaffect of playing the game and dieing as you continue the fear factor does fade. However it is still works better without weapons I think - even with them you have a chance of failing so you don't completely avoid the problem!

Another thing that bothered me is the puzzles, oil and sanity. Some of the puzzles were quite difficult to get through, not because they were hard to figure out but because they were hard to figure out how to figure out.

Like you said later on, the time period the game was set in did limit the puzzles, however I don't think they're hard at all. In fact they were easier than penumbra, but perhaps that's because I'd played penumbra and knew the general idea of things.

[NGW]

^Penumbra did have some really frustrating puzzles to figure out though. Amnesia's were much simpler, which I didn't mind at all.

[Duskofdead]

Honestly OP... this reads to me like you played the game consciously looking for flaws. I mean, "oh, great job on sound... oh but did you use audio occlusion through walls?" I mean really? You think of these things while playing the game? If the sound was good, then it did its job. It doesn't matter how many techno tricks were used if the sound does what it's supposed to be doing.

If you play any game with that mindset, you're going to find plenty "lacking" to it.

[gandalf91]

I do not agree that people would not appreciate audio occlusion...it did ruin immersion for me a bit when it was a problem, but that was only on a few occasions, so not a major deal. That being said, if I could see one new feature incorporated into the game though that would be one of my top priorities...

[NGW]

^honestly it's just something most people probably wouldn't notice or appreciate much.

[gandalf91]

I bet most of this crowd would actually...not the more mainstream crowd. I can only speculate though, I can't speak for them.