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Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs by Frictional Games and Dear Esther devs

Metro

Arcane
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Cutting it versus trying to improve on it is a bad thing.
 
Unwanted

Hornawkawk

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Sep 4, 2013
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So... why did anyone think it'll be a good idea to remove gameplay elements that made the original a fairly unique game? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Sequels introducing new gameplay mechanics?
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
The next stage of evolution for the horror game genre is a procedurally generated corridor that emits creepy noises and spawns creepy monsters at random intervals. This way, the player is constantly being kept at the edge of his seat, because he has no idea when the next creepy noise is going to play. Actually, I think it has already been done...

Maybe this is what you're referring to?
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
4,407
My god, this game is fucking awful.

- Bad or non-existent music, what the goddamn hell happened in this department???
- VERY bad voice-acting, for fuck's sake they couldn't even pull off a trademark creepy "Daddy, daddy!". They all sound sedated, it's Dragon Age all over again.
- Bad horror, creatures aren't even scary, and are horribly slow
- Bad writing. Using words like foetid, malodorous, mentioning Debussy, or just writing in a convoluted, pretentious way is no replacement for good, charged narrative. Most texts have no feeling whatsoever, they are merely empty descriptions.
- TERRIBAD puzzles. Some of them can only be solved by reading the notes you write down (which often give light to things you couldn't know).

Dear Esther was fucking shitty. It was also plagued by bad text which they tried to mask with words like cormorant, interim, and hebridean. Yeah, those words are really moody you know, they really get under my skin and stir dark thoughts and emotions that bring forth images of despair and abandonment. Hebridean...yeah...
Some of the scenery was OK but overall it was plagued by this pretentious academic vibe that permeated everything. That, and it's supposed allegoric content and the LOLWUT YOURE A PIDGEON ending made it a highly vomitive experience.

In all honesty I can't understand why Frictional Games hired them in the first place because they have absolutely no talent whatsoever; maybe something to do with FG's creative director going down a bad path of academic cock-sucking or something, judging from some of his recent blog posts.

At this point I think it's a cash-in on the Amnesia "brand". Frictional is apparently working on some secret project for at least 2 years now, and they don't have the resources to develop two games at a time. So they outsourced this to TCR for a quick buck and hoped for the best. Time will tell how much this will damage their credibility. I, for one, preordered the original Amnesia on the strength of Penumbra games, and preordered AMFP because I believed Frictional putting their name on the game meant something. Apparently not, and I'm waiting for reviews before buying their next game.

On AMFP itself, I think they tried to copy Silent Hill, and in terms of artistic presentation didn't fail completely, but they're not even close to clever or subtle enough to pull off anything comparable to SH2 for example.
 

7/10

Learned
Joined
Sep 5, 2013
Messages
193
This is what I've had in mind. And it's indeed procedural, like I've remembered. The game's not out yet, so we have no way of knowing how "scary" it is, but its very existence spits in the face of Amnesia and other, similar titles. It shows that all this silly stuff like "storyline" or "writing" can be replaced by a bunch of randomly generated jump scares, because that's what Amnesia ultimately boils down to.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Feb 8, 2011
Messages
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You obviously haven't got what they were trying to do with Justine. Let me explain it to you.[...]
Yeah, Justine actually has better gameplay than vanilla Amnesia, as linear as it is - more difficult and clever puzzles, enemies who don't despawn after you run away (except for once at the very beginning I think?), situations with real rather than fake time pressure. Writing is also better, and the structure of the game (where you actually have a non-trivial choice) makes the obvious twist a lot more meaningful.

Now that I think about it, it's kind of an anti-Bioshock twist, isn't it? In Bioshock the revelation is that you don't have any agency, but haven't even noticed it in your eagerness to do what you're told and follow the railroad. In Justine, you do have choices, and they feel meaningful, because doing the right thing is actually more difficult for a change, but the revelation is that they don't matter because you're literally playing a game, and can restart any time you wish and choose differently. So the player is actually the real Justine, a deranged psychopath toying with others for their own pleasure.

You obviously had a completely different reaction to Justine than I. I got the concept of the easy/hard solutions all right (I honestly can't imagine how someone could miss that, Cabazone), but I found the "hard solutions" very easy and underwhelming, making the progression feel completely mechanical.
(The first one involved stacking up boxes - a staple of Frictional titles - then using the only item available in the only manner thinkable, the second one consisted of matching perfectly clear picture descriptions to corresponding pictures, while the the third and final one can't even be called a puzzle, as it's a rather straightforward action sequence; see also below)
Pick up an item, use it, proceed to next room. The rest of the game consists of taking in bits of the story, which in itself isn't too compelling at all, and the fact that the plot twist is obvious - as Cowboy Moment pointed out - doesn't help.

The "ironman" only serves to make the whole thing worse than any of the Dark Corners of the Earth or Penumbra: Overture action sequences which you basically need to memorize by repeating the whole thing ad nauseam. This is precisely because there is such an action sequence at the end (granted, it's heavily scripted, but you don't know that in advance) and I'd say you are likely to fail at least once (if you want the "good" outcome, that is). No to mention that if you happen to need to leave the computer, you're out of luck, as there's no self-deleting save-on-exit file; an annoying case of overkill. (The game actually crashed on me with a visual c++ error both times I had to leave the computer and left it running to keep the progress.) The problem with this is that the puzzles are trivial but tedious,
(having to stack up all those crates all over again wasn't exactly fun)
a very bad design for an "ironman" game, in my opinion, especially given the fact that you also need to basically wait out several enemy appearances. Puzzles should be difficult to work out but easy to solve once you already know the solution, not the other way around, and putting an action sequence that most likely needs several attempts to complete successfully at the very end of the game is just shameless.

All in all, there's no accounting for taste, and I'm happy for anyone who enjoyed Justine, but I really think the gameplay/story ratio it offers is worse than Amnesia's, and what little gameplay it has is really rather weak. I certainly hope their future games aren't like that.

I didn't say they were good or challenging puzzles, I said they were better and more challenging than the ones in the base game, which I stand by. Especially the second one actually required some actual thought, unlike anything in Dark Descent. So in that sense it was an improvement, although still a downgrade compared to how Black Plague worked.

Now, it's a pity that the game crashed for you twice, but given its length, and the twist at the end, it was executed just fine. Don't want to trial-and-error the final sequence to save the guy? Don't save him. There's no tangible benefit. That's the point, you can choose to risk losing all your progress to save him, or just move forward with the game. And even if you do save him, it doesn't matter, it's literally just a game Justine plays for her own amusement and thrill. Just like you are.

This is what I've had in mind. And it's indeed procedural, like I've remembered. The game's not out yet, so we have no way of knowing how "scary" it is, but its very existence spits in the face of Amnesia and other, similar titles. It shows that all this silly stuff like "storyline" or "writing" can be replaced by a bunch of randomly generated jump scares, because that's what Amnesia ultimately boils down to.

:retarded:

So the existence of roguelikes spits in the face of Planescape: Torment? Please tell us more of this fascinating theory.
 

piydek

Cipher
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Croatia
Disappointed it turned out this way. Anyway, I have high hopes for Agustin Cordes's Asylum when it comes to my horror fix. I liked Scratches more than Penumbra/Amnesia (although those are damn fine games as well).
 
Joined
May 18, 2009
Messages
513
Now, it's a pity that the game crashed for you twice, but given its length, and the twist at the end, it was executed just fine. Don't want to trial-and-error the final sequence to save the guy? Don't save him. There's no tangible benefit. That's the point, you can choose to risk losing all your progress to save him, or just move forward with the game. And even if you do save him, it doesn't matter, it's literally just a game Justine plays for her own amusement and thrill. Just like you are.

Like I said, it's more of a surprise to me that someone actually liked the way it was designed than anything else, but this is a bit sophistic. You don't know in advance whether your actions matter or not, in fact the whole twist and the little gameplay there is rely largely on your expecting they do and acting accordingly. Picking the easy way may be an actual option, but that's not what the player will want to do (maybe simply because they want to actually "play"; picking the easy option incidentally brings the game even closer to the Dear Esther-style "keep walking and enjoy the story" model). Realization that there are no tangible (or in fact intangible) benefits comes after the fact.

Back on topic, I pre-ordered every Frictional game starting from Overture, but seeing as the Machine for Pigs apparently turned out, I'm glad I held back this time.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Feb 8, 2011
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In other news, played up until what I imagine is about halfway through AMFP. Unorganized impressions:

1. Beginning is not scary or tense at all, and severely lacks any kind of subtlety. Ghosts of children bouncing balls around are not scary or disturbing in the slightest. The biggest problem of the beginning though, is that it's way too familiar and comfortable. I was 100% sure nothing was going to hurt me within that mansion within 5 minutes of starting the game. Horror lives by moving the player outside their comfort zone and making the space of possible unpleasant events as big as possible inside their head. I think they would've been better off making the mansion extremely well lit, empty, and silent, save for maybe for some delicate sound effects (ala The Shining), just to fuck with the expectations of veteran Amnesia players. What they certainly did not need, was inexplicable darkness everywhere and annoying loud noises. Which brings me to my second impression...

2. Jump scares, fucking annoying ones. AMFP does these with sudden loud noises, which is the cheapest imaginable method. If I want that shit, I'll hire a hobo to clap over my head every 15 minutes.

3. The dark underground parts are very Amnesia-ish, and rather cleverly strewn with various objects which restrict your field of view. This is especially important because enemies are kinda short, so it's not easy to see them from a distance. Lantern flickering is not as bad as I thought, mainly because it doesn't necessarily mean "Enemies!", and thus creates uncertainty, which is always good.

4. And speaking of enemies, thus far they're an improvement insofar as they don't seem to just despawn if they don't see you. I've seen one which I actually had to avoid by stealthing around, and it was still there as I left. They don't, however, actually perceive light from your lantern, as I was able to shine it at one's ass from about a meter away and it failed to notice. In terms of visual design, they're nothing special, although their sound effects are pretty good.

5. The Chinese Room just completely don't get how storytelling in videogames works. Every time you enter a new area or achieve anything significant, you get a note in your journal with a short description of said event or place. It's not only insulting as hell when I find a fuel pump and read "This is a fuel pump!" in my journal, but it's a horrible failure of interactive storytelling. If you can't fucking communicate simple information through the environment, become a playwright instead of a videogame developer.

6. Continued impression that they're trying to be Silent Hill without understanding what makes Silent Hill work.

Will update as I play further.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
I'm mixed on whether I want to try this game or not. Loved The Dark Descent but without oil management and the sanity meter, the challenge reduces.

It's getting good reviews, thoug. I think I'll wait for a good sale or bundle appearance.
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
1,246
Wouldn't say it's getting good reviews. Its current metascore (from both "critics" and users) is lower than that of both TDD and Dear Esther. Quite a poor result, to be honest.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Feb 8, 2011
Messages
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Finished the game. Its biggest problem is that it's actually scary for about 20 minutes in the middle, and then about 2 minutes near the end. Instead, it tries to be disturbing and induce a more psychological type of horror, but it doesn't work that well.

The reason it doesn't work, is that TCR cannot into videogame storytelling. The narrative, as relayed by diary entries, notes and conversations, is pretty good - decently written, thematically rich, but vague enough to permit multiple interpretations, and works very well if you consider it more of a description of the hero's mental state, rather than a reliable account of a series of events. It bites off a bit more than it can chew and introduces some elements which should've probably been cut for the sake of added focus, but it's a good effort overall.

The problem, is that the actual gameplay, and the narrative presented outside the notes, is completely literal, just as it was in the first Amnesia. However, if you take the plot as presented in the written documents literally, it makes no fucking sense. This is somewhat remedied close to the ending, which is one of the game's better parts, but the grand majority of it does not fit at all.

So really, the problem is that TCR tried to marry a SH2-style story with Amnesia's gameplay and presentation, and they simply do not work together at all.

The other problem is that TCR clearly believe their target audience to be fucking stupid. I am honestly not exaggerating here. At first I thought the level design was simply linear, and often it is. Some segments, however, have less linear layouts, and could be explored in a fashion similar to the first Amnesia's hubs. But they can't. Why, you ask? That's because TCR think you're a fucking moron. So whenever there's a real choice between different paths, one of the following happens:

1. The paths join back together shortly afterwards.
2. One of the paths is closed off by a locked door, which inexplicably becomes unlocked after you've triggered whatever you needed to trigger in the second path.
3. Both paths loop back to the intersection ala Skyrim dungeons, and get closed off once you explore both of them.

There was one particular area featuring a centrifuge and a need to find two ingredients of a chemical compound needed elsewhere, that featured so much inexplicable locking and unlocking of doors for no reason, that I literally laughed out loud while playing. You have to see it to believe it.

Oh, and remember how I praised monsters for being persistent? They mostly aren't. In fact, most monster "encounters" consist of them skittering by and despawning.

Kind of a pity, honestly, I think a great Amnesia game could've been made with AMFP's ideas, but TCR couldn't help but try and turn it into Dear Esther: Slaughterhouse Edition instead.
 

Elwro

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Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Finished.

I'd call it Amnesia: Just Run.

As others have said already, it's completely railroaded. When it comes to opponents, at first I found them scary. The one who killed me first didn't despawn. But later on I died twice and on both of the occasions the opponent wasn't there on my 2nd try. At a certain point I realised that you can get past all the opponents just by running. They stop following you when you're a few steps ahead of them, even if you're not in darkness! Goddamnit, Butters.

I have to say the game picks up after a while and gets genuinely interesting. But then the ending is so dragged out you wish the game would've ended earlier.

There are almost no puzzles. The story is OK, but its presentation by means of pretentious, badly written and illogical journal notes is definitely bad. Most of the notes shouldn't even be there. Some have spelling errors. There are too many uses of "am" and "are" like "I am become" etc. The "summoned into manhood" bit was truly cringeworthy.

The inexplicable opening and locking of doors is ridiculous.

There were a few nice touches related to invisible agents. Once, when coming back through a corridor, I noticed a pig statue that wasn't there before. A better example was when I fell down from a ladder to a pit. I searched and searched for exit, but there was none. Trapped, I could see the ladder above. After about a minute the ladder was kicked so it descended towards me. But there was nobody to be found above. I liked that.


I'm quite surprised that the game does sum up to a memorable experience. But there's no sense of agency and you don't need to use your brain more than once, so it's almost a completely passive experience.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
4,407
I liked the notes, and thought the fact that they were pretentious and overly flowery fit well with Mandus' personality, as well as the game's setting. I like to think their apparent contradictions and vagueness are intentional, and are meant to reflect Mandus' psychosis, but you never know with hipster game developers.
 

Name

Cipher
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Glorious Nihon
I'm a Frictional fan and dislike Dear Esther for its pretentiousness after walking it through. Should I wait for a sale? Or should I ignore it and forget about Amnesia series.
 

Metro

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I'm a Frictional fan and dislike Dear Esther for its pretentiousness after walking it through. Should I wait for a sale? Or should I ignore it and forget about Amnesia series.

The game is 90% Dear Esther and 10% Amnesia -- you be the judge.
 

Cowboy Moment

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I'd say it's about 70% Dear Esther and 30% Amnesia. The bigger problem is that in this case, being Dear Esther undermines the narrative and atmosphere in a major way.
 

Boleskine

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Sep 12, 2013
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4,045
Seems like the gameplay is Dear Esther and the setting/mood/story influence is Amnesia.

I'll wait for the Humble Bundle.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
Yes the setting is cool and atmospheric at the beggining but then it goes quickly downhill when you see the first monsters .They arent scary at all , they arent lethal, you can just outrun them and they depop. Not to mention the recycled art assets coming up all the time, removal of insanity and interactivity is the bare minimum possible. Its clearly designed for the press A is awesome crowd as you can wander in without much thinking with your gamepad stick, puzzles are easy to solve if you have a few functional neurons, item a goes in slot A , press lever . If you have troubles the solution is written on a note , on the desk next to it .



this sum up amnesia puzzles very well, although this one is a bit more sophisticated and lack of a walkthrough :

maison-jeu-de-formes-janod-0.jpg
 

Western

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5,934
Location
Australia
Codex 2012 Codex 2014 Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Any chance of mods saving it? Maybe stopping monster despawns, stopping health regen, faster piggies, putting some Dark Descent mechanics back in, etc.
 

Metro

Arcane
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Messages
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Would have to be close to a complete overhaul. Just wait for the bundle.
 

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