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

[Wulfstand]

Yeaboy, you've read it right, we've got ourselves a sequel in the near future to play.

The power of two crowned indie developer darlings have joined together to form one team, set to bring the Amnesia franchise into a new era.

Speaking exclusively with Joystiq, Frictional Games and Dear Esther's thechineseroom have revealed their latest project, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Developed by thechineseroom and produced by Frictional Games, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is planned for a debut on PC later this year. No firm date has been set, but internally the two studios hope to launch before Halloween. A recent alternate reality game has beenteasing the the next Amnesia's reveal, sending fans into a frenzy.

"It's not a direct sequel, in terms of it doesn't follow on from the story of Amnesia. It doesn't involve the same characters," Dear Esther writer Dan Pinchbeck told me. Instead, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs will be set in the same "alternate history and set in the same universe." In short, the game will look to scare your pants off.

Set in 1899, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs follows the "wealthy industrialist" Oswald Mandus, who has returned home from "a disastrous expedition to Mexico, which has ended in tragedy." Struck by a destructive fever, Mandus is haunted by dreams of a dark machine until he mysteriously regains consciousness. Months have passed, unbeknownst to the industry tycoon, and as he emerges from his slumber the roaring engine of a mysterious machine sputters to life.

A detailed interview with Frictional Games designer Thomas Grip and thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck is coming later today, delving deeper into the darkness with Amnesia's next chapter. And yes, the two discuss what A Machine for Pigs means.

Source=http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/22/amnesia-a-machine-for-pigs/

Shit's gonna be pretty cash, I can't wait to get my hands on it.

 

[felipepepe]

Amnesia was a fantastic game, I'm trully happy to see another one comming, but Dear Esther was a great concept turned into a shitty, pseudo-art, empty "game", that coudn't hold a candle to The Stanley Parable. I have no idea why it gets such praise...

 

[Darth Roxor]

ABANDON ALL HOPE

 

[Cowboy Moment]

This can only be viewed as the decline of Frictional. I don't really get why they would do this, because their games betray an understanding of what makes the medium good (which is why you need to operate everything manually in Penumbra and Amnesia, for instance). So why are they joining up with people who've only made a pretty interactive movie? The mind boggles.

 

[felipepepe]

This can only be viewed as the decline of Frictional. I don't really get why they would do this, because their games betray an understanding of what makes the medium good (which is why you need to operate everything manually in Penumbra and Amnesia, for instance). So why are they joining up with people who've only made a pretty interactive movie? The mind boggles.

Exactly, Dear Esther had no purpose in being a game, you just follow linear paths and hear stories. Is as much "intercative storytelling" as randomly hitting play & pause on a dvd remote.

 

[Spectacle]

"A machine for pigs" sounds like it's some kind of Minecraft contraption.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

Well Amnesia exploration can be challenging if you aren't much good at remembering directions or navigating through the darkness. Does that count as gaming?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

This can only be viewed as the decline of Frictional. I don't really get why they would do this, because their games betray an understanding of what makes the medium good (which is why you need to operate everything manually in Penumbra and Amnesia, for instance). So why are they joining up with people who've only made a pretty interactive movie? The mind boggles.

Exactly, Dear Esther had no purpose in being a game, you just follow linear paths and hear stories. Is as much "intercative storytelling" as randomly hitting play & pause on a dvd remote.

And this is so different to Amnesia how, exactly? Aside from the (quasi-)freeform exploration, the game suffered from obnoxiously heavy scripting. Dear Esther is the logical destination for Frictional's design philosophy.

Because you actually do stuff in Amnesia. Might as well say Dear Esther is the logical end of Valve's design philosophy because HL2 is way more linear and scripted than Amnesia. Amnesia has problems, enemy encounters being too scripted is one of them, but it's nowhere near an interactive movie. In fact, it almost never takes control away from the player, nor does it lock them into a room until a scripted sequence can finish (like HL2 and tons of FPS games do).

 

[Menckenstein]

Dear Amnesia: A Pick and Flick Adventure

 

[Cowboy Moment]

It is. The relevant point is whether or not the games being made by that studio are continuing in said direction. Valve have stayed at roughly the same (high) level of linearity between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 (in fact, the latter probably requires more player initiative then the former), but it's difficult to judge with Valve due to their unusual recent history (consultation roles etc). Obvious examples of series that have a clear and definitive path of decline are Medal of Honour/Call of Duty. You can see how the process began (MoH) where it significantly accelerated (CoD) and where it is now (BLOPS/MW3). Or you could simply take the trajectory of the entire FPS genre as a whole.

I think that's going a bit too far with the "interactive movie" accusation. A game being linear and scripted does not mean it aspires to be a movie necessarily. In a way, Painkiller is even more linear and restrictive (huge, open environments notwithstanding), but it's one of the most "pure gameplay" games of the last decade.

The Servants/Brutes encounters are a core component of the game, so it's not like saying "okay, there were some scripted bits, but they don't represent the general experience". And I'm sure the Dear Esther devs would be right at home designing the entirely-scripted auditory flashbacks/hallucinations.

That's true, and I do think it's one of the game's bigger problems. However, I don't think this justifies calling it an interactive movie in the making.

If I were being pedantic, I'd point out that during some flashbacks it reduces your movement to a crawl and makes it impossible to see anything for about twenty seconds. It's obviously not as bad, but FPS games aren't really legitimate comparisons to a weird adventure/stealth-horror hybrid like Amnesia. You could either compare it to other first-person-ish adventure games in the style of Myst, Scratches et al (which hew much closer to interactive movies) or to Frictional's previous games - ie the Penumbra series. Penumbra was obviously scripted to fuck, but less so than Amnesia - at least many of the enemies are actually capable of patrolling and require slightly more thought than "wait for scary music - hide in a room and stare at the wall for ninety seconds - wait for music to subside - carry on like normal because the enemy despawned". I'm not saying that Pignesia can't be a step back from these experiments with linearity - merely that (based on Frictional's history) one shouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be Myst-with-a-sanity-meter.

For the record, I liked Penumbra more than Amnesia, and consider Black Plague the best Frictional game, by far. I'm also expecting the new game to be pig shit. I guess I kind of expected more from them. Black Plague was really good and a major improvement over Overture. Amnesia has a lot of problems, but a lot of them can be attributed to its tumultous development cycle (the basic mechanics were finalized like 9 months before release afaik, they almost went out of business making it, it's a pretty interesting story). And even with its problems, it definitely confirmed that the dudes at Frictional understand horror.

Also, with all the stuff Grip wrote on his blog about gameplay mechanics, I'd have expected him to actually make a game. Not an interactive movie. Truthfully, it still could be a game, but I'm not expecting it at the moment.

 

[Metro]

Shit's gonna be pretty cash, I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Just curious, do you talk that way in real life?

 

[Peter]

I was hoping this was just a case of the Dear Esther guys actually co-developing with Frictional. That would've been awesome. Imagine a Frictional game with Dear Esther graffix

A lot less optimistic now that it seems that Frictional isn't really particularly involved in the development.

 

[Phelot]

Well... I don't really know what to think. I really like Frictional's work and I at least enjoyed the atmosphere of Dear Esther, but hated just about everything else. The problem being I think Frictional nails atmosphere down as well or even better... so what is the Dear Esther team gonna do? Probably write... *shudder* Some of DE's writing was ok, but much of it was pretentious as fuck.

 

[Wulfstand]

Shit's gonna be pretty cash, I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Just curious, do you talk that way in real life?

While i will admit that I tend to repeat those same sentences pretty often around here, still, don't be silly, I'm not exactly on Vanilla-Ice's level of stupidity and social-awkwardness.

Anyways, I'm pretty pumped for this here sequel, mainly because I've enjoyed Dear Esther quite a lot, even though it's not really much of a video game, it's still one of the more memorable experiences i've had on the pc for a while now. The same goes for Amnesia, so it all feels like a match made in heaven for me.

 

[grotsnik]

Absolutely love the offbeat name, dark full-on Victoriana setting interests me, Dear Esther...is concerning. Dammit, I'm still more excited about this than most games.

 

[felipepepe]

I've enjoyed Dear Esther quite a lot, even though it's not really much of a video game, it's still one of the more memorable experiences i've had on the pc for a while now.

Tell me, have you ever played the free game called "The Stanley Parable"?

If so, how can you still praise anything about Dear Esther?

If not, go play it.

 

[Jaesun]

Personally, if Frictional Games's want someone else to develop another Amnesia game, I'm ok with that.

As long as Frictional Games makes a return to my beloved Penumbria Series (which they are good at). I'd be happy.

 

[Whisky]

Loved Amnesia.

Never played Dear Esther. No idea why they're teaming up.

Regardless, I'm hoping for the best.

 

[Wulfstand]

I've enjoyed Dear Esther quite a lot, even though it's not really much of a video game, it's still one of the more memorable experiences i've had on the pc for a while now.

Tell me, have you ever played the free game called "The Stanley Parable"?

If so, how can you still praise anything about Dear Esther?

If not, go play it.

Bless you for that, I had a blast watching the full playthrough right here:

 

[Kingston]

This can only be viewed as the decline of Frictional. I don't really get why they would do this, because their games betray an understanding of what makes the medium good (which is why you need to operate everything manually in Penumbra and Amnesia, for instance). So why are they joining up with people who've only made a pretty interactive movie? The mind boggles.

Because on their blog they've talked a lot about "immersion" and making games into "experiences" instead of, you know, games. I've been reading their updates with apprehension over the past year, because you can tell they are somewhat obsessed with making their games "art".

Some quotes from the blog:

For instance, if you feel like a conversation is really meaningful, and then later on find this same character reduced to mechanics, it will change the way you view your prior experience. It will be very hard to still feel the same sense of meaningfulness when looking back at the conversation. Your mental construct of an aspect of the game's world has now been reduced to a mechanic and when you later summarize the experience you have had, this can severely reduce any emotional attachment you might have had to earlier happenings. As this piles up, it will slowly degrade the experience and makes you less emotionally connected to the game's world.

They are going to sacrifice gameplay for "emotional attachment".

Not a approach the experience as a competition. The less goals we set up for the player the less likely we are to need to repeat things for the player or to make them repeat their own actions.

Less goals, less gameplay.

Skip the notion that players need to learn a system. I think this is mainly historical baggage from how software works for more practical application, where mastery of the system is essential. Creation of narrative art does not have this requirement though, and I think we should instead make the player focus on the representations (graphics, sounds, etc) that the system provide.

I'm not even sure what this whole quote exactly means.

We must demand more of the player and give them more responsible. We must teach them them live in our virtual worlds instead of trying to beat our game systems. As most games reward players for combing the virtual world for goodies this is not the easiest of tasks though. Our goal must thus be to undo this and reward roleplaying instead.

Oh sweet holy mother of fuck. LARPING! They're talking about larping!!!!

And you know, the writer likes Heavy Rain.

And he said this about their next game:

Finally, in regards to what our next project is about, the basic idea is to use lessons learned from Amnesia and then take it to the next level. We have mentioned before that the next game will not be as horror focused as our past ones, but still have a scary atmosphere. Our intention this time is to dig into deeper and more intellectually demanding subjects. Another goal for us is to get past having classical puzzles that break the flow, but without making the game into a spoon-fed type of experience.

Basically what's going on here is that the devs think they are "artists!!!" and that they must make an art at all costs. The game (the fun, the challenge and everything else) must be sacrificed for "the art". What that essentially means is that the game will suck more, and the "art" part will also suck because these people are not authors or accomplished movie directors but game developers. These people are coders and 3d modellers and mappers! So focus on the game part for fuck's sake. And I hate this notion that there is some magical invisible part called "art", an innocent childlike part that is somehow at risk and must be given equal attention to in development. If these people just focused on making a kickass game then they'd end up with a piece of art. Thinking about "the art" while you're making it is just pretentious faggotry.

 

[Darth Roxor]

ABANDON ALL HOPE

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I have followed that blog, and overall it's a mixed bag of good ideas and reprehensible artfaggotry. I think the "we need immershunz" idea can be somewhat excused, because you really do need immersion to make a good horror game. So it does make sense for the head of a studio famous for their horror games to think along these lines.

The "narrative art" shit is indeed worrisome, but a lot of his comments do imply an understanding that games aren't movies. He does say he liked Heavy Rain, but spends the entire entry complaining about the QTEs, linearity and lack of freedom. And then, the next game he talks about is Limbo, which is a way better example of a narrative in a game than shit like Heavy Rain or Dear Esther. So I was cautiously optimistic, or at least not writing it all off as awful wannabe-art without gameplay. Especially since most videogame artfaggots analyse games in the same terms they would movies or novels, while the Frictional dude writes almost exclusively about gameplay and immersion.

With all that said, this "partnership" probably means Frictional will never make a good game again. Which is a goddamned shame.

 

[Achilles]

This will be great!

 

[Steve]

This can only be viewed as the decline of Frictional. I don't really get why they would do this, because their games betray an understanding of what makes the medium good (which is why you need to operate everything manually in Penumbra and Amnesia, for instance). So why are they joining up with people who've only made a pretty interactive movie? The mind boggles.

Because on their blog they've talked a lot about "immersion" and making games into "experiences" instead of, you know, games. I've been reading their updates with apprehension over the past year, because you can tell they are somewhat obsessed with making their games "art".

The top goal of any horror game should be to make the player immersed, Penumbra and Amnesia did this excellently with great sound design and with the way the player interacts with the world, I agree that too much scripting can ruin the whole thing which kinda happened with Amnesia, I preferred Penumbra's patrolling enemy behaviour as they kept the constant sense of danger around.

I wonder how much control does Frictional have over this project and they can go fuck themselves with the "art" faggotry.

 

[villain of the story]

"A machine for pigs" sounds like it's some kind of Minecraft contraption.

More like a book from GRRMartin.