Upstart Swedish developers Frictional Games have created something unique in their latest horror title, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Its concept seems almost diametrically opposed to the general understanding of what makes a video game, and yet is wonderfully successful. It's a title sure to be bandied about in discussions of the genre's artistic potential for years to come.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is the work of some evil motherfuckers from Swiss-land or something who I am pretty sure like to step on puppies or agree to catsit while you're visiting your cousin in Michigan and then they try to poop on your cat and when the cat runs away from their butts they throw books at it from your shelf and you just know they're going to land weird and get their covers creased, and now there's poop on the floor, and it goes without saying that they aren't going to give the cat enough food.
The player is given a first person view from a man named Daniel, who, predictably, wakes up with amnesia in a broken-down castle. Certain objects can be manipulated by lifting, throwing, pushing, pulling, or opening them. There's not much demanded in the way of player input. The reason becomes clear as the game progresses: your former self wants you to kill the castle's master, who is probably evil, but more importantly: the castle in inhabitated by unfathomable horrors who, bucking all video game tradition, the player is quite literally unable to harm in any way.
So you wake up in a scary castle. OK, whatever. Follow a blood trail, not so bad. Then a door loudly blows open right in front of your face and any sane person would turn the game off right then. Speaking of sane, seeing weird stuff, that is, seeing ANY of the stuff in this game, makes the dude lose sanity, making the screen all woo-y so even normal stuff looks scary. You learn that the monsters are invulnerable because OF COURSE THEY ARE. That's just how much of a dick these developers are. Seeing a monster makes your dude go extra insane. So basically you have walking horrors that you can't look at or even be near. And you have no idea where they are. Fucking wonderful. I am just loving playing this game. And by playing I mean turning on for one second before realizing it is literally the most unpleasant thing I could be doing with my time.
The game opens with a suggestion not to be too bogged down with thinking of it as a "game." That is to say, don't go in expecting to "win" or to overcome challenges--instead appreciate its atmosphere. An apt suggestion indeed. None of the tasks your character must perform are in and of themselves difficult. Puzzles are basic and monsters are slower than your sprinting speed. One infamous section takes place in a flooded chamber with a blind, invisible monster who hears you as you splash through the water. A terrifying prospect, but jumping safely on boxes is simple, and there is a long enough grace period to jump back to safety if you miss. The next section finds the character in a flooded chamber with no boxes--it's a mad sprint from the monster, making sure to lock doors behind you to slow the beast down. The scenario is spine-tingling, but in execution, it's almost impossible to lose unless you forget to run or close the doors. This is where the game's excellent sound design comes in. As your character's sanity drops, he starts hearing things. Steps, moans, groans, wails of terror. But a monster's growl is loudly distinctive and sets your teeth on edge. In the sprint away from the water monster, its growls are nearly deafening as are the splashes it makes. It pounds on the locked doors viciously until they explode off the hinges. The intensity of the sound is mind-blowing.
This stupid game is just a series of fetch quests. There's a big safe room that connects all these little levels and I just want to spend all my time here. Why don't I just break a window and get the fuck out? In the levels it's all dark, which makes your character insane, warping the screen and making him hear noises. OK, fuck that. I don't want to see any scary monsters, so I need their sounds to know when to run away, and now you're throwing fake-out sounds at me? HOW THE HELL IS THAT FAIR? Oh my god, I don't like this. I don't like this. I should light this candle but then I'm afraid a monster will see it and eat me. I don't like this. This area is so small. How can there be a monster here? He has to have seen me by now. OK, what was that sound? Were those my steps? OK, walk a little so see what my steps sound like--OK, there it was again. Is that ME? I--I don't think so. Oh crap. A monster. It's gotta be. I'm hiding in this wardrobe. Yes. Nice and safe. Yeah, I don't ever want to come out. This is where the game is gonna end for me. My dude's just going to starve to death in here, safe from monsters.
Amnesia is miserly with its monster's screentime and it benefits tremendously from it. The developers must be fans of Jaws. Other horror games put considerable time and effort into the character designs of their monsters and feel it'd be a waste not to show them off. Of course, in those games, you are often wielding massive weaponry. In Amnesia, actually being close enough to a monster to see it means you have made a terrible mistake in course-plotting and are about to pay dearly. As a result, players likely won't see a monster for more than a fraction of a second, and several intensely eerie, dark areas teeming with spooky noises often appear to not house any monsters at all. The player has to do the work of being scared, and a person's imagination will always do more to scare them than a piece of creative media. That isn't to say the monsters are lackluster visually. The game's graphics are pretty good, especially in the momentary visual transition as you move from light to dark areas, and the shambling, deformed, humanlike monsters are sufficiently gross.
HOLY SHIT I mean if I just died once and was reminded it was a video game I'd be OK. Where even are these things? It's like there aren't even any, it's just faking me out constantly. Like there's probably only like four in the whole thing. I mean I just--oh shit, what was that sound? OK, put out the lantern. It was probably a fake out, just going to open this door and HOLY SHIT IT'S A DUDE NO NO NO IT'S GROWLING RUN RUN RUN RUN! Ok, going to make it, gonna get away, OH SHIT THIS HALLWAY IS CAVED IN I'M TRAPPED GOTTA GO BACK AND FIND ANOTHER WAYYYOH SHIT OH SHIT NO NO IT'S RIGHT THERE IT'S SO GROSS I'M GONNA DIE--wait, where'd it go? Did it just turn to dust? Oh my god. A fucking fake-out monster? A full-on fake-out monster? Well fuck, guys, what the hell. Why? Why would, why would you...this is just cruel. This doesn't even count in the game. I didn't take any damage or anything. Why would you put this here? It's just to make me want to never do anything in the world ever again. OH my god. God damn. So scary. I hate this. Stupid game. I don't like this. I don't like this.
Of course, it's not a perfect game. The writing and voice acting are only a few steps above atrocious, lending the game unintentional comedy. And even though the game is little more than a delivery system for paranoia-inducing spooky noises and panicked fleeing from scary dudes, the level design could be a little more inventive than "safe hub room with little clumps of rooms attached that you need to get items from." However, it's still a game unlike any other, and packs more genuine scares than most horror films. Frictional Games is definitely a company to watch. 8.9/10
Oh my god, it's all woo-y. Why can't you turn, dude? You're insane, not drunk. Oh shit, no, loud noise, oh crap, oh crap, my dude's falling down, get up dude, don't you know monsters will get you if you sit around like this? Oh my god, oh my god, at least I don't have that god damn water to deal with anymore. You know what, this game is just the worst. From the fake-outs, the darkness, the relentless spooky noises, I don't understand why they don't send some boxer to my house to punch me in the face while I play. I mean this game clearly isn't meant to be enjoyed. It's designed to be as unpleasant as possible. This actively makes me more wound up and more stressed. Why would anyone want this? Why would anyone want to make this aside from possibly IRL trolling? OH SHIT there was a scary sound. What the hell was that? Oh god. 0/10
