How Amnesia: The Dark Descent Tricked Players Into Scaring Themselves | War Stories | Ars Technica

[@arstechnica]

Hi there. Welcome to the latest episode of War Stories. We really appreciate all the feedback we see in the comments, here as well as on arstechnica.com. Please let us know if you have any questions or requests for upcoming episodes.

[@__aceofspades]

I dont know why the editor threw in a donald trump figure into the soup animation at 9:02, everyone will have their different opinions on him, but I see no good reason to have that in the video, outside of the editors personal feelings. I dont come to the Ars Technica channel to see political stuff, let alone in a series about game development, and I feel like such stuff only detracts from the video and the conversation.

[@trod146]

@@__aceofspades I do agree although I guess they were trying to make a positive thing about it. Since everything added to the soup was supposed to make it better. Kind of nice to see something good for a change when everyone just wants to make fun of him or talk crap about him despite the great things he has accomplished for my Country.

[@Stue-e]

Hi there, I was watching this on my phone at 10% brightness and the sudden and frequent black to bright white flashes were an eyesore, I'm not epileptic but I can easily see that triggering an episode. Just something to keep in mind during editing, maybe dull the shade of white or blend the transition slowly

[@arstechnica]

@@Stue-e Hi there. Thanks for letting us know. Are you referring to the chapter transitions, like "The Setup" and "The Fix?"

[@dengamleidiot]

ac3ofspades878 I agree. Keep all politics out of this.

[@tiramisu8483]

This game launched youtube careers

[@travismeta3727]

KZbinrs like Tobuscus, Pewdiepie, and ChimneySwift11

[@psypokeslowduck2880]

@@travismeta3727 ChimneySwift11, i have heard that youtuber name in a long time

[@Altroante]

@@travismeta3727 RadBrad

[@travismeta3727]

microcuts let’s not forget SkyDoesMinecraft

[@KKezzz]

And shifted the entire horror game genre into new direction.

[@tipsycat27]

the only way i could finish Amnesia was by installing a mod that would play the BeeGees- Staying Alive when a monster was nearby to make it less scary

[@homeiswonderland]

Mods that fix glitches and patch games are all well and good, but sometimes the real lifesavers are the most ridiculous.

[@BunsenMusic]

That is infinitely more terrifying to me for some reason.

[@metitfour131]

I had the X Gon Give It To Ya mod to stop shitting myself everytime I heard Mr. X coming. Even though I had that AND the mod where Mr. X is in sunglasses and a thong, I still get a little freaked out.

[@NGorso1]

Now imagine somebody plays Staying Alive and you mind automatically assumes the monster is nearby and you panic

[@tipsycat27]

@@NGorso1 im genuinely not exaggerating when i say that that decision has forever ruined Staying Alive for me

[@wallakfir90]

"There's a hint that says if you go too insane, monsters are gonna have easier way of finding you. This is a lie." WHAT? Are you telling me I've been fooled this entire time? :o

[@jonathanmadsen1223]

We've been tricked, fooled and quite possibly - bamboozled

[@sarthakmohanty997]

They played us like a damn fiddle

[@manooxi327]

Reality is often disappointing

[@slovakweeb460]

Fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

[@fedda9999]

wallakfir90 impossible

[@Pyovali]

Been developing mods for this game for 8 years. Kickstarted my programming career. I am very grateful for this game.

[@FBuilding]

Nice ? Which mods would those be ? I'm curious !

[@Pyovali]

@@FBuilding I've never finished any, but Kalma is one, Unreality & Unreality II.

[@GreedAndSelfishness]

@@Pyovali Ai saatana. Kalma kuulostaa tutulta.

[@ethhics]

Also made 2 Custom Stories for that game, both are not good (One is released on ModDB), but still, I was passionate about this game. It made me a more creative level designer and still really helps me today when I am doing mods/maps for other games.

[@damian_cross]

The problem: We had no game mechanics. The fix: We lied and said we did.

[@shodan2002]

Damian Cross yeah that sucks why even add sanity

[@iamking228]

@@shodan2002 No that's actually genus this is a psychological horror game making the player scare himself instead of putting cheap jumpscare and that is my friend is how to make a Great psychological horror at it's best

[@VergilSpardasWife]

@i am king exactly. Most horror games are riddled with jumpscares and lack the buildup the games like amnesia have.

[@iamking228]

@@VergilSpardasWife Yeah And I recommend that you play silent hill 2 it's my favorite horror game of all time it's really psychological and it has one of the best soundtracks for any game and the attention to details in it is absolutely crazy

[@marcelburdon9795]

​@@shodan2002 because it's an excellent mechanic to feed the dark parts of the imagination of the player with constant worry and anxiety? It's literally one of the main things that makes the game scary lol, the sound effects and illusions and all that.

[@PixelProphecy]

I like planting ideas in players minds by simple descriptions: "You drank the unknown potion. It had no immediate effect." Just hinting at something that doesn't happen immediately (even if it's not true) is very powerful to unsettle players :)

[@ale90superarre]

There's also this game that tells you that if you die too mych you will eventually die forever and have to start a new game, but it's a lie. I won't say the name of the game just in case cause I don't wanna spoil and it's not that old really.

[@hekickedmydog]

@@ale90superarre Im pretty sure which one you mean, while I wont say the name, I just want to make sure im right. The lead protagonist is a female with mental issues, right?

[@ale90superarre]

@@hekickedmydog Yup. You probably got it.

[@ezodragon]

@@ale90superarre what would you spoil by saying the name of the game? i have no idea what game it is and i want to know :(

[@pearz420]

But then that has no effect on people with 3-digit IQs.

[@tommapar]

I love this guy's humility, saying he always felt Amnesia was a failure, while being the single game that made horror games mainstream again.

[@LyK0sa]

Horror has been mainstream for ages. What amnesia pioneered was the zero combat sub genre, i guess penumbra did it first, but amnesia was the first to get noticed. Without frictional's work we may not have had mainstream AAA releases like outlast, or more importantly the masterpiece that is alien isolation

[@IceBean]

@@LyK0sa i mean, in Alien Isolation you can fight back, even though you can't kill the alien

[@SSchithFoo]

Maybe for some people. I didn't like it at all and found it frustrating most of the time.

[@saturnine4355]

I'd say Dead Space was just as crucial in Horror continuing to be mainstream. The teams behind the RE2 and RE3 Remakes cite Dead Space as an inspiration for the new over-the-shoulder combat system, which is funny because RE was an inspiration for Dead Space and the entire reason Dead Space played like it did was because they wanted to build upon existing systems and mechanics from Resident Evil and Silent Hill. To be brutally honest, I have never liked the no combat Horror games. It exploded into this scene where indie devs would throw together some half-assed walking sim, just to try to appeal to the masses. I have never found no combat fun. I am glad it has started to die, honestly. Having to manage resources like ammo, med kits, and other consumables, and actually being able to fight back, and weighing the risk/reward of doing so, just felt more human and engaging than simply running and hiding. It felt like you were actually trying to SURVIVE... which is crucial to the Survival Horror genre.

[@FeathersPryx]

@@saturnine4355 Funny you mention dead space being so influential, while the person above said Amnesia inspired combat-less horror games. So what if I combined the two and told you that dead space inspired inspired Amnesia's combat-less horror which inspired games like outlast? Thomas Grip was playing dead space. He noticed that the combat was TOO fun, and this had him excited for the next monster encounter, because it meant another thing to shoot at. You can't be scared of the monster if you are excited to see one, you should dreading it instead. He said this proved true once again while Amnesia was being play-tested. There was combat in an early version, and it took the players attention away from the horror, because they were so focused on the combat. So in some weird way, if dead space didn't exist, outlast probably wouldn't either.

[@sequorroxx]

Penumbra: best puzzles. Amnesia: scariest. Soma: best story.

[@ivyssauro123]

The perfect trilogy

[@gabescrazy5504]

Paradox games is the only company that never let me down, masquerade bloodlines 2 will be game of the year, i bet, unless half life 3 comes out, get it? ;)

[@gabescrazy5504]

it won't valve can't use the number 3 in games tho

[@carlosmspk]

@@gabescrazy5504 The game didn't even release any concrete gameplay yet, and you're already saying it's game of the year, hold your horses man, if there's anything I've learned (which isn't much) is that you can never expect anything from a game before gameplay footage is released. I have to admit I'm expectant about it, even if it's just for the nostalgia factor!

[@KneeCapHill]

Ur mom: best succ

[@JupiterMaroon]

This guy is a genius. He focuses more on what the player is experiencing instead of what the player can do in the game.

[@GAMENITE]

I'm surpised they never mentioned Eternal Darkness: Sanity's requiem. That game legitimately messed with your mind when you lost sanity. it would pretend to delete your saves and reverse your controls. I can't wait for a game that messes with you that much again lol

[@ChristopherFreeman0032]

i want that, last bosses that delete save files etc. er need more of this.

[@roadent217]

That, or Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, which would warp your vision, slow down the game for a time, make voice audio clips play (like Cthulhu taunting you or Jack muttering to himself or Ramona chastising him), make heartbeat and heavy breathing sound effects play, muffling emergent sounds, and ultimately, for the second half of the game, have an actual death state associated with running out of sanity (instead of just falling to the ground with tinnitus for several seconds like in Amnesia). The main difference between the games was that in CoC:DCotE, sanity regenerated on its own rather quickly, whereas in Amnesia, sanity remained near constant and easily tracked, changing (positively) only with certain progress triggers.

[@MrCornWolf]

I got that game when it came out and not gonna lie the blue screen "crash" and volume display effects definitely got me. Playing that game for the first time was such an experience

[@FalloutWanderer-uq5sh]

@@roadent217 Great example. I own CoC:DCotE and have played up to the church section, where there's a puzzle in order to move forward, hopefully that's enough detail to determine where I was. Not sure how much game I have left though it's been awhile, it felt like I was just scratching the surface, I'll guess and say I was probably only 1/4 to 1/3 into the game. It has some interesting mechanics, for instance how you heal your character. A shame it's really buggy, and never received a proper sequel. Without a doubt one of the best Lovecraft games out there, though seems like the one that's gotten the least amount of coverage outside of the hardcore fans. I have not completed either The Sinking City or Call of Cthulhu so I'm not in a position to say if they're better representations of the Cthulhu mythos and Lovecraft's work. Another game I have been wanting to try is Moons of Madness (2019). Another honorable mention would be Conarium, which I did complete however tbh I was left underwhelmed at its climax.

[@FalloutWanderer-uq5sh]

Unfortunately never got around to playing Eternal Darkness: Sanity's requiem when I owned a Gamecube. IIRC, there was a spiritual successor/sequel in the works a few years back, don't know what happened to that, shame if it was canceled.

[@jarrah4895]

Before this video, I thought that Amnesia was too scary for me to play... Now that I know they use our minds against us, I know Amnesia would destroy me.

[@thecookies6109]

the stronger the mind the more fcked amensia makes you.

[@sinanayaz]

06:46 "If you go insane, monsters are gonna have an easier time finding you" 06:51 "This is a lie. but we're planting an idea into the player" We've been tricked, fooled and quite possibly - bamboozled.

[@polkad3v]

mind blown!

[@radial8955]

suck it, blue!

[@kait2972]

Similar to Hellblade's 'permadeath'. It's adds to the anxiety and gives you an irl reason to fear in-game death.

[@GrahamChapman]

Smeckledorfed. Completely and utterly smeckledorfed.

[@gabrianmoon]

Guys, after finishing this game dozens of times, I actually put this to a test, and it did make a difference: I avoided many encounters and saw less monsters. But idk.

[@ZenTunE-]

Amnesia content? In 2019? What a blessing :o

[@jonasvalvik8180]

They have had 2 projects in the works since 2017 and patched a hard mode into Amnesia in 2018. Hopefully we get some news this year about their new projects

[@80s_graffiti]

@@jonasvalvik8180 Bloodlines is looking really good so far

[@GrahamChapman]

Sequel announced in 2020~ #Blessings

[@iga1691]

WOW. I have played Amnesia to the end when it first came out and replayed it multiple times since then and the whole time, up until now, I thought that you can die from losing sanity. It was one of the main sources of horror in the game for me.

[@Kinoksis]

They added a hard mode last year that does exactly that, you die if you lose your sanity, among other changes that makes the game much harder.

[@duffzilla]

I'm Glad that difficulty wasn't around when it first came out, I remember playing all way through it a few times and then decided to do an entire run with no Lantern. It was nuts.

[@MrSkme]

Amnesia isnt a failure at all. Its one of the scariest games ever made.

[@sirdiogenes2320]

Agreed. And it didn't fail thematically either. It did a perfectly good job of explaining what made Daniel (the pre amnesia potion Daniel, anyway) become progressively more evil. Fear. The greater his fear of "The Shadow", the further he would go to keep it at bay. He does worse and worse things, his fear growing all the time, until at last he's helping to kidnap and torture people he knows to be entirely innocent... all to stave off the fear and outrun the Shadow.

[@Ishamv3]

Honestly though, most of the credit for that goes to the medieval, steampunk setting, and the game's mature and uncensored way of handling themes like murder, torture, etc. The gameplay itself is arguably bad, and as admitted by the dev himself, minimal and often inconsequential.

[@85wastedyears]

This game was boring as hell and half as scary.

[@kavky]

@@dan78789 Dead Space 1 and 2 are very good horror games. Dead Space 3 has no horror in it.

[@reformed_attempt_1]

why none of you can listen? He didn't say it was a failure as a game, he said the story was a failure, which I kinda agree

[@Morslyte]

Waiiiiiiiiit a second, so the "insanity draws monster" thing was made up? And I always took it to heart, being so scared of insanity and therefore of the monster... O.O

[@TalkingAboutGames]

Me too, I feel cheated now :-/

[@AlejandroDeYavorsky159]

Mission accomplished then ;)

[@teehundeart]

Same thing with Hellblade and the supposed permadeath mechanic

[@pearz420]

like paying money for a gullibility test

[@landlockedcroat1554]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@Kim-tr5op]

dont look at paintings with low sanity

[@Durtretre]

Why?

[@Kim-tr5op]

@@Durtretre they get distorted

[@Durtretre]

@@Kim-tr5op oh ok thanks

[@ElTyloon]

You should have just said "Something bad will happen"

[@evancodsworth2]

Amnesia is a masterpiece when it comes to sound, ambience and music in the horror game genre.

[@RMJ1984]

It's really smart design and gameplay. Having a spooky dark creepy atmosphere, instead of constant jump scares.

[@disastergirl22]

Agreed which is why I hated outlast 1 lol

[@moz6388]

@@disastergirl22 lol i speed ran outlast 1 to the point where i can now play it all from 1% to 100% without even Being scared for a SPLIT SECOND I just run past the enemy's like they are my friends And the jumpscares are always like a GTFO out my way dont waste my time lol

[@disastergirl22]

@@moz6388 it's not even scary in my opinion u get chased through out most of that game it just gets boring u know

[@moz6388]

@@disastergirl22 then outlast 2 came.. Yeah that one was scary

[@disastergirl22]

@@moz6388 haven't played it so I can't judge

[@NovardNoodle]

Awesome to hear how Amnesia inspired SOMA. Amnesia was too scary for me, but SOMA was mind blowing. One of my top games for the way it explores very hard concepts without gating the player too much in mechanics, yet still having good amounts of gameplay. A stellar example of: the best games are those that can tell its thematic story by using its gameplay mechanics.

[@Gideon_the_Seraph]

If you still haven't finished Amnesia, I highly recommend it. One of the best horror games of all time, incredibly thought-provoking.

[@MasterYugiMoto]

For som reason SOMA is harder for me to play by myself than amnesia. The environments in SOMA are much more intense and anxiety-inducing

[@Irraptured]

I've owned this game for years yet have never launched it because I'm too scared.

[@pjgppjgp]

Irrapture x ikr, i have both amnesias

[@polkad3v]

Well, if you watched the vid, now you know there's nowt to be scared about :)

[@antithesis4715]

@@polkad3v too bad bro im still scared 👀😭

[@stolenname94]

It's a scary game for sure and will have you pausing a lot. However you would be losing out big time if you don't play it.

[@jorgemarcelo4708]

Same haha, back in 2012 i played it for like half an hour but I got too scared

[@LMarti13]

Every game ever: "We need to accurately explain our game systems to the player as clearly as possible." Amnesia: "Let's just lie."

[@RogueAmarice]

Love that realization that the ability of the human mind to scare itself could be a pillar for Amnesia. Great series, Ars, keep it going. If it all possible, I'd love to hear about Revolution and their Broken Sword games, particularly the first one.

[@arstechnica]

Thanks for the recommendations. We'd love to do more with Adventure games. Laura Bow, anyone?

[@Void-ij5wq]

@@arstechnica This is a bit late, but a No Mans Sky episode might be good

[@realsimonwest]

You guys at Frictional are mad geniuses. At points I even felt legitimate horror in Amnesia which I haven't felt with any other game.

[@miasma1718]

to be honest, i never really felt that being crazy attracted monsters or had any real fail state, but this didn't prevent me from wanting to stay as sane as possible at all times. fewer screen effects, less shakiness, not dragging your face on the floor, there were definitely plenty of reasons to want to maintain sanity, even if you weren't at risk of dying when you didn't do so this game is still the only game to really and truly maintain a sense of fear in me while playing, so it's not a failure at all by any standards

[@MajkaSrajka]

I think the author underplayed the greatness of A:TDD. It HAD a great story focused on what makes person evil, and it HAD something under all the youtubers screaming at the screen and skipping through all the text (luckily A:TDD had a very good split between optional text (many letters, loading screens etc.) and informations crucial to the player to get the basic story even when screaming and running in terror way more than reading (and listening - and the VA of the A:TDD is IMO legendary to this day).

[@ИванСнежков-з9й]

I agree that the story revealed through the letters was great. IMHO, what he means is that the story is not part of the gameplay. Unfortunately the way it i integrated in SOMA is not really that great either. You literally had to kill people and robots in order to progress and there is no way around it.

[@AlexAlex-km9db]

I've only played Soma once, and it is a game that can only be played once. The decisions you make along the way, putting you in one state of mind and looking at things through a certain lens, and then at the end just realizing everything you've done, it just gets to you man. It's truly a perspective changing video game, you won't look at life the same way after you play it. Such a disappointment that it's criminally underrated because people want to get scared. I got games where I clocked in hundreds and thousands of hours, but those 12 hours of Soma gameplay was the best experience for me.

[@TheKlawwGang888]

My favourite part in Amnesia was the diary entrys. The story telling by Daniel was enthralling and the Lovecraft theme really set the sense of horror and dread. Great game.

[@flyingplantwhale545]

A big time developer describing his own learning process, failures and revelations during development. This is the sort of PR studios need more of. So interesting. Also, Amnesia stands as one of the most memorable gaming experiences of my teenage years. Thanks Frictional.

[@iamking228]

No that's actually genus this is a psychological horror game making the player scare himself instead of putting cheap jumpscare and that is my friend is how to make a Great psychological horror at it's best

[@theodoreshkodrani9450]

That is very true. When I played the game, I actually did not once encounter the monster, because I was being too careful, and kept getting shitscared nonetheless. (I actually encountered it once on purpose, just to see what it was like lol)

[@Khud0]

The funniest thing is that insanity felt like it was actually strongly influencing the game, making me run to the closest light source or searching for potions like a drug addict... That's a fantastic game!

[@mck_21]

Frictional Games has showcased a brilliant understanding of simple game design. When they prioritize UX, allow player interpretation to take the lead and combine it with the idea of "less is more", in terms of design, the player essentially gets Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

[@MerkinMuffly]

That's the problem with most 'scary' movies today, they leave nothing to the imagination.

[@MorrowMatty]

I wish I actually suffered from amnesia just so I can play the game again for maximum effect.

[@niclasneziru1854]

I never really played it, is it worth it?

[@MorrowMatty]

Its a must-play if you're into psychological horror. The setting/environment is amazing and the storytelling is actually pretty good. The only problem is that if you rush through the game without exploring then the story might not make any sense at all.

[@niclasneziru1854]

@@MorrowMatty Welp i had a hell of a good time binge-playing the Silent Hill Franchise and this game looks fairly similar so I'll give it a try

[@slovakweeb460]

@@niclasneziru1854 please do. Even after you finish, there are hundreds of custom stories to play

[@Mmmaannnu]

@@slovakweeb460 The main game is really good, but you have masterpieces in the custom stories

[@nailed999]

What a talented team, Amnesia is too scary for me to play. Backfire success. And the themes and story of Soma i still think about till this day. Can't wait for your next game Frictional games that is going to be announced this year

[@sectorsweep14]

They've anounced a new Amnesia game! Hopefully it's not too scary for you to play lol

[@newrev9er]

Great interview! But it's a little embarrassing that Ars Technica didn't understand the nail soup fable, as you can tell by the graphics they added :/ The point is that the family puts in more food, not random crap, and so they've made their own soup, and the nail is just misdirection.

[@jacqueleenjordan9817]

He completely understood it. The Sanity meter was the nail, and it was the misdirect. Everything sanity lost caused was imagined by the player.

[@itsez1129]

@@jacqueleenjordan9817 Don't think so. The "other stuff" that was put into the soup meant other soup ingredients not human skeletal parts and a trump figure...

[@darkprinc979]

@@itsez1129 That was meant as a visual metaphor to tie the soup in the story to the game. The human skeletal parts are obvious references to fear, and there are plenty of people that (falsely) fear Trump as the next Hitler, hence the figure making a very Hitler like pose.

[@itsez1129]

@@darkprinc979 Oh, a bit far fetched solution but now it makes more sense

[@teethgrinder83]

@@darkprinc979 I think your reading a bit too much into that trump figures pose, he's clearly waving-if anything I'd say that was included just for the sake of throwing him into a cauldron of soup lol as for the human remains, yeah that's pretty obvious I guess

[@Atlastheyote222]

I never realised how philosophical the creation of this game’s gameplay was. Incredible work by Grip and the rest of Frictional

[@jozinek876]

I've never played Amnesia, but I still found this intriguing.

[@jozinek876]

@Owenen Does the Tuber thing I might. SOMA seems interesting too.

[@gtabro1337]

Dear Mr. Grip and Frictional: 1. You were going to announce a new game last year? What happened? Everything ok? 2. F*ck you in the best possible way for giving me the biggest scare of my life - imagine a teenager, 15-16, dark room, 1 am, headphones, Penumbra 2. All game long I used the glowsticks and finally decided to use the flashlight. The moment I turn it on I see a monster that turns around and sees me. I didn't press, I SMASHED the Esc key to pause, turned on the lights and saw that I was shaking completely. 3 *SOMA IS A MASTERPIECE* . Every person I recommended it to came back to say they were shook after the ending. I loved the heavy moral choices. I love the feeling you get underwater, surprisingly realistic. It's a shame it wasn't released on a DVD as I would have loved to put in my collection.

[@GamingplusHQ]

From what I can tell everything is okay, after the success of SOMA they begun working on two project at the same time, and chances are because of the reputation they've gained from Amnesia and SOMA they are probably trying to top themselves with the next one - hopefully we'll see something this year!

[@INFILTR8US]

SOMA is incredible. Even if the monsters made no sense

[@LnPPersonified]

I must be in the minority in that I hated Soma. It wasn't scary, it was a bunch of robots that thought they were humans running around making copies of themselves, and the enemies weren't even nearly as scary as anything in Amnesia or Penumbra. Why do people like this game so much?

[@suspecm6316]

@@LnPPersonified For me it was definately the story that made the game worthwile to play but I agree. It might just be that Amnesia spoile me with its scares (it was so scary it took me multiple tries over 2 years to finish) I didn't even get really scared in SOMA. There were moments, especially at the beginning and I love the improvement in the graphics and story department, but the monster part got a downgrade for me. Monsters constantly being there and never disappearing is scare for the first time. Then you get the "you died" screen. Then it gets progressively more annoying. In Amnesia you die and have no idea if the monster is gone but the game never tells you explicitely that so you are just wondering where the monster has gone and boom here he is while not realising it's a totally unrelated different monster. It works the best at the prison part. You die, monster is gone but since the monster spawners are so close together it feels like there is 1 monster constantly roaming around you.

[@INFILTR8US]

@@LnPPersonified congratulations. you sound like the most boring person alive. but hey, you go on pretending to hate the things people like because you think it makes you clever in the mean time i'll take the cumulative positive steam user reviews over some dude with a chip on his shoulder

[@shinluis]

Dirty dirty gameplay design techniques I love it edit: what a lovingly candid debriefing about Amnesia. It's really interesting to see how developers struggle into bringing their visions to life, and even slowly shape the vision itself as the project develops. This was super cool!

[@jpassa9093]

SOMA is such a good game, one of my all-time favorites, it's scary yes, but the thing about SOMA is when you stop playing the game, the horror doesn't stop, you continue with your day with that heavy moral thinking just nesting in your brain and it's just amazing

[@darkowl9]

I know the soup fable, but instead of a nail, it was stone soup.

[@RFC3514]

Yes, that is the most common version. Other versions include "axe soup" and "button soup". Always the same basic story, just a different (useless) ingredient. In the end, the "cook" says he decided not to eat the stone / nail / etc., because he might as well save it to flavour the _next_ pot.

[@KenTWOu]

It's "axe porridge" in Russia.

[@ayebraine]

In Russian, it's a fable about a soldier returning from war (think like 17th-19th century infantryman) who convinces a thrifty family that he'd make soup out of an axe. It sounds really cool in Russia (soop iz toporA) and have became a widely used idiom.

[@ParanormalNewsToday]

Same.

[@sabyasachisingh5931]

An English text book in my childhood had a story "The Stone Soup in Bohemia". A Prussian soldier returning from war passes by a village where everyone is suspicious of him. Through his intellect he slowly involves the entire village into making a soup out of a magical stone given to him by a Bohemian sage for saving his life. :)

[@madeiraislander]

best horror game ever, it's what got me into sound design!! It was with this game that i understood the true importance of sound :) Thank you Frictional Games!!

[@recordingstudiotech]

Frictional is hiring for a sound designer. Just saying.

[@madeiraislander]

@@recordingstudiotech Oh man the applications ended on the 15th! Haha maybe next time! :D

[@pierreo33]

@@madeiraislander Let them know you're interested anyway. You never know.

[@thoughtcriminal3843]

virtually no-one in games design now has much understanding of the importance of audio, which is why the most advanced sound design ever put in a game was in the first couple of thief games 20 years ago and has never been equalled since (it's almost possible to play those games blindfolded because the positional audio and sound reflection is so good). lots of stealth games released now, none of them have the sound design neceassary for stealth so they give you X-Ray vision powers instead.

[@thoughtcriminal3843]

@Dennis Reynolds Yeah it's a shame that tech was left behind, it's still possible to get EAX working for the old games with openAL drivers but recently game developers have ignored the possibilities of advanced audio techniques.

[@GoosingGoon]

"I played Amnesia" .....Amnesia played you.

[@Barbabapan]

First Penumbra game immediatly grapped my attention. Bought it but played it YEARS later (lacking a decent Computer running it). When I did I was delighted even with dated graphics. Black Plague is great too, liked it a bit better. As for Frictional Games: with SOMA they created one of the BEST GAMES ever. Rarely did a game follow me to work and everywhere I went. The intro, the first minutes, the following minutes, the middle, the finale, every-freaking-thing is just a work of masters. Even though it is not a game to play multiple times, it's one to forget over the years and replay every 10 years or so. Atmosphere, story, setting, everything was 1A.

[@claiminglight]

Interesting that he thinks of Amnesia as a failure. Systems-wise, I can sort of understand what he means: we'd all prefer a maximally elegant solution. But as a "scary narrative experience", it's incredible.

[@moumooni]

Probably because the initial scope of the project was to experiment with light and darkness as mechanics themselves. That was a failure, since they couldn't create compelling mechanics around those themes and had to get this scary feeling with other means (the perceived idea of darkness = bad and light = good vs. the literal manipulation of light and dark to cause fear)

[@bsh819]

Yea, in the story the antagonist's actions, and the protagonists help with them, along with their motivations for the same... it does feel like it was trying to say something theme-wise that doesn't necessarily come across. At least when compared to Soma's tight and ambitious theming.

[@Crocogator]

Wearing headphones while playing this and listening to Daniel grind his teeth when going insane was *ooooofa*

[@fanotastic]

I love hearing the guys at Frictional talk about their games

[@TheDrLeviathan]

Huh. I was really expecting them to say Thief was a major influence. Their games have always felt like the scary levels that pop up in Thief games, but stretched out.

[@Tuurngaiit]

I read an article in the Swedish edition of PC gamer years ago, around the time Amnesia came out. There the devs indeed spoke about "The cradle" from Thief 3, and how that was a major inspiration. So you're right!

[@TheDrLeviathan]

@@Tuurngaiit oh! Would you look at that! Cool! Thanks :)

[@itsallaboutprotein]

@@Tuurngaiit oh God, the Cradle. I'm still traumatized.

[@derrickshowproductions3010]

@@itsallaboutprotein the abandoned hospital in the 2014 thief scared me. Nothing is worse than looking through a peephole expecting nothing to happen only to get randomly jumpscared out of your mind

[@digiman76]

@@Tuurngaiit yep...The Cradle....that was a freaking scary level... First time i played i couldnt finish that level..i was freaking out....i played some years later and finished ...another game i stopped playing was Alien Isolation...that alien AI was a true nightmare...i never played again...

[@Walshy1Jojo]

The lighting in this Interview is so spooky it is rather terrifying =). Very fitting for Amnesia.

[@joshuaweston6531]

I definitely see what he's saying. Amnesia is all about the player's expectation of danger, as opposed to experiencing it. Everything, from the sanity effects to the monsters, are so much more terrifying in the player's mind than in actuality. A first time player thinks to themselves that losing sanity and experiencing these affects are bad. They must be avoided at all costs, cause who knows...the character might die...or something. So, you start wasting your tinder boxes and oil to stay in the light. At the end of the day, it's a game. If you actually die at the hands of a monster, you just respawn. However, the sanity effects give way to expectations from the player. So when the player sees a monster and realizes they can't look directly at it without increasing their insanity, this makes the player not want to even encounter one of these monsters. It's not just about dying and starting over. It's about not wanting to face your fears because you can't fully understand...or in this case, look at them! The Dark Descent does a very good job of keeping you in that "sweet spot". That point where the tension is always high and never really releases.

[@raven7350]

Insanity in Eternal Darkness was pretty fun too

[@pedrovay2003]

As a huge Frictional Games fan (SOMA is one of my favorite games of all time), this was absolutely fascinating. I've played through Amnesia multiple times, and I still had no idea that there weren't any consequences for going insane. That's absolutely brilliant.

[@gabrielandy9272]

no consequences other than visual/sounds and going down, tho iwould count that was annoying to want to avoid still.

[@bpansky]

Reminds me a little of my experience of Doom 3. I don't think I ever died even once, but I have never been more cautious and terrified of and transported into a game world before or since. One random oddity: I was unsure whether your character automatically ducked underneath oncoming fireballs, because that happened to me all the time, but I really think maybe that pressing in the thumbstick causes you to crouch, and my hands simply tensed up and pressed it in whenever a fireball came my way... Also reminds me of how absorbed into the world of Morrowind me and my brothers could get, and we could believe all kinds of things were possible. Unfortunately we found glitch type cheats online and pushed the game to the limits, and it felt empty after that.

[@fuzzman02]

This is exactly what makes amnesia so good. I remember the first time I played through I got stuck in areas without monsters because I scared myself so bad from nothing. Amazing strategy!

[@jasonalen7459]

Oof Thomas in the intro sitting completely still while talking and staring into the camera is creepy Fitting for a video about a horror game he worked on

[@atmoscreative-tech]

World class studio, Frictional Games should be proud of their accomplishments.

[@norXmal]

If it wasn't for Amnesia, Felix would probably not be here today.

[@Cherry-bq4oh]

That's when I subbed to him :)

[@karmjitsingh1600]

But he didn't completely his amnesia replay and now he didn't even finished amnesia rebirth

[@halavanderdrake3956]

I once ran a Halloween module for Megatraveler. The setup for the adventure was an investigation to a terraforming station that had gone silent. The players show up to find the entire place is open to the methane winds - and deserted except for a couple of corpses near the infirmary. As they explored the complex - which was absolutely empty - I made a roll every time they made a move. Whether they were opening a door, searching a closet, or simply walking up to an intersection of hallways, I'd just roll percentile, look up at them and say, "nothing." They were so on edge by the time they bedded down for the night and the actual monster arrived, one of them had crept off on his own in the night to investigate the ONE PLANT he'd convinced himself had remained unsearched in the terraforming plot. It was marvelous.

[@MachinaGirlRobots]

I have PTSD and real Panic Attacks, that is what through me off playing this game. The panic he goes through, with the beating heart, dizziness, all of that is way real. I actually felt like I was reliving a panic attack. Very impressive!

[@mr.noride7226]

Amnesia the Dark Descent is what introduced me to a lot of great KZbinrs and is one of my favorite video games.

[@itsthomasreimer]

Amazing timing, I just played Amnesia for the first time last week after beating Soma the week before. Fantastic games, the story in Soma stayed with me long after the game was over :)

[@VOKZEL]

Here's my imaginated horror story from this game: In the beginning of the game, long before any real threat, I hid in a closet for about 10 minutes because I heard footstep sounds due to low sanity.

[@eddieb4557]

I’m so upset >:O It took me at least 3 weeks to finish Amnesia cause I was so cautious about it. Now you’re telling me it was all in my head????? What’s messed up is this knowledge doesn’t make the game much easier lol, still too spooky

[@maximuslee5670]

6:57 "We're planting an idea into the player"...... INCEPTION!!

[@vizthex]

I've watched a few of these videos, and I really like how they make each set thematic to the game. Such a cool touch.

[@Cyphrel]

Once I figured out that the monster would despawn completely once it's intimidating music faded, it was far less scary. :P

[@ThePoltergust5000]

Old comment but you should try out Hard Mode-- it completely removes that particular tell.

[@Cyphrel]

@@ThePoltergust5000 I've been meaning to play that mode, though haven't gotten around to it. :D

[@remghoost]

I always forget that Frictional did Soma! I can wholeheartedly respect anyone that uses the player's own mind against them. It reminds me of the first Alien movie in that regard. The Xenomorph only has about three and a half minutes of screen time. The rest of the horror is created in the viewer's head. Job well done, Mr. Grip (and team)! I am indeed looking forward to your future endeavors.

[@nano7586]

Soma was SO good. Probably my favourite story-based game.

[@ElusiveBlue]

Ha, that nail soup story was called "Stone Soup" when I was a kid, really interesting to see how other places change the stories ever so slightly

[@ivyssauro123]

That disconnect between how the mechanics work and how the player thinks it works, and more specifically how that's taught to the player, has a term coined by Harris Bomberguy(Hbomberguy) called "Play conditioning". What you guys did was having the stroke of genius of realising that play conditioning is more important than mechanics themselves. Some games like the Dark Souls series have horrible play conditioning and very interesting mechanics that because of the former sometimes go unused the whole game(I learned how to jump , and that there was even such a thing, in DS I in the penultimate boss in the game, and I know for a fact most people go through the game without using the parry mechanic once).

[@mistry6292]

>hbomberguy Didn't care to read after that word

[@ivyssauro123]

@@mistry6292 It's a shame, he's one of the best creators on KZbin as of now, and even if you don't care/agree with his politics his game analysis are poignant, precise and disregard traditional "game journalism" and mystification of certain games.

[@Slomowo]

I guess just the term “conditioning” more than does the trick. Here they didn't really succeed in conditioning the player to act in certain ways, they built an atmosphere, established a mechanic that has barely any effect on gameplay, and let the player's imagination soar. But much of the experience in Amnesia is built by the player, not the designer. In this way, players that look at games systematically, like many that prefer games like Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma, will not be conditioned the way the developers intended. I had this trouble with Amnesia. When first playing it, I retained sanity because I thought it was going to give me a game over, which just so happens to not be true. Upon noticing that the only game overs are when you get physically harmed, I only cared about sanity to get rid of the visual effects and fainting, as it made the game even slower. Also, a majority of the game was not at all scary to me, even though I found the atmosphere and tension to be beautifully done. So my way of playing wasn't being conditioned by the atmosphere or the ineffectual sanity system, it was being conditioned by how I noticed the designers scripted the scenarios and events, i.e. I was treating Amnesia the same way I treat an action RPG. This turned Amnesia into a very easy game to beat to me, and it felt like a slow story-based game with loose mechanics and an obvious structure that were easy to abuse. In the case of Dark Souls, there is conditioning just like any game, but there is very little enforcement of most fighting moves. The only elements of fighting that I can think of as being strongly conditioned are the dodges and taking flasks. This contrasts with Sekiro, which is a game much more grounded in a single mechanic, where the player is strongly conditioned to play with the stance and execution system. The conditioning in Dark Souls isn't bad, it's just narrow. Players that think of using jumping may learn about it and use it more often than players that don't even think about it. It's a much more open game, so this is not a problem; in retrospect, it might be a boon.

[@ivyssauro123]

@@Slomowo What you described on the first paragraph is the definition of play conditioning, if you want I can link the video. About Amnesia, Thomas have always had a very strong philosophy towards game building which he talks in length on his blog, one of these concepts is that of trusting the player and never using cutscenes to tell the story or make the player focus on what you want them to see, because he sees that practice as very ungamey(it is an experience apart from the game itself, like watching a movie short in between game sessions) and as hindering, it is a very big crutch most triple AAA developers have become dependant on; this explains the scripted events, which im amnesia make place for expository cutscenes. In the same Philosophy of trusting the players intelligence he recalls that a significant but small margin of players will inevitably have a bad or undesirable experience playing the game, since it doesn't handheld it through the story and elements of the game, but that it was a just price to pay to have the game be overall a better experience for others. I'm sorry the former was your case. In that aspect Dark Souls is much like, or much more than Amnesia, as 60% of players drop after the second boss and almost 80% never beats it, making it clear Fromsoftware's view is that a few dropouts is better than watering down the game, and with that we come to play conditioning again; I meant bad as in non-orthodox and "innefective" in conveying those mechanics accurately, but as we can all testify this doesn't hinder from the game experience, but the opposite, make a claustrophobic and paranoid experience of playing that game even more tense since no one is sure of how the mechanics really work and you have to figure it out by trial and error.

[@Slomowo]

@@ivyssauro123 Yes, it is. I think there's no need to coin a new term for it. It's just conditioning done in gameplay, there's not much academic mystery to it. Of course, that is my opinion. I do understand that such had to be the design philosophy behind Amnesia. The problem I saw, however, is that I thought I was an exclusive case. However, the screaming Amnesia-playing Let's Player is more of a stereotype that catches more attention than other, more numerous types of players. When you look at most playthroughs done by other players, they usually are scared in the initial hour of playing Amnesia, and then spend the rest of the game treating it systematically. Of course, few of those are “casual” gamers. When you think about it, that design philosophy is also pretty unorthodox, as is Dark Soul's or, let's say, both NieR's. The difference with Dark Souls is that Amnesia's design makes the designer's goals impossible to achieve with certain players, whereas Dark Souls' designs makes the game *inaccessible* for the majority of players. Nonetheless, I think both design philosophies are interesting.

[@Grimcula]

I started playing this game in 2020 and my first experience on this game wasn't good,but with a remastered mod made by Florian,I begun to like this game,its story and its main characters.Through you Frictionnal Games I started this year the Lovecraft's books.Thanks again and you have become one of my favorite game developers.

[@vitorsilva4075]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is one of the best games I ever played!!! Thank you to the Developers! Best wishes from Portugal!

[@gilgamesh7055]

Man, im glad to see my country be a part of this industry in such an influencial way! Amnesia, SOMA, Battlefield, Battlefront,, Mirrors Edge, Minecraft, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Just Cause, and so many others truely make me proud!

[@Cadychan]

This was so informative and interesting! Amnesia was so scary I made myself sick ha ha. After the ending of Soma I literally had to go have a bit of a lie down. Like... That game hit hard.

[@ethanpowell3203]

To this day, one of my favorite memories was watching theRadBrad freak out whenever the monster came around.

[@Magnymbus]

The nail soup thing is called "stone soup" where I'm from.

[@remuvs]

A decade later, I still adore this game. It's my favorite of the genre, the atmosphere and sound design were incredible especially when they used misdirection to make the player overthink the Sanity stat.

[@sirbrunosimoes]

we have the almost the same story in portugal, the famous "stone soup"

[@MichaelJohnsenOslo]

Soma is such an amazing game. I was glued to the screen the entire game, really wish more people knew about it. Really made me think after completing it, like a good episode of black mirror.

[@versacht3533]

Amnesia is a timeless masterpiece

[@vinilzord1]

Amnesia TDD is one of my favorite games of all time. I've replayed it more than 5 times by now. Plus, there are really great custom stories. The atmosphere, ambiance, adequate jump scares, creepy sound effects, sanity system, all the details make this an exceptional game. Congrats. I wish I could play it again as if it were the first time lol. Looking back, I wish the main story had more content. IIRC it takes about 5-6 hours of "regular" playthrough to finish it.

[@guitarman0365]

inception is impossible Thomas Grip: wrong, I have done it before with who? Thomas Grip: Everybody who played Amnesia

[@HeGotThatName]

Underrated video from this channel.

[@iamaherono1]

Horror is really not my kind of things. I'm even afraid watching videos of people playing it. It makes me anxious and jumpy. I'm too weak.

[@Quon]

Hey, i used to be like that but then I thought to myself "that's enough" and started watching gameplays, movies, etc. and now it's my absolute favorite genre and I love the thrill of being scared.

[@madeiraislander]

@@Quon Did you play Amnesia? watching gameplays ruins the experience :) I remember playing it right when it came out and it was so intense it was unbelievable!

[@Quon]

@@madeiraislander i want to! Only horror game i played was RE4 abd even that is just a zombie survival so idk if it counts

[@madeiraislander]

@@Quon Hah that's a good one though, my favorite RE! Amnesia is really cheap on Steam right now, you should take a look :) It's an experience that will stick with you forever!

[@steffis9806]

No, you just have a bigger amount of fear in you than some others - that was a great trait for hundreds of thousands of years! Humans like you had a bigger chance of survival, because they avoided risks and therefore lived longer. Rather see yourself as product of many generations of evolution :)

[@eyeofakira9636]

I only played this game at night once everyone in my house was asleep. I would plug in my beats head phones and just get lost in the game. I’ve never been so scared of something artificial like this ever in my life, and still haven’t been scared since then. I wish I could go back and experience that again.

[@NavinLuke]

I feel like this was such a longwinded way of saying "sanity doesnt actually do anything, but we made it seem like it did"

[@oedipascourage6262]

Love the series, thanks!

[@georgealexander3642]

Finally some nice appearance of a frictional content! I really hope they are making a new game one day, that will surpasses all the other frictional games combined! i believe they are jujst taking their time with the game they might be releasing, crafting the story and the phenomenal ambient mood and characters! They dont like to rush their games and that is why its gonna be a very very very lasting experience like the previous games before!

[@Timeyy]

The first Amnesia is an absolute classic. I remember meeting with my school friends every week and taking turns playing Amnesia until we finally beat it, because none of us were brave enough to play it alone lmao

[@seva809]

I'd like to see a video about Volition's Freespace game made by you.

[@arstechnica]

So would we!

[@TotalBiscuitFanBoy]

I had a blessing to play this last week for the first time. 3am, alone, light off, headphones on.

[@bashkillszombies]

"Their puzzles made sense, but then in Resident Evil and Silent Hill," yeah. Japanese game logic is the absolute worst. It's cultural though. A Japanese gamer won't ask why is a piano somehow linked mechanically to a door and how.

[@alalalala57]

Have you seen the ridiculousness of old Western point and click adventures?

[@abualofenkasi5634]

I loved that it had no jumpscares and it was mostly the vibe it gave me and that I was constantly expecting some cheap trick to scare me and it did not happen. It made it more believable for me. instead of pushing it into your face it took a more subtle approach.

[@Kaox]

Im waiting the new game from Frictional Games. Interesting interview!

[@hugoclarke3284]

They are working on more than one game atm, if I recall correctly

[@gage7575]

The fun of a horror experience is the roller coaster ride of it all. They designed a unique way to put the game on that roller coaster track.

[@timothywilliams8530]

In the US we call that "Stone soup"

[@pomtetty904]

I wonder if the gentleman ever sits around and try just takes in the fact that his creation was a leading piece of creating the biggest and arguably most influential KZbinr, ultimately shaping the way KZbin functions and making a mold for let's play or content creators as a whole. I hope that if he does, it's by a fireplace with a high thread count robe and really nice scotch.

[@NathanielBroombiz]

So I ruined my underwear for nothing...twice