Video: Amnesia: The horror of Dark Descent is based on a little cheat

Video Game 2010 Amnesia: The dark descent is an obvious candidate for our possible list of "best games of the 10", because of its revolutionary approach to interactive horror. The independent game ushered in a new era of horror games, thanks in part to its short and focused reach and its total lack of weapons and fights. But how did the designers of Swedish gaming studio Frictional Games succeed Amnesia most scary stuff?

The mouth of madness

In our video interview, Grip explains how Amnesia came after the completion of a series of creepy puzzle-platform called twilight. This series was built on a physical system that allowed players to grab, stack and fight objects from around the world in order to continue. Friction wanted to follow these games with an experience of "good horror", inspired in part by that of Konami. silent Hill series.

The original thought of the studio for Amnesia We focused on forcing players to survive with a very classic life bar system, but the game tests revealed that this focus annoys players or does not frighten them. The interview above deepens a little more experiences with things like a clear and dark cache system and how the game's "mental health" counter functioned as a counter of " traditional punching points.

But as the game began to take shape, the team strove to find the right balance so that players could tackle the scariest content, whether played well or badly. The solution: "We had nothing fundamentally!"

The power of suggestion

Instead of creating a complex solution, the team turned the "mental health scaler" into a persistent system that applied regardless of whether or not the score was a good player. Players have always seen the health counter on screen and they have seen incredible visual effects fill the screen when this counter has dropped to a low number. In addition, the designers have ensured that, no matter the path taken in the game, always see the drop of mental health decline.

The secret, says Grip, is that "there was no real state of failure, and it worked better! [tell players] what are the consequences for [losing sanity]. But the player assumes, if I lose my mind, I will not be able to play. I could die or be more difficult to control. "Furthermore, Amnesia The text of the beginning of the game lies squarely to the players telling them to be wary of the consequences of a total fall of the health meter.

There are indeed ways to die and start over in the game, because of the monsters that players must hide. But the goal of the common sense meter is to keep the player off the base and unbalanced, rather than providing useful information – and to watch only reaction videos from the player on Youtube (be careful: swear loud!), It works it really works, really well.