amnesia: the dark descent
after getting introduced to the penumbra series by the first humble indie bundle, i was very ready to check out amnesia: the dark descent. both come from the same developer, frictional games. i decided to play amnesia in the dark since that had worked so well with penumbra, and as the days started getting longer this past winter i decided i’d better get to it! now that i’ve finished it, here’s what i thought:
amnesia starts with a warning before you get to the game itself. essentially it points out that it’s a different sort of game and you’ll enjoy it more if you go in with the right expectations. from playing penumbra i already had a pretty good idea of what sort of game amnesia would be. for anyone starting with amnesia this is probably helpful, provided they actually read it. it also walked me through setting gamma correctly, which is helpful in low-light games like this.
once i got into the game, it didn’t take long to notice the main character’s fear of the dark. there are plenty of shadows about the castle, and initially i was slightly worried i wouldn’t enjoy having to choose between trying to stay in the light or going insane. you do get the limited ability to add light by either lighting candles and torches or your lantern, but it is of course more difficult to hide if you’ve lit the place up. also i tend to conserve my resources, so i tried to limit how much i did either of those.
the darkness ended up working similarly to underwater segments in other games. usually it’s not so bad going through it, but it’s not a good idea to stay in there longer than you have to. i frequently found myself looking around in the darkness for short bursts and then running back to the nearest light source to catch my sanity. unlike staying underwater not breathing, your character doesn’t die from fumbling in the dark spilling his sanity everywhere — he simply gets a lot less useful. his vision gets all wobbly and tilty and he moves slower. this of course can indirectly lead to death by preventing you from escaping danger.
speaking of death, amnesia handles it particularly well. there’s no way to save without quitting (which made me a little nervous), but it was good about bringing me back in a reasonable place without losing any progress whenever i died. it also gives you a small hint at how you could maybe avoid dying. sometimes the hint is as simple as “run,” which is still nice because it tells you whether you’re doing the right thing. once i got used to how dying works i still of course tried not to die, but didn’t really mind much if i did. letting it worry about the saving for me was actually pretty nice, though if your computer isn’t stable and crashes unexpectedly (like when my cpu wasn’t getting enough cooling) you might lose a lot of progress, assuming it doesn’t actually save until you quit normally.
amnesia’s strongest points are story and atmosphere. as you progress through the game, more is revealed of your character’s past and his relationship with the man his pre-amnesiac self decided to kill. at first it’s a bit of a shock that your main goal is to kill an old man, but as the story of your own past unfolds it starts to seem much more reasonable. the horror of the past events you uncover increase steadily throughout the game, which has the effect of easing you into terrible subject matter such that you’re almost okay with some of the grisly things you need to do. it’s a nice parallel to what your character experienced before choosing to forget.
a couple parts of the game actually managed to startle me. one of them was when i opened a cabinet door and skulls rolled out. on its own that’s not particularly startling, but amnesia adds disconcerting music and a zoom / stretch visual effect at the same time to emphasize it. the heavy breathing sounds and wobbly vision you experience throughout the game are also effective in getting the player to feel the character’s weakness. having absolutely no means of attack or even defense other than hiding doesn’t hurt there either.
the puzzles were a good challenge level for my tastes. many of them were finding the correct tools or parts and using them in the correct way. i appreciated how most tools i picked up actually had multiple uses; the first soon after i found it and again enough later that i almost forgot i had it. there’s a sense of satisfaction in figuring out what to use where, but it’s not so difficult as to be frustrating.
my one complaint would be that the monsters sometimes seem to disappear through impassible gates or possibly even dead ends. for a game that emphasizes immersion in its world, it was unfortunate to have disappearing monsters bringing the fact that i’m playing a game back to the front of my mind.
i easily got 8 hours of great enjoyment out of amnesia: the dark descent, including the justine adventure. at its regular price of $20 it may be a little steep, but if you see it for $10 or less and enjoy getting immersed in a well-designed world that’s dark both in lighting and in mood, you should buy it. i got it for $5 during steam’s halloween sale and it was very much worth it!