Blog Quest 2:Design Your Game Item Part 2

Amnesia:The Dark Descent is a survival horror game developed by Frictional Games and released on September 8th, 2010 for the PC. The game begins as you wake on a the stone floor of a mysterious castle, you don't know where you are or, more importantly, who you are. Explore the deeper levels of the castle by solving daunting puzzles on your quest to uncover the mystery behind the dark castle in which you are trapped and, perhaps, find out who you are. All the while avoiding the horrible monsters that hunt you.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent relies heavily on mechanics regarding light as all the items that you can collect, aside from puzzle items, relates to either providing you light through the use of tinderboxes or your lantern, or maintaining the light that you have through the consumption of lamp oil. The game usually requires the player to navigate through darkened areas using lit objects or their lantern to aid them. Though the light you create can also hinder you as it makes you more visible to the monsters in the area. This mechanic forces the player to choose between seeing what they are doing and monsters being able to see them or being hidden from monsters and potentially going insane in the darkness.

Within the game there are only two ways to deal with the monsters that roam the halls of the dark castle, to run or to hide. This creates a sense of helplessness within the player which maintains or even heightens the sense for fear and anxiety that the player feels while playing the game. Though I think the addition of another item, string, can add some new mechanics for the developers to play with and subject the players to new levels of hell and horror.

The string could be unraveled over a distance and then pulled or re-raveled again from a distant spot (like from a hiding place). Players can then pile on items in the world, such as books and bottles, onto the string so that when it is pulled/ re-raveled the pile topples over creating a loud noise. This would allow developers to create situations where the player must distract the monster in order to progress. So despite this item allowing the player to take a more proactive role in their goal to avoid the monsters it maintains the sense of fear and anxiety already prevalent in the game as players will be forced out their hiding spots and into open where they could be seen by the monsters. The string can also give the player a sense of hopelessness and despair as the pile of items on top of the string must be assembled by hand so the player runs the risk of toppling the pile themselves, making a loud noise, and therefore drawing the monster to their location. This combined with the mechanics surrounding the need for light can create some truly terrifying situations.

Imagine piling a few these on top of string, without making a single sound, in complete darkness, just avoid a monster a few meters away. You sweating bullets yet?

Sources
http://amnesia.wikia.com/wiki/Amnesia:_The_Dark_Descent
http://valvearg.com/w/images/9/93/Amnesia_Title.jpg
http://www.nag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Amnesia03.jpg
http://s284355199.websitehome.co.uk/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ryan-Amnesia.jpg