Search Results for “Amnesia”

Amnesia Alternatives

I was searching my long list of bookmarked webpages earlier today and came across this entry from Corvus Elrod’s Man Bytes Blog. In ‘Amnesia Alternatives’ Corvus outlines two ways that a storyteller (read: anyone setting up their game) can overcome the initial barrier to a players knowledge that a brand new world they’ve never experienced presents.

It’s unreasonable to expect every player to read a hefty manual explaining their character’s back story, or worse—to subject them to a lengthy game intro which delays their entry into the game itself.

So dumping the player into a situation

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November 8th

…Dark Descent and Player Choice | Gamers with Glasses Blake Reno studies how the original Amnesia interrogates the role of the player in guiding and judging the redemption of of the player character.

The Invisible Hand in The Space Between | Into The Spine Tess Everman considers horror beyond the individual and into the structural in The Space Between.

Amnesia: Rebirth Needed To Be More Than Horror | Jeremy Signor’s Games Initiative Jeremy Signor finds the latest Amnesia to be at odds with itself between its narrative themes and scare tactics.

“Yes, there’s plenty of…

January 15th

…to apply the lessons of the unsettling visuality in the “Creepy Watson” video, Brindle turns to the use of the camera in Amnesia and concludes:

In ordinary circumstances first-person games have an empiricist bias – problems are solved by looking at them. Amnesia, conversely, makes the player complicit in her own fear by forcing her to repeat Daniel’s self-othering, self-inflicted ignorance and voluntarily look away from danger, sacrificing territory to the encroaching realm of the unknown. The negative space beyond border of the screen becomes a thing to be wielded as protection, and a glance a freighted act.

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August-September Roundup

…Perhaps mainstream developers should stop pretending that they’re aiming for an audience other than experienced players.

Leigh Harrison writes about Remember Me’s reliance on tired narrative clichés and gaming tropes (warning: contains spoilers): an evil corporation, mutant variants on standard enemies that appear around the halfway mark, an amnesic protagonist, a non-sequitur of a final boss. It’s enough to make you wish for amnesia yourself (or perhaps, Amnesia) and experience these stale gaming conventions for the first time.

‘Mistuh Pond’ has written a frankly bizarre Choose Your Own Adventure of sorts. He says (I think) that as military…

October 25th

…true horror in Amnesia: Rebirth as the cyclical violence of colonial empire.

“Everywhere in the latest Amnesia, empire and birth are twisted together to form new, diseased monuments to the worst of humanity. The game, as oppressively pessimistic in tone as it is aesthetically dark and brooding, suggests that our species moves inexorably toward evil and self-perpetuation. It’s our defining animal trait, Rebirth posits, as uniquely a part of us as our too-big brains and opposable thumbs.”

The Girl Who Was Plugged In

Three articles this week look at parasociality and fandom within games,

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November 1st

…the prototypical–and ongoing–creepypasta centred around Majora’s Mask.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask—The Coming-of-Age Story I Wasn’t Ready For | Paste Jessica Howard returns to Majora’s Mask, finding that it hits so hard because it eschews the fantastical escapism the rest of the franchise embraces.

Scars of the Risen God: Healing in Pathologic 2 – Uppercut Grace Benfell thinks through the theological and existential implications of the give and take relationship between harm and healing in Pathologic 2.

Amnesia: Rebirth Makes Motherhood Scary | Kotaku Ash Parrish didn’t find anything in Amnesia: Rebirth scary except probably the…

January 16th

…at white people who would rather deny a Black man his right to be free. For six hours I was able to use capoeira—a martial art I practice, that I’ve only seen in fighting games until now—in its original culture, context and purpose infused with a spirituality I operate within to declare that a man will not be chained. It is incredible.”

Pick Up Two

Next up, a two-pair of meditations on different aspects of design and structure.

Disco Elysium’s Amnesia Is The Heart Of The Game | TheGamer Khee Hoon Chan breaks down how…

October 22nd

…this week brings together longer pieces and and deeper dives which seek to connect popular games with our ever-changing and plural presents.

AND WE’LL SWIM TILL WE SINK | DEEP HELL Bryn Gelbart wades through faith, violence, and the meaning people seek in them.
Game design as conspiracy theory: what Amnesia learns from Umberto Eco | Rock Paper Shotgun Edwin Evans-Thirlwell measures the swing of Foucault’s Pendulum in the conspiratorial depths of the Amnesia series.
We’re More Ghosts Than People | The Paris Review Hanif Abdurraqib contemplates the impossible and vital salvation of Arthur Morgan.

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Fallout 3

…avoided a particular kind of ignorance, namely the “amnesia” trope. One of Fallout 3‘s strengths, in his view, is that the player doesn’t have to ask who he is, but rather how he came to be who he is.

Immersion failure at the NPC interface

In contrast to the widely-praised open world, Fallout 3‘s NPCs have come in for some harsh criticism. Michael Abbott contributes the core of the critique in “Genius Jilted” and “People drive me crazy”, which also cover some criticism of Fable II. The realistic feel of the world, for him, is entirely at odds…

November 21st

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Matthew Burns at Magical Wasteland writes about Fable 3 this week arguing that for games to present players with good moral decisions requires plenty of context. Until then it’s all ‘Just Another Trick of Perspective’. Zachary Alexander at Hailing from the Edge takes inspiration from Burns’ post in ‘Low Stakes’, and relates a personal story from Fable 3 that suggests a different lesson:

…absurdist humor was able to get my attention, and create an ambiguous moral situation in a way heavy “evil enemy is amassing on the horizon” setups couldn’t.

Nels Anderson talks about Amnesia:

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