Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)

So I began playing through the first Amnesia with my partner recently. I mainly wanted to share it with my partner because back when it came out this game was my jam. I've managed to put in probably around 5 or 6 playthroughs over the years, with the most recent prior to this one being back in 2018 I think, when I played through with some college friends. So I was kind of pumped to be able to share the game that I really liked with someone else.

My ideal way to play would have been with an audio splitter and some headphones, because I think the sound design of the game is one of its strongest traits, but my partner is really not into headphones so I settled for just cranking the volume a little to make sure we could hear everything fairly well.

Well we're just past the Kaernk / Water Monster segment now, in the Machine Room and Study areas and... is it just me or does this game put wayyy too many spoken journal entries in this part? I can't tell if I'm just over-analyzing, which I tend to do when I share things I care about (music, especially) with people I care about, or if the game has just not aged as well as I thought it did. It really feels like every room we need to stop so Daniel can tell us about his past. To the point where there really wasn't much gameplay at all when we played some tonight. There was somewhere between 6 to 8 narrated journal entries and we only played for like 40 minutes.

This sort of lazy exposition dump is an issue both of us have taken note of in a lot of low budget indie horror titles we've watched playthroughs of together, and I'm starting to wonder if it got its start (at least where horror indie games are concerned) back in Amnesia, despite me not noticing it much before. Like I said, I may just be letting the critical side of me take over too much now that I'm sharing it with someone who writes and is generally more critical of the quality of writing in media than I am.

I'm mostly just curious if other folks feel the game has too much exposition dump or has aged poorly in other ways. I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

Was trying to be brave last night. Attempted to play this and, just as I heard what it felt like voices chanting or something, and the camera began to fall down to the floor... hahahaha, I quit, got a mild attack and began to meditate on the floor (and I don't practice meditation).

It's astonishing how scary video games can get with an effective sound design. Will try again today!

Even playing in a dark room with headphones, I'm not scared. I'm just annoyed.

Hiding a required item under a bed in the dark corner of a darker room does not make for a fun gameplay mechanic.

After spending the last two hours wandering in circles around this prison maze level, I'm ready for this game to be done. As such, I've adopted the strategy of just letting the monsters kill me. You get brought back to life right where you died, but in perfect health and the monster is gone.

At first I wasn't exactly sure what to think about this game. Sure, I'd heard of it before and I'd also heard that it was supposed to be pretty scary. But it's also five years old, and I would think that part of a game being scary would be tied to its ability to immerse you into the story, which might be hard using a five-year-old engine.

That assessment seemed to hold up for the first 45 minutes or so of game. The graphics aren't terrific by today's standards. I found the darkness of the levels more annoying than creepy. And there weren't nearly enough tinderboxes to light candles.

When I realized that the lack of tinderboxes was starting to drive me a bit crazy, I realized that I had started avoiding the darkest parts of the castle, or running through them to the safety of windows. And that the audio was definitely making me feel a bit on edge. And about an hour in I walked into a long room and could have sworn there was something behind me. I turned around to emptiness and a shiver ran right down my spine.

This is going to be a lot of fun.