amnesia posts

What do you get when you combine an acclaimed sandbox indie game with an equally acclaimed indie first person horror adventure title? You get a YouTube video that shows the efforts of a person who has recreated part of Frictional Games' Amnesia The Dark Descent in Minecraft, that's what.

The creator of this indie crossover, "GamerDuality", narrates the video and describes some of the decisions he made in making the recreation of the first couple of rooms in Amnesia. He admits some of the level's failings (he could have used a third party texture pack, for example, to better replicate the game's art style) but overall it looks pretty good.

So what other Minecraft game crossovers can we expect? Quite frankly we are surprised that someone hasn't done Doom in Minecraft or at least we haven't heard of one yet.

The grand prize finalists in the IGF are not, surprisingly enough, the cream of the crop. Rather, the games which end up in the Seamus McNally finalists are a hodgepodge of fantastic games, each of which is great in its own way. Where one person sees a cluster of retro-influenced pixels, another person sees deliberate designed minimalism to focus the game's intent. In other words, the grand prize is intended for games which can't really fit in only one or two categories category. Rather, these are the games which capture that elusive thing only known as "fun."

Audio is perhaps the most underappreciated section of a game. After all, many gamers turn off their sound effects to talk to their friends, or turn off the music to turn on their own. The games in the IGF's Audio Excellence category, however, fit solidly into the camp of games that you should never ever do that for. These are stellar games that manage to take audio and turn it into an essential part of the experience. In short, you have to listen, not just play, these games.

The Technical Excellence portion of the IGF is one that many people will never understand. Rather than being focused on measurable bits that are divest of the creation progress (for the most part), developers are having their games picked apart and forced into terrifying positions in order to determine which one is the most impressive from a coding standpoint. The judges have ruled and the jury is now in, so we must simply wait and see which of the following five games will be the best technical accomplishment.

Developer Frictional Games has been more than open on the sales of its acclaimed horror adventure game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Today in a new blog post the developer revealed that sales of the game since its release last September have now gone over the 200,000 unit mark.

While over half of those units sold have been made via discounted prices like sales on Steam and other outlets, the blog post states, "we are in incredible good financial situation right now." The development team also thinking about sticking to the PC platform, perhaps exclusively, saying, "Based on what we have seen, the online PC market is just getting bigger and bigger, and we are convinced we are far from the end of this growth."

The blog post also hints about Frictional's next game, saying, "We aim to use the emotions that Amnesia was able to provoke and to focus them in a different direction, which will hopefully give delightfully disturbing results.." Because of their current financial stability the dev team may take some risks with its next title, saying, "While we of course do not aim to go crazy, it means that we can try out new things without risk of going bankrupt."

The recent horror-themed first person adventure game Amnesia: The Dark Desecent got a great review here at Big Download. Now the developers of the title at Frictional Games have posted up a first week postmortem on the title that makes for some interesting reading.

In short the dev team seems to be happy with the reviews the game has received so far from both the media and regular players. However sales of the game seem to be a bit mixed. While they have not released specific numbers the post states, "At the time of writing, we are very close to our 'all is good'-goal, meaning that we are still in business." But it adds, "Around 50 (percent) of our current earnings where made in less than a week and on pre-orders from before release." The team doesn't seem to know why sales haven't been higher and are debating on several things it can do for its next game release to raise sales including releasing it for consoles.

Download Amnesia: The Dark Descent Demo [Windows] (156 MB)
Download Amnesia: The Dark Descent Demo [Mac] (185 MB)
Download Amnesia: The Dark Descent Demo [Linux] (155 MB)

There are very few videogames that set us on edge through atmosphere rather than startles. Games like FEAR and Resident Evil can be scary, sure, but more because the game suddenly flings things at you rather than creating an oppressive, depressing, degrading setting. Developer Frictional Games tried to do so with Penumbra, and it didn't work out too well, despite Penumbra's status as a great game. Now comes Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and despite its generic-sounding title, it's quite possibly one of the most unique games we have ever played. It utilizes story tropes (such as the titular amnesia), physics-based gameplay, and a disturbing setting to great effect. It's quite possibly the only time we've ever been truly frightened by Lovecraftian fiction, and it serves as a good example of the polish indie developers can put into a game.

Ubisoft's tricky RTS game R.U.S.E. found itself on top of Steam's top 10 best selling PC games list (based on revenue) for the past week. In second place comes Frictional Games' first person horror adventure came Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Civilization V is moving up the ladder ahead of its September 21 release date. It came in the number three spot on Steam's list. In a bit of a surprise, the Japanese import RPG game Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale came in fourth place. The full list is below.

1. R.U.S.E. - Eugen Systems/Ubisoft
2. Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Frictional Games
3. Sid Meier's Civilization V - Firaxis Games/2K Games
4. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale - EasyGameStation
5. Mafia II: Jimmy's Vendetta DLC - 2K Czech/2K Games
6. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Digital Illusions/EA
7. Mafia II - 2K Czeck/2K Games
8. Blood Bowl - Cyanide Studio/Focus Home Interactive
9. Worms Reloaded - Team17
10. Company of Heroes Complete Pack - Relic/THQ

Frictional Games is best known for the indie darling series Penumbra, but they've been hard at work on a new game. Releasing in just little over a week, Amnesia: The Dark Descent follows an amnesiac who wakes up in a castle with no knowledge save for his name. As the game is quite close to launch, Frictional has released a new trailer showing off a chase scene between Daniel and an unknown force. predictably, he loses in the end. It's interesting to note that this is in-game footage, and as expected, bears a striking resemblance to the excellent Penumbra series. The minor touches, such as the heavy breathing and the splash of water after each pound, make it quite intriguing!

Download HD Amnesia: The Dark Descent Trailer (55 MB)

Last week we posted up an interview with developer Frictional Games' Thomas Grip as he talked about their upcoming horror-themed adventure game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Today the developer announced that the game now has a firm release date of September 8 from the team behind the cult hit Penumbra series.

The company has been taking pre-orders for the game for some time. While the normal price of Amnesia is going to be $20 you can save $2 (about 10 percent) by pre-ordering the game directly from Frictional Games' web site. The title will be available in Windows, Mac and even Linux flavors.