During Steam’s “Potato Fools!” sale, I bought Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I’ve heard stories from the guys in the DMT that it’s shit scary, but it’s a steal for $10 so I went on and got it.
Just started playing it. Even on the first level, there’s things that scare you. Doors that suddenly open on their own. Dark, small corridors. And you never know what could be lurking behind that.. SHIT!!! *holds mouth and gets down behind a wall, whimpering in fear*
It starts off as you. You are named “Daniel”.. well.. you think you are. You’re in some sort of castle in Europe. It’s the early 1900’s. You’re all alone… but, actually you’re not. You have no idea how you arrived at this castle, but there has to be some reason. You see this strange purple trail leading off somewhere and wonder where it goes.
Evil is hiding behind every turn. Before you know it, you got the feeling that something is coming up behind you. You have no way to defend yourself. No weapons. All you can do is run and hide like a pussy. But it’s either that or be eaten by a Grue (a cookie for whoever gets it).
You can Use objects to block a door if you feel you’re being pursued, or try to hide in dark areas. All you can do is hope the thing doesn’t see you, and eventually goes away to look elsewhere.
Sometimes you can hear the sounds of something munching on your brain. This is your Sanity going down the shitter. Dark areas lower your sanity, and light areas raise it. Staring at monsters also causes your sanity to drop, and you to scream like a little girl and run the other direction.
You got these tinderboxes. Think of them as matches. They can light things like candles, stoves, and anything else. Everytime you light something, it consumes one. But sometimes it’s best not to light them, because a scary thing cannot see you in the dark. And also it’s been said that monsters (the scary things) are attracted to light sources.
You also get a lantern that you get in Level 2, but it’s kinda hard to find (was for me anyway). It consumes Oil, and it’s unfortunately scarce from what I’ve seen. Expect to run out constantly.
I tried to look for a trainer to hopefully increase my odds of survival and make the game less scary for me. Unfortunately, there isn’t any updated trainers. The “latest” one causes my game to crash when I hit the Esc key (or crashes when I load a save), as this game only has one way of saving.
The next best thing I could do is look for a walkthrough. Hopefully reading that would tell me where the scary parts are. This will probably lose some of the “thrill” of being scared, but I rather sleep at night!
.
I’m in Level 3-1 now (I think anyway). The Laboratory, trying to find the fucking key for the Wine Cellar to mix up a chemical that will remove some kind of organic tissue to gain access to the Refinery. Yet I’m being told “The darkness…. is coming……”, and I read about “A shadow is following you”
And to make things even more down right frightening, the entire room begins to shake every four seconds.
But… to say this is the scariest game ever created? I find that far-fetched. AoM:DC (Afraid of Monsters: Director’s Cut) is scarier. Amnesia doesn’t have zombies with spazzing heads running up to you (“at night @_@”) and whacking you. I haven’t gotten past Level 1 yet.