Fear Research: Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Due to the fact that you can't really get a good AAA title horror game that includes a good amount of fear and suspense, I have instead decided to look at Indie horror games as they are usually far more exciting to play and experience knowing just were to add in suspense and generally have a small amount of music in the background or a few sound effects just to add to that emotion. The first game that I have decided to look at is probably one of the most known horror games and is played world wide by a large amount  of people; and that game is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This is a classic survival horror game developed by Frictional game, from which many custom levels have been created by the general public and also the DLC pack 'Justine' has been released as well.

The main aim of this game follows the character Daniel from a first person perspective as he completes physic-based puzzles and journey's through the environment that he is trapped in to try and remember what happened to him as he faces the challenges ahead of him. Along with the fact that the character moves quite slowly through the level adds to the amount of fear that is presented in this game and also this is combined with the monsters. The monsters are what gives this game that edge above others in the same genre. In my opinion it is difficult to make a game have fear involved as there is a fine line to when a game becomes silly and over the top, but Amnesia gets this balance just right.

The general gameplay is terrific but absolutely terrifying for me to play as there is so much suspense and you never know when you are going to be facing a monster. It is controlled using WASD and the mouse to look around and interact with the environment. The whole castle looks and feels full of suspense as it is full of silent corridors and twists and turns at every moment that you are never quite sure how react. The environment has been wonderfully designed and the levels are filled with the weirdest objects and creatures that your never sure if there going to jump out and scare you.

The music/sounds in this game is also something that I really wanted to look at as it is masterfully executed. The is little of it and it will only occur when something is about to happen, a bit like the way the original Tomb Raider games worked. The simple creaking of a door or the dripping of a liquid is all this game needs to used to make it perfectly scary which is something that I also wanted to bring into my level as this will add that sense of fear into it as well; which is something that is so obvious in this game but is shown in such a brilliant way.