Horror Game: The Horror in the player's head - Times Online

The Game “Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs” needs no fight scenes and no monsters to scare. Gloomy noise and the dense story fully meet them.

class=”articlemeta-date”> 12 September 2013 clock 17:35

Screenshot from” Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs “| © Frictional Games

True Horror, Alfred Hitchcock knew that arises in the mind of the beholder. Who only implies bad, the imagination is the opportunity to let off steam – and much worse to create than it ever could be a director. This knowledge can certainly be applied to games. Yet very few horror games make use of it. Instead, hordes of monsters to be hunted heavily armed heroes and provide experienced battles instead embracing fear.

published in 2010 game Amnesia: The Dark Descent was the way Hitchcock. It put the horror mauling a subtle and the player with delusions and threatening noises. Then popped it out a monster, was the only escape, because there was not weapons in the game.

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quietly, but so profound terror made The Dark Descent to a surprise success with 1.5 million downloads. Now the successor Amnesia is: (Windows / iOS / Linux; 16 euros) A Machine for Pigs published

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scene of the game is the London of the year in 1899. The Victorian era sounds straight and the Industrial Revolution changed the society. In his estate of rich producer Oswald Mandus scares up from sleep and finds that he can not remember the events of the past few months. Only slowly beginning to him that he had undertaken an expedition to Mexico, then in something must have gone terribly wrong. His own house is Mandus become strange: the sprawling corridors and common room are dark and deserted. The beds are backed with cage bars.

immediately makes Mandus in search of his two children, whose voices he believes heard. With each step he does, the portents are increasing: On the walls are paintings that show pigs in human poses, from time to time a deep rumble shook the foundations of the House. In the basement Mandus encounters parts of a giant machine whose purpose and builder he does not know.

The horror does not remain uncommented

Increasingly Gruesome be his discoveries as he explored the factory buildings around the house: Mandus find there filthy dungeon, experimental laboratories with rusty surgical instruments and industrial systems, which are operated by huge steam engines. In dark corners mountains pile of pig carcasses, waste products ghoulish experiments. Sometime meets Mandus then the creatures that have spawned scientific hubris and blind madness creators.

The game lets the horror not uncommented: From the beginning, it ties several storylines that complement each other. The thoughts that preoccupy the Mandus are stored in diary form, his visions revolve mostly around the fate of the children. In addition, he finds numerous flyers, letters and phonographic recordings. They document how the creator of the infernal machine, the project is noticeably slipped.

And then there are the phone calls that attract Mandus deeper into the factory. There, so claims a mysterious stranger, were Mandus’ children in danger.

A Machine for Pigs comes as a text-heavy The Dark Descent . Which is not surprising when one considers the development of the game. The Swedish independent studio Frictional Games had created one of their own. This time it’s only producer and publisher. Was developed A Machine for Pigs by Dan Pinchbeck and his British indie studio The Chinese Room. Pinchbeck has made a name with Dear Esther : The storytelling experiment allows players on a deserted Hebridean island for the traces of a bygone relationship Search .