Amnesia what happens if you go insane

The sanity system had a quite a journey throughout development. It started as a substitute for monsters -- due to team size constraints -- then became a system heavily inspired by Mario 's trinket collection system, then became a game system, then an ambient background system that keeps the player on edge. Around the time we were questioning the design of the sanity system, it started to become more and more clear to me that not everything in a game has to be competitive in nature.

Sometimes, making something game-y just destroys the feeling that you're after. But, what really made it all click was a this post by Tale of Tales' Michael Samyn. Reading it now, it does not seem like anything special, but at the time it just clicked with me.

It clarified some thoughts that had been brewing in my mind. It unleashed an idea of games that would dismiss common gameplay elements, and focus on other things instead.

This is quite common now, but four years back, that was not the case. The blog post from Michael encouraged me to express my thoughts as a blog post too, and you can view it here.

Some terminology and conclusions are off from what I think now, but it neatly summarizes my thoughts at the time. This thinking greatly influenced a lot of the design issues made during the last half year of Amnesia 's development, the sanity system being one of them. Looking back at it, it seems like a really obvious decision to make, and it felt natural at the time.

But had the climate just been slightly different, I doubt it would had been made. I think it shows just how much a game's design direction is greatly shaped by the surrounding development environment.

I also think it shows how important it is to be open to new concepts and not be to stuck in the trappings of older games. The focus should always be on creating a certain experience, and it is fine to break ingrained rules in order to accomplish this. In the end I think I think it was successful -- the system ended up working better than we thought it would, especially considering the history behind the feature.

It's actually surprising we got it to work at all! Looking back at it all I think there are three problems I would have liked to get fixed:. We want to try something like the sanity system for our next game, Soma. The idea is instead to design the levels in such a way that a state of mind, similar to the sanity system, arises in the mind of the player from mostly narrative aspects.

The idea is that when you no longer have a strict and simplistic system driving it all, the player's imagination is free to roam, and the experience can become much more powerful. However, trying to set hours of varied gameplay up in a way that fosters a particular state of mind is a hard task indeed.

We are still working on the idea, and while it is not where we want it yet, we are getting closer. We'll see how it works out! Email editor-in-chief Kris Graft: [email protected]. Sections Close Back. Blogs Close Back. Write for Game Developer.

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Get daily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inbox. It can take a minute or two, but the process can be accelerated by very random events. Progress is obviously the only way to actually heal sanity, but the bounce-back from crawling on the floor can be accelerated by something as basic as managing to hide from a monster successfully.

This is based purely off a very recent event, but I'm fairly certain no storyline progress took place at the time. This becomes seriously amplified in latter stages when severe motion blur is present - The mouse control of looking around becomes very disjointed I liken it to playing Fallout 3 without the mouse acceleration fix, haha.

This combined with the motion blur makes fast movements difficult and running away from monsters next to impossible - Monsters see you more easily in the dark. I'm not sure this can be accredited to enhanced "night vision" on the monsters' part, but more likely your character starts to lose self-control and is unable to remain silent when hiding, etc. Either way, when your sanity is at " Through reading some journal notes, I have noticed references to a "shadow" that appears to be chasing Daniel, trying to consume him.

At first I thought this could refer to the growing organic tissue in the castle, but to make a more literal interpretation of this would fit with a theory that suggests darkness itself is consciously trying to consume Daniel. This is also backed up by other notes referring to psychological stress that Daniel has been suffering. There's actually one more stage past the crawling on the floor part.

If you don't recover from that, your character will automatically stand up, put clown makeup on, pull out a knife, and say "Let's put a SMILE on that face! Where do I find the ingredients for Agripas Tonic? General 2 Answers What's the deal with the wooden crank?

Side Quest 1 Answer How do I use the key to the wine cellar on the wine cellar door? Side Quest 1 Answer Blowing up the obstruction in the storage room? Side Quest 1 Answer. Ask A Question. Browse More Questions. When Daniel reaches the sanity state of "Head is pounding and hands are shaking" and worse, various aspects of the game will appear different, such as:. A painting of Jesus Christ, dependent on sanity levels. The right being low sanity. While some causes and effects of sanity change are hinted at in-game, most specific reasons behind this go unexplained, which sometimes confuses players.

The hints about sanity loss and gain can only be seen if the player has said hints enabled via options. Staring at enemies will easily decrease your sanity. Try to avoid looking at them if you want to progress through the game more smoothly. Because sanity drains when witnessing disturbing events, standing in darkness and staring at enemies - it is easily known that the key factor is fear.

As sanity drains, the player's vision and perception of reality diminishes more and more, as well as delaying motor functions, showing that the fear gets the best of the player character to a point where simple body control becomes cumbersome.

Daniel's crippling nyctophobia is also an unexplained phenomenon, but owing to the fact that Daniel is completely defenseless, no longer fully realizes where he is after taking the amnesia mixture and that he is being followed by what appears to be an intangible mass of darkness , it is apparent that the dark is worth fearing.

Justine , the protagonist of the expansion Amnesia: Justine , also seems to suffer from this phobia, due to being in a different type of nightmarish situation. In both the game and the expansion, staring at enemies reduce sanity and warp the player's vision. This is most likely due to the frightening and grotesque hideousness of the enemies; coupled with the fact of increasing fear in the player character that they will be spotted.

When standing in any of the six torture chambers found in both the Transept and Choir , sanity is drained there as well. These rooms will trigger a continuous sound similar to a church bell. The sanity loss here is most likely caused by both the presence of the torture devices and the bad memories related to them - which would make sense, as Daniel feels horrible guilt for his wrongdoings to the captured victims during the events of the game. Besides the guilt, the dark and somber energy produced by the room may simply have a negative spiritual effect on Daniel's mind.

Some areas of the game will produce enemies in the form of a hallucination , which will vanish once close enough to the player. What happens when you lose sanity amnesia? Reading Time: 7 mins read. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter.

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