Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Developer: Frictional Games Publisher: Frictional Games Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux Released internationally: September 8, 2010 (Steam), February 17, 2011 (PC), May 17, 2011 (Desura) This game has unused enemies. This game has unused models. This game has unused items. This game has unused text.

A horror game par-excellence by the creators of Penumbra. Just don't look...

Unused Enemies

Spiders never made it to the final cut. However, they can be only added in the game with an editor. They attack Daniel when they are near him, dealing him a minimal damage. Their appearances are nearly identical to the ones from Penumbra: Overture, another game created by Frictional Games.

Unused Items

Several items went unused. Most are all complete and can be placed in the level editor.

Sanity Potion

Restores some of the player's sanity similar to how Laudanum restores health. It appears in some early gameplay footage.

Large Oil Potion

Looks like a slightly larger oil refill. It gives twice as much oil as normal when used. Technically it is used since it does make a very brief appearance during the ending cinematic, but cannot be used as the inventory is then locked.

Coins

Three bags (or sacks) containing coins of a currency called thalers. They come in divisions of 10, 25, and 50 but don't appear in the player's inventory when picked up (they still have an inventory icon). Each size has a slightly different message.

Picked up a Pouch with 10 thalers

Picked up a Bag with 25 thalers

Picked up a Sack with 50 thalers

You have found a bag of thalers. When you have enough thalers you can open chests containing valuable items.

An additional hint tool-tip appears the first time one of them is picked up. Similar to the Sanity Potion, this unused game mechanic can also be seen in some early gameplay footage.

Jars

The game has many jar graphic variants, but these red and blue ones are never used.

Legacy Content

Since the same people that developed Penumbra also worked on Amnesia, it should come as no surprise that a few leftovers made their way into this game. This pickaxe is located in the hand_objects directory, though it cannot be added as an item since only the viewmodel exists.

Additionally, the in-game debug mode supports loading maps in .DAE format, which was used by the Penumbra games.

Dagger Description

A blade meant for cutting and skinning.

The dagger itself is picked up during a flashback sequence and is taken away shortly after. You cannot open the inventory during the flashback so it isn't possible to see the description during normal gameplay.

"Super Secret" RAR file

To do: DOCUMENT THIS FURTHER. This RAR contains a wealth of information relevant to the development of the game

In the redist folder there is a RAR file called super_secret with a password set on it, the password is lke271tyr299odn314. It contains the following 4 folders listed below.

art

This folder contains 3 folders.

creatures and characters

Contains concept for Agrippa, Alexander, Grunts and Brutes among other things.

environments

Mostly contains concept art for certain scenes in the final game. A few pictures show off early models of objects scene in the game with at least one of them being built in Maya.

misc

Four pics. Two of them are a portrait of Alexander when Daniel is sane and going insane. The other two are torturer posters.

design

A wealth of files from early in the game's development period.

herbert's lost diary

A folder that contains 3 WAV voice files and a script of each voice file.

ancient_game_overview_from_0810

A PDF of the game overview dated from 2008. The document constantly refers to the name of Amnesia as Unknown. Various concepts are covered such as the concept for the game, the story and characters, gameplay as well as the technology used. This document makes reference to building upon the game engine used in Penumbra. A bunch of interesting pictures related to development in here. The document is 13 pages long.

ancient_game_pitch_from_0808

A PowerPoint presentation that tries to sell Amnesia. Amusingly, this PowerPoint uses the name of Horror Cabinet' making it apparent that Amnesia went through multiple name changes through development. The PowerPoint is 5 slides long.

chapter01_design_doc

A 40 page Word document with copious amounts of detail talking about the level, puzzle and room design starting from the beginning of the game until the elevator ride downwards and crash into the prison. Simplistic top view pictures of levels/rooms are also included to help illustrate the level design.

Game journey outline chapter 2 & 3

A JPEG of the levels/rooms progress from the Prison until the end of the game and what the player is supposed to do in each room. This actually looks like a document that was done on a piece of paper and scanned into JPEG format.

old_big_archives

A simplistic JEPG of the Archives area.

engine

Three JPEGs and a word document are in this folder. The JPEGs are hand written notes on graph paper that were scanned in and relate to the design of the game's editor. The word document is 18 pages long describing details related to the Amnesia's game engine.

video

We have 2 AVI videos and 2 WMV videos in this folder. All demonstrate early game development.

08_08_very_early_level_editor

A 4 minute and 38 second video showing off an early version of the level editor. No sound in this video.

08_08_very_early_test

A test of a room similar to the one shown off in the previous video. Various debugging text is shown off in the top left corner of the screen. This video is 31 seconds long. No sound in this video either.

08_10_early_gameplay

A 3 minute and 57 second video with sound. Something more akin to what the final game looks like. It doesn't appear that icons for the hand/mouse icon were developed yet. For example, items that can be grabbed or pushed change the cursor to literally say just that.

09_06_early_alpha

A 4 minute and 33 second video with sound. The video shows off the features of the game and the first few seconds of the video displays a title card that says:

UNKNOWN - EARLY ALPHA
15th of May 2009

To note, the monster seen at the end of this video is similar to monsters seen in Penumbra.