Closer look at Teaser and more

After a lot of work we are finally done with the teaser! Hope you all enjoy it! In case you have not seen the teaser yet then do so before continuing with this post:



The map played in this teaser is based upon two other maps from the game and have been especially built to show of the mood and gameplay of Amnesia. If you are worried that the teaser will spoil parts of the game for you, have no fear, the exact events of the trailer are not in the game, but there will be some that are quite similar.

The map took about two days to build and script and then it took around 100 playthroughs before we got it as we wanted. Whenever I felt satisfied, I showed Jens a clip and he immediately gave me a list of uncountable other things that I could do better. As if Jens obsession for details was not enough, I also had to record the teaser while having an extremely smoothed camera. This meant that I had to pre-plan all camera movements because when ever I moved the mouse, the camera just gently floated towards the destination. It was especially hard to get the correct position during fast movements. This will of course not be the case in-game and was just something I had to do to get nicer camera movements for the clip.

"So the clip was not really from the game after all!", the skeptic might say. Well, the player will never experience exactly what is shown in this teaser and the main reason for this is to make it short and fun to watch. What happens in the trailer will perhaps take 20 - 30 minutes using proper gameplay and that would not be very fun to watch. There is a big difference between watching as a passive spectator and directly interacting with a game. Our goals was to cram the feeling of playing the game into a 3 minute movie clip. Also note that there is no cheating here, I actually played this map in a continuous recording and did not render it offline or something like that. Hope this clears up things :)

On a technical note, we really wanted to record it in HD, but my computer was just too crappy and we did not want a 10fps recording. The up-side of me having an ancient rig is that the game should flow smoothly on just about an computer bought over the past 5 years though.

Now for some more in-depth study of the movie:

- 0:20
This is not very visible in the clip, but there are actually fishes swimming around here. We intend to get many types of critters in the game and this is one of the ones that are in right now. (another critter is in the clip, can you spot it?)
Also note that we got proper water reflections and refractions. It is way more advanced than seen in Penumbra and also optimized for indoor rendering.

- 0:30
Rotations and other advanced physical controls are the same as in Penumbra. They are a lot smoother this time though and even though it is actual physics being simulated there is little lag noticed.

- 0:33
That scream has a very significant part of the plot. What I cannot say.

- 0:44
New nice feature with the doors is that you can grab at any place while interacting and it will always work. In Penumbra it was very specific where you grabbed, but not so in Amnesia.

- 1:05
As darkness decreases your sanity you never want to enter dark areas like this without using the lantern or having some candles (or similar) to light.

- 1:21
All the nice blood and stain effects are thanks to Luis hard work with the decal editor!

- 1:54
First glimpse of new enemy! What can it be...

- 2:01
Just as in Penumbra, looking at enemies is a best avoided. In Amnesia it will cause your sanity to drop.

- 2:05
Notice how books just slightly slide along the shelf because of friction and so on. This is all due the nice simulations provided by Newton Game Dynamics. It was quite fun setting everything up on the table so that that some fell off while pushing it, giving the a feel of urgency when trying to barricade the door. The table was also harder to move due to the weight from all the stuff on it, so had to give it an extra push to get into place (using the "throw" button). One never knows what going to happen with physics...

- 2:26
It took a while to remember the best times to open the closer door, in order to get a nice effect. After 50 tries or so, I had that creature pretty much figured out though (apart from the times he managed to stray from the path and not be where I expected, that actually scared me a few times...). Also note that there is no special gimmick for hiding in a closet (like in Clock Tower, etc), you are always in full control and use same mechanics as the rest of the game.

- 3:13
Brief glimpse of another enemy...


Hope you enjoyed this closer look at the teaser! If you liked the movie, please spread the word and post on your Facebook, Youtube, Twitter or what not. We do not have any big PR resources (it is basically me or Jens taking a break from normal work to do it), so any help is extremely welcome! Thanks for all support so far!