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Amnesia is barely a game in the traditional sense, leaving the nearly two decades of horror gaming tradition since Alone in the Dark by the wayside and forging its own twisted path.

Experience as a weapon
Swedish game developer Frictional Games tries to find its own paths, outside the publishing system. Despite limited resources, they want to teach us to play in a new way to experience rather than to win.

Thomas Grip says he has butterflies in his stomach, but it can not be heard over the phone. The butterfly flutter is drowning in the sound of all the visions he stored inside and now bubbling over of.

Thomas is a founder of Frictional Games, a small games studio headquartered in Helsingborg, and is responsible for the overall design of the PC game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a horror story released today. The butterflies in the stomach comes from expectations on feedback from players and critics.

Frictional Games has financed the entire production process itself, and now also manages the publishing and PR without help from a publisher. But Thomas Grip seems to enjoy the outsider role. To ask him what is wrong with today's gaming industry is like pushing a button.

"Oh wow, it's so much. The narrative is at the same level as in the 90s. The stakes are so high that no one dares to take the next step. That is why we get games full of marines and variations of Conan the Barbarian. Today the best games' stories are on the same level as the worst action movies."

Should the game medium learn from film and literature?

"No, they are no good role models. In the literature there is a several thousand year old tradition of storytelling with dramaturgy, turning points and character development. Many game developers are trying to copy that instead of seeing storytelling in the game as something new. In a novel set at the North Pole you must weave together a story just to illustrate how difficult the situation is. In a game, you can instead experience it directly by interacting with the environment."

How is Amnesia different from other games?

"You don't have any weapons. You don't kill any monsters and you shoot no one. You are an ordinary person. Even that many find strange. In a horror game where you have a weapon in front of you bobbing up and down the screen, the reaction when you hear a monster approaching will be "Yes, a monster! Finally I get to shoot!" In Amnesia it's the opposite. The player stands no chance against the monsters. The only way to survive is to avoid them."

But don't players expect to kill things?

"Yes. When you sit down with a game many think automatically, "What should I do to win?" But you don't sit down with a book thinking 'How do I get faster to the last page?" It's the word "game" that misleads. It should really be called "interactive experience". But of course it is difficult to replace a word we're used to. Instead, we try to educate people in what games can mean. We want the player to think "How do I immerse myself into this game and experience as much as possible?""

Some of your fans write on your site that you are the savior of the game medium. Why?

"Haha, I try to take both praise and complaints with a grain of salt. But you should not be afraid to have high goals. Although we have limited resources, we can be part of taking the game media in new directions."

For next game, we are gonna try and get rid of all classic incoherent adventure game puzzles and the like.

Also gonna see if we can evoke emotions other than fear.

I found the puzles to be a lot more natural and intuitive in 'Overture' while I often had no idea what I was even supposed to be doing at parts of 'Black Plague' and had to use a walkthrough throughout.

Can not start the game on my Macbook. Is there any chance for Intel graphics support?