i feel like this game is almost universally misunderstood due to its comparisons to its predecessor. it's a game that strips a lot of the most frustrating parts of The Dark Descent and boils them down to a more narratively interesting game, but most people left disappointed because it had less jumpscares and felt more like a "walking simulator" to them.

let me tell you something, the best horror games are, in fact, mostly walking simulators! fear of the unknown that is allowed to fester and build dread over time as the rich plot themes bubble over is much more interesting than having to wait for an enemy's patrol route to go in the specific way you need to sneak by over and over and over. having an unreliable narrator who is much more of a character than a near-blank slate everyman is wholly more powerful. also, the music of this game owns. back off haters!!!!

Exquisite grand guignol steampunk vibes withstanding, this game’s departure from the bare-bones survivalist elements of the first game into something a little more patient was quite refreshing for a while. Unfortunately that means that all the enemy encounters that DO occur are so awkwardly stitched into this atmospheric and anti-capitalist narrative that they sort of negate the questions of empathy that are posed by the narrator (one of the strangest attempts at a redemption arc if you ask me). I found myself more haunted by the demonizing portrayal of the pig-human atrocities and wondered how much of this is meant to be read as actual thoughtful social critique versus the occasionally goofy and simplistic trashy exploitation that it ends up being. If anything it feels more like empty fan-service to have these monsters loom over every second of the gameplay.. echoing pig squeals and earth shattering booms clouding up much of time you spend navigating the factories, sewers, muggy streets and reading clumsily littered journal entries explaining everything to the player. Per usual, The Chinese Room craft something quite luscious to look at and listen to (Dear Esther and EGTTR are both masterful) but it’s hard to shake the lack of clarity when it comes to the cumulative vision here. It felt most apparent in the chaotic climax when the camera would frequently and violently shake, making the muddy colors of the interiors bleed together into unintelligible masses for periods at a time, or when our “protagonist” would slowly slip into a dark area to hear the fiftieth voiceover monologue and for some reason the game takes away your lamp to make it SpoOkY, or when I fell through the map and bugged out of game’s space for the third time. It’s a beautiful mess I don’t regret playing, but TCR is capable of making bigger and better things than what felt like little more than a franchise sell-out here.

Esse é um caso interessante. Ele não chega a ser um jogo de terror mecanicamente, e sim um Walking Simulator (até porque ele é da mesma dev de Dear Esther). Isso explica o level design linear e a ausência de qualquer mecânica. Sabe oque é engraçado? É que Soma também é um pouco assim (não totalmente) mecanicamente você só anda pra frente, mas você resolve uns puzzles e se esconde de uns bixos no caminho (e se esconder no Soma tá longe de ser um deleite de game design bem feito).

Aqui no AMfP você só tem que achar pra onde ir mesmo (oque não é muito difícil).

Se esse jogo é uma proposta diferente, porque a galera não gosta mt dele? Bom, nesse texto eu pareço estar sendo imparcial com o jogo e bem justo, mas a verdade é q eu achei o jogo bem ruinzinho. Mesmo que você coloque isso na sua cabeça, é difícil tirar o gosto amargo da boca depois de ir pra um puta jogo interessante como o Dark Descent e ir pra esse jogo de andar pra frente (oque por si só não é um defeito).

Porém, o maior problema desse jogo é que ele parece bem incompleto (o que faz sentido, porque originalmente esse jogo ia ser um mod), e nisso, a maior qualidade do jogo, que deveria ser a história e a temática, se perde num "level design preguiçoso" e num "terror inexistente", coisas que um walking simulator nem precisa, mas está gravado na memória do jogador pelo Dark Descent. No fim, a pessoa que joga e não se importa de pesquisar sobre o jogo, acha uma experiência chata.

Por ser um jogo meio rushado, a história sofre muito. Ela tem uns momentos e temas bem interessantes, mas é desfocada, críptica até demais e quando vc finalmente começa a entender, o jogo acaba. Se o jogo tivesse um maior tempo de duração, uma história melhor desenvolvida (e um outro nome?) ele seria quase tão aclamado quanto Soma, como um jogo que mergulha na mentalidade distorcida de um homem que não tem mais nada à amar.

i was receptive to a more narrative based Amnesia title where monster encounters and puzzles took a backseat but this one didn't turn out too well. what little bit of both of those elements the game did have was usually so poor that i would've preferred to not have them at all.

monster designs are okay at a glance, potentially better than ones found in The Dark Descent but from a gameplay standpoint it's a miss. if i'm correct, most of the enemies except for one or two near the end that randomly teleport move on a direct patrol/line which makes them a non-factor.

similarly the puzzles here end up being a lot of carrying objects from one room to another then flipping some switches which is a bummer as the last game had some interesting physics based stuff.

i like some of the aesthetics and the story itself is interesting at times but i'll probably never want to actually play this again.

They weren't joking about the pig part, huh. Like, there's a scene where the villain sends his evil pigmen to kill you while screaming "Kill him my piggies! More pig! MORE PIG!" and that's when you realise how silly this game is. The pig motif gets so worn-out it just feels like a joke and the story gets progressively more over-the-top to insane levels like an army of pigmen that want to destroy humanity and I just can't anymore. I didn't even fully understand what was the initial intention of creating the Machine. Everything regarding Mandus' children and his relationship with them is what ended up impacting me the most, and even then I feel like it's mostly because of the cool soundtrack and atmosphere rather than whatever the writing wanted to accomplish with how unnecessarily obtuse and DEEP the notes and found documents tried to be. Game tries way too hard.

The atmosphere is cool af tho. Rooms full of giant pipes, valves, steam, sealed doors, regulators and lights. That moment when you finally get to the core of the machine and see this giant room full of catwalks, pipes and faint lights is so fucking cool. Even when you go out to the streets the ost make it a really impactful moment, despite how ridiculous the whole situation is.

Anyway, kinda disappointed about the game itself but I was expecting machines and pigs and it met my expectations so I'm good.

Esse é o tipo de game onde a história é melhor q o jogo em si. A história é boa, muito boa aliás, só que aí vem o problema, o jogo é entupido de cartinhas, juro até em momentos de correria tinha uma cartinha no meio pra se ler, é loucura pô, ficava muito massante de se jogar. O jogo não foi feito pela mesma galera do primeiro então é claro o down grade, já que nem da pra pegar todos os itens do cenário. Mas ele tem uma boa atmosfera e um excelente trilha sonora, me falavam que esse jogo era terrível mas não acho...

The whole game is very poetic and fascinating in its ideology, worthwhile playing it just for the sake of the satisfying elegance and eloquence of the notes and dialogues, suffering from a gameplay view sadly. It has one of the darkest stories in the gaming world, and the soundtrack and voice acting are on point. While The Dark Descent's gameplay and use of environment was better, this game counters those strong elements with ıts unique story and ambiance, sadly it can be easily viewed as just a walking sim. It deserved more, but I'm happy to have played it.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs didn’t really impress me in the beginning. It was the sheer lack of mechanics that The Dark Descent did well; the stress of having to find tinderboxes, the loss of sanity, the puzzles with being able to interact with so much of the environment. All of it was missing, initial chapters fairly slow. It was such a stark difference.

But then I started to enjoy it more later on. I think being under the Amnesia name did it damage due to there being certain expectations from the fanbase, and I'll admit I probably judged it too harshly myself. It had its own good moments, and despite the enemies being few, there were still some stealth segments. Sure, it was different and made up mostly of walking, but it wasn't terrible.

Playtime: 5 Hours
Score: 7/10

Another title in the Amnesia series I have finally played, with only Amnesia: The Bunker being left for me. I played through Dark Descent last year, and absolutely loved it despite me never being a fan of hide & seek horror games, but Frictional Games has always been the exception for me. Soma was another great experience, despite being light on gameplay, however I did not like Amnesia: Rebirth at all. That game just didn't click with me and I felt it lacked atmosphere and a compelling narrative. This game however, was developed by The Chinese Room, who make a lot of narrative focused, walking sim games. I personally really liked Dear Esther from them, but didn't really like Everbody's Gone to the Rapture, so I was interested to see their take on an Amnesia game.

A Machine for Pigs is probably the most divisive game in the series and I can see why. It strips away almost all the gameplay elements from Dark Descent, which I am not a fan of them doing that. No inventory or resource management; no healing items as your health regens automatically; you now use an electric lantern as opposed to an oil one, which never runs out; and the puzzles have been severly dumbed down. The puzzles are now just physics based puzzles where you have to physcially pick up items and bring them over to something else to interact with. And I used the term "puzzles" very loosely as most of them can be solved with just simple common sense. You also can barely pick up any items in the world like you can in most Frictional titles, unless its something needed to progress. I just found this disappointing as being able to interact and pick up almost anything in a Frictional game has always added to the immersion for me, and it was sad to see it toned down.

Some things they did get right was the sound design from the music to the sounds the machinery makes as this game is set in 1899, with very industrial themes. However, the sound mixing is not very good, especially if you play with headphones. Everything is just set way too loud. You also can't change individual sound settings such as, music, effects, voice etc.. with there only being one master sound setting. I had to basically turn the master down to half and still lower my headphone volume below what I usually set it too.

As for the horror, its got a decent atmosphere, but its definitely a step down from Dark Descent. The pig men in this game have a cool design, but there AI is really dumb and there easily avoidable, as when they chase you just have to sprint for a few seconds in the oppostie direction and they will just give up on trying to chase you. You also don't really seem to die in this game as when I did "die", my character would just wake up in another part of the level. Interesting though when I "died" the first time, it was a in a room full of cages and when I woke up, I was in a cage that the pig man must have dragged me into. I thought it was nice attention to detail to show the pigs have some level of intelligence.

That does finally bring us to the story which is what I think saves this title. I just found myself very intrigued with what was going on, and I read almost every note that I could find, trying to piece together the narrative. The voice acting is very good which adds to the powerful moments and it gave me some Bioshock vibes in some of its themes. It can feel like a repeat on plot beats from the first game, but I overall really liked it! It gets BATSHIT crazy in the last act and I didn't expect the story to do such a 180 turn!

Overall, the story is easily the best part and is why I'm scoring it higher then I normally would, with all the negatives stacked against it. This I would say is a good, entry level survival horror games for anyone looking to get into the genre. And this is still way better then Rebirth in my book.

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

I found Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs to be much more entertaining than The Dark Descent.

First off, this game does get some negative points because they removed a lot of the fun physics from the Dark Descent.

The sound design in Pigs was honestly really fucking good. Early in the game where you hear stomping behind a door, when you open it, something starts banging on the door, then it stops and walks away, feels like a real 3D space. The Music is also pretty fucking good. The music in Dark Descent isnt bad, the few pieces it has are cool, but the fucking strings in Pigs is just :0.

I found the story to be more entertaining than Dark Descent's. I don't really feel like trying to determine which is a "better" story, I just know Dark Descent's is kind of dull to me, while Pig's had me hooked more. Like the set piece when you go back to the city and the Pigs are fucking destroying everything. My god, the sound design, the music, and horror of it all, all done so amazing.

I found myself actually worried about the monsters in this game. The monsters in Dark Descent have nothing to them, Except the water monster (easily the best moment of Dark Descent), and this is just because when you die, nothing is reset except your position. So you can literally just run by monsters and not care at all, they arent a threat. Now Machine for Pigs also runs like this, it doesn't reset puzzles and only resets you, but there aren't a lot of puzzles, so it makes you have to move through a section matters more. They also used "monster chases you for a set piece" a lot more effectively.
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Also kind of want to go on a tangent about the stigma against walking sims here. I can understand why people would want gameplay in a video game, but I don't get the point in negatively reviewing a walking sim type game and saying that there is little gameplay; thats like negatively reviewing a fps for having guns. I understand that maybe coming from the Dark Descent people were put off that this was more linear and "easier" puzzles, but this game wanted to focus more on telling a story.
And I hate the argument of "well I could just watch a movie instead" that is brought up with these arguments because a movie is not going to have the same interactivity as a game, even if the game has no risks for the player. A movie might be more entertaining maybe, but movies are NOT going to let you walk around in a virtual world to explore, and see the sights.

𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐨𝐧
#𝟏𝟎 𝐀𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚: 𝐀 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐢𝐠𝐬

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a bad sequel. Compared to Dark Descent it has no item management, no inventory, less stuff you can interact with in the environment, a significantly shorter run time, and much MUCH simpler puzzles. It took most of the aspects I liked from Dark Descent and threw them all away to make a horror game trapped inside of a walking simulator. Now here’s the real interesting question, why do I like this more then Dark Descent?

Realistically I should be annoyed or even angry that my favorite aspects of DD are missing and have been replaced with the “horror” and narrative of the game primarily. But here’s the thing, DD had an amazingly beautiful and spooky mood and architecture; but besides a few areas near the beginning and last hour of the game I can’t remember the details of each area, and I’m gonna be real here chief I don’t think any of the monster look scary in DD. Now put that into context for AMFP, not only do I love the setting more than DD (turn of the century Victorian London is one of my favorite places in historic storytelling) but I love the architecture and scope of the titular machine.

In DD Brennenburg castle was a joy to get lost in but a huge complacent I still have with it is that after a while the dark cobblestone halls or the bloody dungeons all start looking kinda samey. I’m not saying they look bad on an artistic level but just after more then 7 or so hours of exploring this castle all the areas start bleeding together in my head, and I just finished the game a few weeks ago. In comparison I find the incomprehensive large machine I explore left me with a much more long lasting sense of dread and horror. The sound of the hissing and groning of this machine as I plunged ever deeper into the darkness never failed to unnerve me and make me feel small and insignificant. This machine is so large and wide reaching I left almost like a small insect crawling deeper and deeper into a lovecraftian nightmare. I’m not normally scared of things like gore or monsters or even psychological horror to an extent; no what I’m more afraid of is something I don’t know if you’d call relatable or pathetic but it’s darkness, I know that sounds stupid like yeah no shit everyone is afraid of darkness it's a basic human fear; but I don’t know how to explain it but the darkness is just something that creeps me out. It’s that pitch black nothingness that really gets to me, that sense of anything could be out there, that feeling of hopelessness closing in around you suffocating the last bastion of life before nothing is left, the quiet emptiness; that’s what scares me, DD didn’t really give me that vibe shockley but AMFP absolutely did.
The machine itself is loud, large, and claustrophobic, as you enter the church where your descent begins the quiet night of the london night and the moonline that beamed down upon you disappears, replace with the sounds of firing pistons, grinding gears,, squealing sounds from inhuman monsters, and the hissing of steam from the pips. The longer you descend into a monstrosity of copper and steel the darker it gets, with the only light coming from your lantern reflecting on the hot metal of the machine as everything else is drowned out by the machine, it a literal descent into the man made hell of our protagonist much more so than daniel’s decent in DD.

Maybe I’m on some strong ass copium but idk I just really liked this game man. Sure it’s not a great sequel to DD but honestly I’d love it if this series went the way of what John Carpenter tried to do with the Halloween series after Halloween 2. Instead of each game being a sequel to one another following the same world, lore and monsters, I’d love to see something more like what AMFPs tried to do. Reincorporating some of the same ideas and cour themes from DD but spinning off and making your own thing completely with a new setting, monsters, and story, something like Creepshow or Twilight Zone but for video games. I’m pretty sure an idea like that would never work for video games since gamers are entitled little shits but I think if executed the right way an idea like that has potentially boundless potential, yeah I know there are 2 other sequels in this series that I’m pretty sure fellow in the same world and lore of DD; what with all the lovecraftian orbs and interdimensional ghost bullshit. But I’m serious, an idea like that could potentially be a gold mine of creative ideas to flourish not just for Amnesia.

I’ve found, oftentimes, when a work exists relative to another work — be it a sequel, adaptation, etc. — that the general audience has a tendency to judge it purely by its relation to the original. “Loyalty” becomes the touchstone for which the work is defined, and should it feel significantly different from the original, or change things in adaptation, it’ll be decried as a bad work compared to the original, regardless of its actual quality separated from that context. Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, from what I understand, was no stranger to this type of reception. On its original release, in 2013, it was criticized for feeling much more stripped back compared to what it was following up on. Core mechanics that defined Amnesia: The Dark Descent, such as managing your inventory, fueling your light source, and making sure you don’t lose your sanity were not present within Machine For Pigs, in an attempt to gear the game as more of a narrative experience, as was the modus operandi of primary developer The Chinese Room. It was a tall order — especially given just how popular and influential The Dark Descent was for indie horror — and sadly reception proved to be rather mixed because of that. What the general audience wanted was something reminiscent of the original work, and when the process of creating a follow-up resulted in something far different, it was rejected: not on its own merits, but because of outside expectations that this work didn’t entirely cater to.

So it’s a little funny on my end that of all the Amnesia titles, this is the one random chance chose for me to play first. Having not played, or even watched much of anything else to do with the series, I’m coming into this divorced from a lot of the context or outside expectations that surrounded the game on its release. I wouldn’t necessarily feel this game to be stripped back in terms of mechanics, since I never had an understanding of those mechanics in the first place. I wouldn’t think about this game in comparison to the original Amnesia… mostly because I prefer to view things on their own merits, but because I came into the experience absent any previous experience. It’s far from the first game in the series (especially if you consider Amnesia as a spiritual sequel to Penumbra), but, personally, this one would be my first foray into it, and, likely, the blueprint for what I'd expect to see should I delve further into this series.

You play as Osmund Mandus, a wealthy industrialist, who wakes up from a coma of several months right on the last day of the 19th century (or, well, actually a year from the last day of the 19th century, but shhhhhh) to find that his two children are nowhere to be found. His search takes him through his manor, through the streets and sewers of Victorian London, listening to the directions of a mysterious man on the telephone who tells him he knows where his sons are. He’s eventually led into one of his factories, and through this factory, towards a machine of unknown aim and infinite proportions. As he gets closer, however, Osmund finds that the workers of the machine are anything but human, and that he might know more about the machine than he seems to think...

I think this game’s strongest point was its narrative. I think the writing did a good job of getting me to know and like the characters, and I was particularly into the varied, wild directions the plot happened to go. Beyond how effective it is at building up a mystery — and drip-feeding the player information as it slowly unfurls — I think what I really loved is that this is a story that operates on multiple textual levels. While you’re fully capable of taking the game at face value without really feeling like you’re missing out on anything, this is something that begs to be read a little deeper. Particularly, one can question how literal the events going on even are, with a knowledge of Victorian England potentially providing an indication that the events that are depicted… perhaps could be interpreted as a metaphor for something much less fantastical. I made a point to look up plot details after the game specifically because I wanted to know more, which to me I’d say is a compliment as to how much this game made me want to think about it.

As a horror game, I’d also say it’s solidly effective. The nighttime environments feel suitably dark without it being absolutely impossible to see anything (which, believe me, so many games can’t seem to get right). There’s a subtle sense — through how the sounds you keep hearing are the only things that break through the silence, how empty the streets of London are — that something is wrong from the start, driving the core mystery and providing an aura of unease as you delve deeper through the game. I’m also into the way things… escalate as the game goes on: from down to earth as you explore your mansion, then veering into the fantastical as the monsters begin to show up, then more and more off the rails the further you delve into the heart of the machine. The sections with monsters are simple, but effective stealth sections, with their presence feeling imposing enough to make the player not want to mess up. When you’re caught, or when the game dispenses with the idea of stealth, enemies are loud as they rush you down, inspiring a blind panic as you try to figure out how you’re meant to get away. It’s the little things that contribute to a horror game’s atmosphere — and mean just as much as any big setpiece or scare — and in regards to the micro level, I think this game does pretty well on that front.

Where it falters, I feel, is mostly in direct gameplay. Less the ‘walking simulator’ aspect, more when the game throws puzzles at you. They’re mostly fine, but what it really suffers from is a lack of… indication of how your actions affect the world around you. Oftentimes, I’d solve a puzzle, the game would acknowledge that I solved a puzzle… and then I’d have no clue what to do next, either the puzzle requiring an extra step that wasn’t quite clear (at one point I thought the game had glitched and softlocked me), or because the game has issues with signposting where exactly the player needs to go. There were so many points where the game was like “walk down the path we’ve set for you” but the path was in a large enough area that I got lost, or the way forward was absolutely coated in darkness that I couldn’t see it. I kept looking at guides, not for any of the puzzles, but for a lot of what was in-between, when it… really did not feel like that was what the game had intended, nor something that particularly felt like a ‘me’ problem.

Other than that — and divorced from whatever context that might have given me different expectations, or any sort of in-built comparison — I felt that this was a fairly solid narrative game. While a lot of the gameplay, and most of the segments where I was walking from place to place, felt like they could’ve been made more clear, I felt the horror to be rather effective, and the story to be something super worth delving into and interpreting. As my personal first experience with this series, I felt like this was a fairly decent introduction. Can't wait to be shocked that the next game in the series has actual mechanics. 6/10.

Tiraram tudo que fazia o primeiro jogo incrível em favor de focar na história. O problema é que a execução não foi bem feita, abusaram demais de notas que tu acha pelo cenário, o que tornou o recurso repetitivo e chato. Mesmo se o que escreveram fosse incrível e maravilhoso, o que não é o caso, simplesmente não faria diferença alguma no fim.

Foi uma péssima escolha tirar o sistema de sanidade característico do primeiro, deixar a lamparina infinita, não ter puzzles mais complexos que só abaixar alavancas e girar manivelas, tirar o inventário e os itens, foi tudo um downgrade absurdo. Simplesmente acabaram com a aflição e a atmosfera que o The Dark Decent tinha.

Sem falar nos crashs recorrentes e sem sentido que o jogo ainda tem.

Se quiser minha opinião, só joga o primeiro e esquece desse.

Trading in the gothic Lovecraftian terror of The Dark Descent for... politically allegorical steampunk(?) A Machine For Pigs nevertheless plays very similar.
The machine based 'puzzles' are entertaining enough, the level design is slicker and more varied, the atmosphere just as thick.
However, the game just feels much easier and far less threatening, particularly as your character can run safely past most of the game with or without his bottomless lantern, unphased psychologically by the shadows and monsters. This makes it a case of simply getting from A to B.
It's a fine adventure, but far less compelling, as the plunge into human atrocities is rather mild compared to the torture chambers of the predecessor; the allegory of pigs and poverty also becomes tiresome.
Still, it's an Amnesia game at heart, and will no doubt give you a fright or two.

"You see, the pigs are a metaphor for how disenfranchised and dehumanised an industrialised and capitalist society sees its workers."

Yeah, yeah... I get it.
... very clever.
Game is just boring though.

Also this Pig-Motif gets worked to death so hard that it just looses all of its effectiveness and then some more to even make it unintentionally funny.

Review EN/PTBR

Much simpler than the first game and I think it had a cool premise but in the end I don't feel it was as well very executed as expected, it's not a bad game but it ends up being judged more rigorously from the fact is a Amnesia title.

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Muito mais simples que o primeiro jogo mas que eu senti que tinha uma pequena premissa daora mas que no final não sinto sendo tão bem executada quando o esperado, não é um jogo ruim mas acaba sendo julgado mais rigorosamente a partir do momento que possuí o nome Amnesia em seu título.