[ja2ke]

Amnesia is fantastic example of using gameplay mechanics and rules to create mood.

Amnesia wants to use its interlocking game systems to make you feel afraid: You stay sane longer in the light. You have a limited amount of lamp oil with which to create light. Monsters make you insane (and kill you). Monsters can see you better in the light. Monsters make you go insane more quickly if you look directly at them (in the style of Lovecraft, gazing on things you should not see rend your mind).

The end result of this is a pretty wonderful set of rule balancing where, upon seeing a monster, the player immediately douses their lamp and hides in a dark corner staring at the wall, slowly going insane from a horror they cannot look at, knowing that looking at it will make them go truly mad, and turning on light for comfort will bring them a swift death.

It helps that on the art side, the visuals and audio are all built around creating and enhancing the mood, of course, but it's rare that there are a bunch of interlocking systems which can shape your behavior in a way that's that harmonious with an expected emotional output, a mood, tone, etc.

The game is rough around the edges and definitely created by a small team, but what it achieves is pretty rare.

[Jach]

From the same publisher is the earlier Penumbra series, anyone who's only played Amnesia should definitely play those too. My favorite was the second one, Black Plague, and I think for all that Amnesia does right, Black Plague does it better. (I think it was even in one of the Bundles before but I'm not sure.) Amnesia has gained a lot of traction with the modders, though, and it's sometimes interesting to see what other people cook up. (The mods tend to rely too much on "jump scares" however, just like pretty much everyone else besides Frictional Games. They do it too, just not as much.)

[lloeki]

> I think it was even in one of the Bundles before but I'm not sure.

That was actually Penumbra: Overture