Reviews - maddox078

I've been playing a handful of other custom stories lately, but this is the only one to do to me what the original game did the first few times I played it. It still feels good to have to pause the game every once in a while to regain both you and your character's sanity. This developer seems to understand an important concept that divides horror games from movies, and also why the games are so much more nerve wracking. In multiple places throughout the story you are forced to actively use your wits for quick escapes and hiding, half the time a monster may go away, the other half they'll decide to stick around and try and chum it up with you. Those times they stick around are what give it such a frightening edge, as you are stuck sneaking around your enemies, but also you're often times left simply running like hell. This variety keeps out the monotony of actions we know all too well. It also utilizes a handful of jump scares, something that the best stories do without, but it's the timing and well planned jump scares that make them an additive and integral part of the overall experience. The level runs very smoothly as most rooms are separated by portals from every other, leading to frequent but expedited load times. My only complaint lies in the need for a bit more emphasis on the story, though that's likely to be elaborated on as the protagonist ventures further into wherever it is he is exploring/escaping, there still could have been a bit more to entice you and to leave you with cliffhangers to answer in the next installment, but since there is a lack of information, it gets hard to let your imagination come up with worst case scenarios for what might be going on and what might just happen to you.

A good overall level with both strong pros and some detracting cons. The first thing I noted were the first few notes in the beginning that set an uneasy mood that not even the actual story for Amnesia had managed to do. The other thing that it did particularly well was managing scarcity in the amount of physical scares so that even the slightest voice echoing in the background was enough to make you jump. In its proficiency, it cleverly utilizes a torch as a graspable light source when your lantern fails you, and also introduces the fastest damn monster you're likely to ever see in any map. The only cons I could find were the very short loops of background music that became quite rapidly irritating in their monotony, and that any object one needed was likely to be found in a completely obscure place that could have someone scouring for hours as a player's own paranoia turns their brain to tapioca. All in all it's a good level that knows not only how to set a mood, but also how to emphasize it with very well placed events, and only suffers from what could be considered nothing more than annoyances.