In Amnesia: A Coward's Debt, you take the role of Jean, who searches his home for answers. Unlike my previous custom story, The Great Work, which contains in excess of thirty maps, this story contains only three detailed maps, but is full of character drama to make up for it! I will be using assets from The Dark Descent, Justine, and Machine for Pigs, and there will be another brand new custom enemy. Justine and Machine for Pigs will not be required in order to play this Custom Story.
This review may contain spoilers
I feel rather conflicted about this mod. Much of it is extremely well-made, yet as a whole, I did not enjoy it. It was engaging, but ultimately unsatisfying.
The level design is excellent, as is the custom NPC. The puzzles are also innovative with a good moderate difficulty. There is also a nice build-up of tension before any real encounters.
However, I really disliked the atmosphere and story. The use of many assets from MFP, combined with borrowing heavily from Justine, gave just that impression - a cross between MFP and Justine. The gramophone trope in particular struck me as relatively unoriginal. The use of one single location - 'purgatory mansion' - also made for a lack of diversity in the setting, which made the environment a bit monotonous.
This is all forgivable, but I found the story to be the most frustrating part. It is not 'bad writing' per se - the plot is coherent and unfolds at a balanced pace. It does not resolve itself well, however, and there is an issue with how it plays our sense of sympathy. Various events make us feel rather cold towards all of the characters involved (except for Jean's wife, arguably). Many of the things that happen in the story appear unreasonable. Jean's greed is unreasonable and his partner's reaction (becoming a crazy murderer) is also unreasonable. This means that we do not understand the motivations of the characters. Most of all, Jean's punishment is more than unreasonable; it is completely cruel and renders the ending (the ending I got at least, in which I did save Evangelyne) utterly unsatisfying, even anger-inducing. I understand that there are multiple endings, and if there is one where you can escape, the way to do so should be made more obvious. Otherwise the whole custom story is somewhat ruined for anybody who did not notice whatever secret option there is to take.
In the Amnesia main game, we had to deal with various black and grey shades of morality, but we could understand and sympathise with the motivations of all the characters (and all of the endings are redeeming in some way, even the 'bad' one). In Justine we are left with much more ambiguous questions about human behavior and morality, and in that one, we can also understand our protagonist's motivations to some extent. This mod's story, however, revolves around nothing but suffering; and worse, it feels as if none of it had to happen, so it seems to be pointless suffering. A horror game needs some positive motivations, some degree of legitimate sympathy and hope, or the only reason to keep playing is to solve the puzzles and reach the finish line. And even then, the finish line rings with depressing disappointment at our protagonist's fate.