Reviews - Voyage of Horror mod for Amnesia: The Dark Descent

A fantastic , beautifully made mod.

This was pretty enjoyable! To start things off this is probably my favourite mod of the author so far, whose work I found mostly controversial in other mods such as the Hunting Grounds series. It looks like the solo format worked out better for this one. I will break down my points into 3 categories below.

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Good:

- The design is very atmospheric, and uses the content from AMFP well, with a pinch of Amadeus and other larger projects from the past in there.
- The outside sections is particular looked sublime!
- Monsters were overall good choices for the theme, even the AI being stupid - on the first one - in some ways helped the concepts behind it (being an undeveloped child or so).
- The recurring monster had GOOD MUSIC. This is very rare in custom stories, where music usually just takes away any surprise factor an encounter might have. Here it finely increased tension.
- Music overall was enjoyable, kudos to the composer!
- Player goals were clear, and I like the way progression was set up.
- Puzzles are nothing too refreshing, but for the author's first scripting work, they do the job fine in most cases, and aren't overcomplicated without clues (didn't have to check a walkthrough once).
- The bossfight was quite enjoyable with the point above in mind, nice of you to include such a thing for the finale!

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Mediocre:

- Voice acting had overall better quality than I remember in the Hunting Groudn series where I often felt like they lean into very low quality.
- The actors however didn't really resonate/relate all that well with their characters, but for the amount that was put in there, it was okay.
- I didn't like the little subsections at first that held seemingly nothing on first glance, but later on with the Lab puzzle they all made sense. However in these later sections I think you introduced a bit too much backtracking that might set some players off (especially the 3 keys in the other world!)
- Player character reacts strangely to certain smaller events, like no scare / concern when seeing the blood pool did indeed belong to his wife (that he mentioned earlier).
- Resources such as oil and tinderboxes were a bit too excessive when it comes to amounts, and I wasn't really trying to save them.
- I didn't really see a reason why so many blockboxes and static objects were placed. In AMFP, the reason was for you can focus on the story and narration, but in here I'd say that was a bit unnecessary because..

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Bad / Things to improve next time:

- The story was not nearly as complex to actually be Lovecraftian. I felt like creatures from the mithology were included in some texts only to justify this designation. The areas while being nice also lacked the weird aspect of said mithology, and the "other world" looked way too much like the one we started in. To give an example, the narration mentioned irregular shapes, or black spheres on the sky, but we didn't really even see ANY sky there once..
- The setting and the buildup lacked any kind of mysticism to further reinforce above statement.
In gameplay we saw nothing supernatural for a while and the player actions nicely unfolded, while on the other hand we were bombarded with squid creatures on the loading screen and an obsession with the unknown that felt like it served no purpose.
- All that would have been forgiven, especially as the author's first solo work on a story, if the proofreading / english in general wasn't downright AWFUL. Please ask someone with native or at least experienced english for proofreading, as it really broke immersion almost every time I was reading a note.

All in all, I liked this mod. I think that tackling a lovecraftian theme requires a bit more story complexity, and a lot more work in the proofreading department. Good job on making it on your own, but don't hesitate to call upon help next time if you need it!

Feel free to submit this as-is on the Steam Workshop with the next update applied (and mentioned proofreading if you can help it), you could benefit from more players playing it there!
If you don't mind a bit of extra work you can even make use of my AMFP asset pack submitted there with instructions, but at this stage of the mod that is highly optional, just spend the well deserved rest.

EDIT: Some of the issues have been corrected, and I added proofreading myself, so the mod is now closer to a 8.5.

Positives:

- Creativity, like using entities in different ways than their intended purpose and make it look good

- Well crafted visual design in more or less every level, with only minor flaws

- Good monster encounters, when they worked properly

- Some thought put into balancing. The boss at the end dealt less damage than other monsters so you actually had a chance to beat it

- Composing your own music for the mod is a great feature and shows passion

Negatives:

- Some lamps light up very little, while moonlight lights up entire rooms with light rays. I do not understand why so many modders think moonlight work this way. It doesn't

- Story is another cliché "portal to another dimension" amnesia plot. It lacks character development so it's not easy to care about the missing wife, either

- Odd puzzle design. Like, the big gap in the floor in the servant's quarters. The solution is literally right next to the obstacle... so why even bother? When creating the acid, the note mentions "liquid salt base", but further down the note it's called "red substance". Why the inconsistency? I also had to find a bone inside the Mausoleum, but I went to find the poison gland first and found a pile of human bones right next to the old building with the poison gland inside. Why could I not pick up a bone there? Why does it have to be a specific bone inside a specific place?

- Some puzzles lack hints and are not easy to figure out. Like putting a candle next to a door to unlock it

- Boss at the end got stuck easily. On one occasion, a monster stopped moving and never moved again after hearing me once, an issue I've seen with some other custom monsters

- Almost nothing can be interacted with for some reason and the few times you can interact with something it's typically things like boxes you forgot to check "static" on, so when you move it you have a candle floating in the air. Classic beginner mistake. There are a massive amount of invisible walls everywhere too. It's okay to let players **** up and take fall damage if they choose to take the risk, you know. Some puzzles, like the candle door puzzle, would softlock players out, but you could code in some death animation from taking too much fall damage there if players fall down

- The soundtracks aren't bad per say, but some of them are used too often. One of them in particular is only 3-7 seconds long and loops over and over again. It gets annoying quickly

Minor things:

- Tinderboxes are pointless. This is the case in most mods including my own I made back in the day, but here it was even worse because the few times tinderboxes could actually be useful, the candles could not be lit

- I don't expect good voice acting for mods. My old mods are quite bad when it comes to voice acting too. However, if you want a character to speak English, try casting a native English speaker if possible. The Swedish accent makes it cringe at times

- Grammar wasn't terrible, but I would ask someone else to proofread your mod in the future as they missed some obvious issues, like using the wrong form of "its" for example

Conclusion:

The environment design looks great from a visual standpoint. There were minor issues with it, like some copy pasted bookshelves that made it look lazy, and of course the moonlight that makes no sense, but overall it was very well done.

I think this is another case of a passionate modder lacking experience with game design and as a result we have a mediocre plot and puzzles that leaves a lot to be desired. While overall I think it's an okay mod, I have to commend the massive amount of time (probably) you put into the levels. You even got yourself a music composer and other people to help you out with this. That to me shows dedication and is definitely a plus.

6/10 - Decent

Positives:

-Good level design. Especially the outside areas
-Terrifying and unexpected monster encounters
-Good voice acting

Neutrals / Nitpicks:

-Too little oil
-Occasional grammar / spelling mistakes

Negatives:

-Vague puzzles
-Underwhelming story
-Repetitive music

Story: 6/10

Unfortunately a miss. The "unknown", which the protagonist and the wife were both intriqued on, was never really explained. Overall, the story followed the usual Amnesia cliché story, which is acceptable enough but nothing groundbreaking.

Level Design: 7/10

Pretty good and consistent all around. The outside areas looked good, but some of the areas inside the manor were a bit too simple and not too unique. Still, the mod was visually pleasing.

Scare Factor: 7/10

While the mod lacked atmospherical scariness, the intense monster encounters surely made up for it. They were beyond terrifying, especially the one in the Guest/Servant's rooms.

Puzzles: 6/10

Nothing unique, but disappointing at times. Many times, I was forced to do some unnecessary backtracking and I was lost way too many times. Still, enjoyable enough for the most part. The dropped armor was confusing, as was the needle.

Overall: 6.5 = 7/10.

Much better than Hunting Ground: Afterlife. A decently good custom story.

Amazing!!

very awesome cs