Reviews - DBuilder

Another excellent inclusion to not only the Entropy: Zero universe, but to the Half-Life universe as a whole. Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see what comes next!

Excellent mod! Thank you so much! Great maps, great fight sequences. My only issue is that the shooting is a little wonky; when hip firing or ADS-ing, the bullets go all over the place, and I take more damage than I give out. And not enough ammo for the M1 Garand. Otherwise, I loved it. Thank you again for a great Half-Life 2 experience.

This is truly an excellent mod for Amnesia. It has a little bit of everything. Mostly for me was the environments. The mansion was huge and there were lots of rooms to explore. I also thought that this was a nice mix of both the Dark Descent and Machine for Pigs. The models from both games were used together here and it all looked really great. It was cool having both the servants and man-pigs in an Amnesia story together. Speaking of story, this was very interesting. When I first downloaded and played this, I had no idea that this took place after the also excellent custom story Escape from Brackenburg, so when I read a note saying that the manor was built upon the ruins of Brackenburg castle, I immediately knew what I was in for and it made me worried.

All an all a superb Custom Story.

This total conversion for Amnesia was the perfect way to wrap up the Penumbra story. Now I feel as if Philip's story is actually complete and this mod is a must have for fans of Penumbra!

The environments were nice and creepy and gave the feel of a place that was ravaged by both epidemic and time. I'm glad we got to see more of the Shelter facility and also got to revisit some from Black Plague.

The puzzles were good although sometimes it would take me a while to figure a few out, and one or two times I had to watch someone's playthrough. But that didn't happen too often and I was able to figure out how to progress.

I did not experience any bugs that were obvious and the only time the game crashed was sometimes when it was loading a new area. After starting up the game again and reloading the area, it ran fine. In fact, the game ran incredibly stable and I was able to save and quit without things getting buggy which happens to me a lot with total conversions and custom stories. Also while the frame-rate was low near the start, it eventually evened out after a while.

Really, the only problem I had technical-wise was setting up my controls. As such, I could not lean around corners so there were times I had to completely move around a corner to see if an enemy was nearby and he was able to see me and chase me down.

Speaking of enemies, while it was nice that the Hunter was added, it got really annoying whenever we had to cross paths (which I guess was the point) and I was only BARELY able to get away from it without taking one or two hits. There were also times when I was constantly low on pain-killers and batteries so I was walking in the dark a lot (but then I reminded myself that at least I was not losing sanity).

This is also quite a long mod which is really good. There were time when I thought it was going to end only to have the story keep going. It never got repetitive or boring (except when I had no idea what to do) and when I did figure a puzzle out it felt very rewarding.

There are a few things about the story I was confused about and wished could have been resolved. Such as what was the fates of Amabel Swanson, Clarence, Red and Howard. I can come up with a few explanations for myself but otherwise I guess it was to be implied that none of them had actually come back to life except Philip.

All in all, this was simply an excellent mod that perfectly captured the feel and game-play of the original Penumbra games and offers many challenges that ultimately rewards the player with a conclusion to the story.

The Trapdoor is an overall excellent custom story for Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

While the inspiration for this story was a little strange, it was executed perfectly once transferred to the Amnesia universe and therefore was made all the more terrifying. By reading the notes I was not going to be opening that trapdoor anytime soon. As I was walking through the basement area, and had times where I had to go past it, it seemed to radiate an evil purpose.

The maps were beautifully done. The upstairs areas had a great Brennenburg Castle feel and the basement was very catacomb-like. The basement is probably the most interesting part of the game. With the limited tinderboxes it becomes very disorienting (although I guess you get a taste of that when you first enter them. I'm talking about the wonky staircase right at the start of the area). I was also fond of the garden area that one comes across, it looked very beautiful.

Finally, I need to talk about this story's original mechanic. The Boney-sanity mechanic. This is an interesting twist on Amnesia's sanity. In order for monsters to appear at all, you need to lose your sanity (and even if they are in your head, they still hurt you). In order to keep yourself together, you need to carry something familiar, in this case the skull Boney. Instead of relying on Sanity Potions or lit-areas, you can pick him up and your wits will be restored. This comes at a price, however, as there are times you'll need to leave him in order to accomplish tasks. This makes it a challenge to, say, un-barricade a door and get back to the skull before the monsters come out. You only have a limited time. There are times when it is a pain to carry him around but that adds a bit of difficulty and fun.

I did not have too much trouble with bugs or crashes (and I'm certain the patch helped) but whenever I quit and came back, the game did not break and that is a great plus.

So thank you Aetheric games for a very memorable story!

A simply excellent custom story that defines what a Amnesia custom story should strive to be. Dark, haunted atmosphere, a large mansion with plenty of rooms to explore, lots of eye-candy, content from all the Amnesia games, and a new monster to torment you.

The only bugs I encountered where with the elevator, in that it did not have a floor, and that the doors on it would fly away once I reached a floor. Other than that, the story ran smoothly. I liked the addition of the book of matches to light the candles and torches also.

This was just an overall great experience and is definitely a keeper.