These 'fear' evidences are also triggered by frightening experiences Daniel may have, such as supernatural occurrences, or simply seeing one of the inhabitants of the castle. But if Daniel is scared, this will be accompanied by a very eerie scratching noise that you'll be able to recall all-too-easily well after the game is over. Even while 'sane,' there are screams, moans, and footsteps peppered throughout the game that are specific to each area, garnering a consistent uneasiness. There are also audio events that are potentially even more disorienting. In particularly insane moments, he will hallucinate bugs crawling across the screen. This is evidenced through visual cues such as the field of vision slowly morphing, moving and blurring, with colors bleeding into others. If Daniel is in the dark, he will gradually lose his mind. Light, or the lack thereof, plays an important part in the flow of the game. There is no success to be found in throwing caution to the wind. This leads to another way the game inspires fear: To succeed, the player must play the game as if afraid. He is scared of the dark, scared of the creatures in the castle, and completely defenseless. Where most games give the protagonist some sort of unnatural strength and courage to blindly traverse into the darkest caverns and find a way to participate in some form of hand-to-hand combat with its inhabitants, our main character Daniel is utterly human. While the story is compelling, the gameplay itself is what makes Amnesia: The Dark Descent such a unique experience.

However, none of this explains just what makes the game so frightening. The ongoing narrative of the game is assuredly interesting, and is seemingly held to a higher-standard of storytelling that was more commonplace in the heyday of adventure games rather than the 'action-makes-up-for-story' approach often found in popular games today. The placement of some of these excerpts will seem nonsensical at times, but they do well to keep the forward momentum of the game intact. The remainder of the storyline is explained through texts found throughout the game world in the form of diary entries from Daniel himself, as well as historical logs that serve to fill out the back-story, similar to the method of narrative delivery found in the original survival-horror title, Alone in the Dark.

To provide any more specific explanation of the plot-line would spoil the experience, but trust that while this approach to a prologue may seem trite at first, it is fleshed out wonderfully, and ultimately integral to the narrative. One line sticks out immediately: 'I choose to forget.' Questions are bound to result: So Daniel gave himself amnesia somehow? How would he have done that? What was so horrible that he voluntarily wiped his memory clean to forget it? These questions and more will beg to be answered throughout the entirety of the game. The narrative kicks off with a letter found close by that was written by the main character prior to becoming amnesiac, identifying him as Daniel. The game begins in a castle and - as suggested by the title - with the protagonist stricken with amnesia.

Amnesia the dark descent length