A new day, a new trailer. Today we demonstrate some exploration and puzzle solving in Amnesia, quite the opposite to our previous gameplay trailer.

Read the latest blog post for some background info on the creation of the puzzle seen in the video.

In case your memory is lacking, we are only 1 week away from the 8th of September release date. Stay tuned for more goodies to come during the following days.

Pre-order now and save 10%!
http://www.amnesiagame.com

Discuss this article in the forum.

Today we posted a new video to our YouTube Channel. Mikko Tarmia takes us on a tour of his studio and talks about the making of the music for Amnesia.

Thanks to the over 2000 pre-orders that we got for Amnesia, we made an ingame commentary system. While playing Amnesia you will have the option to turn on commentaries and listen to over 60 minutes of chitchat about the creation of the game.

With this video we give you a little taste, more will come before the release of Amnesia. Make sure to read the latest blog post from Thomas that talks about the making of the commentary.

Pre-order now and save 10%!
http://www.amnesiagame.com

Discuss this article in the forum.

Helsingborg, Sweden, 27/8 – 2010

We at Frictional Games are happy to announce that Amnesia: The Dark Descent has gone gold. We are extremely pleased with our creation and cannot wait to unleash our bundle of madness on the 8th of September. We feel that we have taken a giant leap forward compared to our previous games, the Penumbra series.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a first person horror game with a focus on immersion. It is a game where atmosphere and story comes first. We hope that the game will be a breeze of fresh air, in a genre otherwise populated by "one-man-army action hero" sagas. In Amnesia you are almost completely defenseless, something we believe not only makes the game a lot scarier, but also gives a vastly different experience.

On the 8th of September, an interactive nightmare where reality is a fragile concept awaits.

Do you have what it takes to survive?

Details - Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Price: $20.
Available: http://store.frictionalgames.com and most major online retailers.
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X & Linux.
Languages: English - with localized text for French, German, Italian & Spanish.
Recommended Computer Specifications:

• Windows XP/Vista/7, OS X 10.5.8/10.6.4 or Linux distribution released in 2010.
• NVIDIA GeForce 6 / ATI Radeon HD.
• 2.0 Ghz CPU.
• 2 GB RAM.
• 2.5 GB Free hard disk space.

My hands tremble as I write this and my mind is left weakened by the things I have witnessed. The contents of this message might be too terrible and unspeakable to believe, but I assure you that it is all very real. For the sake of us all, I urge you, dear Reader, to keep an open mind, and very seriously consider the matters which I am about to disclose.

You might be familiar with "Amnesia: The Dark Descent", a sort of interactive horror experience supposedly run on Personal Difference Engines. Exposure to it is said to induce nightmares, evoke strong sensations of fear and even reports of involuntary hospitalization has surfaced. Foggy details can be found at its electronic net dwelling, www.AmnesiaGame.com, but it proved not nearly enough to satisfy my curiosity. I felt an urge to learn more about this stygian binary apprehension and decided to seek out its infamous creator, Frictional Games. To do so I had to travel to the remote port town of Helsingborg, located in the dark southern depths of Sweden.

Upon arrival I was overwhelmed by a distinct sense of discomfort. This feeling escalated as I started to ask the townspeople of Frictional Games' whereabouts. People seemed to shudder by the mere mentioning of the name, refusing to reveal anything which could lead me in the right direction. Only by bribing a local drunkard was I able to find out more about the creators of "Amnesia: The Dark Descent". Disturbing details emerged from the old man's frantic babble, haunting my mind as I followed his directions toward the supposed workshop. Approaching my destination, alleyways grew narrower, edifices more imposing and the townsfolk increasingly withdrawn and repugnant.

After an unnerving stroll I found the sought-for address and faced a derelict building, oozing of decay and eons of neglect. Stepping inside I found the walls filled with strange drawings that grew more and more vexing the further in I got. God knows what drove me, trembling as I was, but my thirst for knowledge was strong and I eventually ventured into the house's underground quarters. Greeting me there was a picture that truly chilled me to the core. So blasphemous was the eldritch creature painted on the canvas, that a mere glimpse almost put me in a frenzied panic. This was not the work of sane men.

The space opened up into a gloomy room with a row of cells at the far end. I carefully approached one of the barred compartments and lit a match to investigate it closer. An overwhelming rush of fear, so strong that I thought my heart would stop, shot through my veins. The lit match fell from my numb fingers and was immediately snuffed by the damp stone floor. Desperately I scrambled to get out and ran towards the door. In my panic I snatched a few documents and stumbled out of that wicked house, fighting my way through the dark alleys, determined to leave this god forsaken land forever.

As I write this, I am browsing through the documents I found, a couple of which I have attached to this message. I have come across a terrible passage, detailing the date of release for this monstrous creation. On the 8th of September 2010 the stars will align and "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" will be unleashed upon the world. I fear for us all.

You might wonder dear Reader, what startled me so inside that murky cellar. Behind those rotten metal bars, a pair of loathsome eyes stared back at me. The ungodly cellar-room painting was not the work of some twisted mind's imagination – it was a portrait!

Music - Daniel's Room

Helsingborg – Sweden - 14th of May 2010

Frictional Games is proud to announce the release of the source code for our first game Penumbra: Overture, together with the source code for the engine and tools used in its creation. This comes as a reply to the great success of the Humble Indie Bundle, in which over 1 million dollars has been donated to the participating developers and charities. Apart from Penumbra, the source codes for the indie games Aquaria, Gish and Lugaru (all available in the Humble Indie Bundle) are also released. We hope that these source code releases will be of use to the community, help aspiring game programmers and perhaps act as a base for other projects.

Penumbra: Overture contains a unique physics interaction system for first person games, a system that has been exclusive to the series and not found in any other game. With the release of the source code, we hope this will change as the interaction system can be used for much more than our genre specific horror games. The source code is currently running on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux – with the public release of the source code, perhaps even more platforms can be supported!

"We have been talking about releasing the engine and game code as open source for quite some time. With the success of the Humble Indie Bundle came the perfect opportunity and we decided to join the other games in releasing our code. Although the code for the game and engine encompass several years of work, it is not actively used today. It was basically just rotting away in the dark corners of our hard drives. It feels much better to have it published in the open, where it has a chance to grow and do some good. I hope that it will be found useful and I am excited to see what people can do with it!"
- Thomas Grip, Programmer and Co-Founder.

The source code has been uploaded to GitHub where it is easy for people to download the latest version, suggest patches, make new versions of the code and much more. To kick start the development we have also put up a dedicated section in our forum, where people can discuss the code and where we will try to provide as much help as we can. We have also written a more detailed overview of what the code contains in our blog, so interested parties should go there for more information.

Links of interest

http://github.com/FrictionalGames
Go here to get hold of the source code.

http://frictionalgames.com/forum/
Our official forums where more information and discussion about the source code release can be found. We hope that this will act as a fertile ground for people to get help, get into the source code and where we will try and provide help.

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/
The official blog that contains a post with a lengthier discussion of what the source code release contains.

http://www.penumbragame.com/
Information about Penumbra: Overture and the other games of the Penumbra series. Penumbra is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

http://www.wolfire.com/humble
The Humble Indie Bundle, where Penumbra: Overture and 5 other indie games can be purchased at a price of your own choosing. Also check here for more information on the open source releases of the other games.

About Frictional Games
We are a small independent game developer located in the south of Sweden or, to be more precise, located on the Internet - the company is office-free. We develop unique technologies in form of a game engine and tools that are tailored specifically after the games that we create. Currently with a crew of five in-house and a network of contractors to utilize during production we can be dynamic and efficient, increasing production at key moments. Visit http://www.frictionalgames.com/ for more information.