High-Level Storytelling Design

I recently started to play the demo for the upcoming adventure game Primordia. I really like the art-style, the setting, themes and the characters (perhaps with the exception of a somewhat annoying companion). Despite this I am finding myself not being that engaged when playing it. The main reason for this is that the game is in a very traditional point-and-click form, which means that it is mainly all about solving puzzles. Despite some good design and an in-game hint system, its gameplay back-bone is holding it back.

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Posted on Posted on by Thomas Grip in Blog, Narrative

Humble beginnings of the HPL Engine

I recently stumbled upon some really old videos with gameplay tests in the HPL engine and decided they would be fun to show off. This was not our first foray into 3D first person horror (Unbirth was), but it was the first time the the HPL engine was used. All of these are gameplay videos are from a student project then know as “The Hatch” and later became the “Penumbra Tech Demo”.

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Posted on Posted on by Thomas Grip in Blog, Engine, HPL1, Post-mortem

Amnesia – Two Years Later

It has now passed a little more than two years since we launched Amnesia and one year since the last report, so time for another! One would think that there is perhaps not much to be said this long after release, especially for a single player game with no built-in social features. But the fact is that Amnesia is still going very strong and 2012 will probably be the best financial year here at Frictional Games, which we would never had expected two years ago.

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Posted on Posted on by Thomas Grip in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Blog, Business, Life at Frictional

Tech Feature: HDR Lighting

Hello, my name is Peter and I’m the new graphics and engine programmer. New is not really the correct word since I have been working at Frictional for a year now. During this time I have updated the engine and added a lot of new graphic features. This will be the first of my blog posts describing the changes that have been made.

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Posted on Posted on by frictionalgames in Blog, Tech

The Self, Presence and Storytelling

At GDC last week I gave a talk called “The Self, Presence and StoryTelling”. There will be a version of it up on the GDC Vault in 2 – 3 weeks I think and hopefully it will be free like last years’ talk. Before that comes up I will put up a pdf version of the talk containing a bit more information.

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Posted on Posted on by Thomas Grip in Design, News

Horror Tip: Slender

Slender is a short horror game really similar to Hide. You walk (or run) around in a monotone environment looking for notes, while there is a scary monster hunting you. Like Hide it is interesting to see how a simple setup can create a really spooky experience. The graphics are nothing special, the music is simple moody droning and the sound effects are of no great quality. Still, taking all together and put in an interactive space, it gets a lot more immersion than what you would expect. I think this is a great testament to the power of interaction to create a strong sense of presence in way that is much harder to accomplish in any other media.

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Posted on Posted on by Thomas Grip in Blog, Review