“Early on, we had decided that if [Amnesia] did not sell 24,000 units during the first two months we would close down Frictional Games. Anything less and we would not have enough funds to properly sustain the company.“
At the beginning of 2010, Frictional Games was five guys who had made a mildly successful game, working off quickly dwindling resources.
At the end of the decade, Frictional Games had grown to be 25 people across two projects, supported by steady income from a cult hit and an indie darling.
There was no way to predict the combination of hard work, luck, and meta trends surrounding Amnesia that would help us sell, well, way more than 24,000 units, and put Frictional on the map of reputable game developers. Aside from being a financial success, Amnesia has reportedly been influential on the gaming industry at large, from affecting the horror genre to helping kickstart the Let’s Play scene (with no small thanks to the modding community and their numerous contributions of custom story content).
The success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent let us further develop our craft in SOMA. Though not as financially successful, it has found its niche among the gaming community.
We are mostly from Northern Europe, so it’s not our style to toot our own horn. But finding our games on lists wrapping up the decade with “best” or “most influential” in the title has been exciting, considering the thousands of games released over the past 10 years. It’s the best kind of inspiration to push us to do better.
So we will toot our horn a little bit, with a small list of lists covering the past decade that one of our games made it on. We would like to thank every publication that has found our games worthy of being featured, regardless of ranking. And sorry for non-English publications for not finding you – if there are articles out there in other languages, do link them in the comments!
As a fun coincidence, if not ranked, Amnesia: The Dark Descent opens a lot of these lists. There’s upsides to releasing in the first year of the decade and starting your game’s name with the first letter of the alphabet!
At the top of our list of lists is GND-Tech, who graced us with three wins and three nominations – a whooping six mentions total! There’s SOMA for best sound effects with Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs as a nominee. There’s Best Story, Writing Quality for SOMA. Again SOMA as the Best Horror game, with Amnesia: The Dark Descent as a nominee, as well as SOMA as a nominee for Dark Horse. Soma-one at GND-Tech sure loved SOMA!
Sadly we didn’t get awards for Best Racing Game or Best Multiplayer Shooter, but we’ll count our losses.
Of course the Big Business Journal acknowledging us would make top news, are you kidding me?
EDGE Magazine
Games of the Decade Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia was featured in the print version of Edge as one of the 12 games of the decade, earning it a place as one of the collectors’ covers. You can read about the covers on their sister site GamesRadar+.
Almost exactly two years ago I screamed as an email titled “Frictional Games: Job Offer” dropped in my inbox. I continued screaming as I called my mother to tell her the news. Half an hour later she sent me a follow-up text.
“I looked at the website you sent me. Are you sure it’s a real company? I’m worried.”
Since that day, my life has never known peace.
Once I infiltrated the company, one of the first big questions I dared shoot at Thomas and Fredrik (after “Hey, is Catherine Chun a lesbian?” (the response: she is if you want her to be)) was “Hey, can we please do something about the website?” They said yes. In my foolishness I posted the first blog in 3 years, stating we were still alive – expecting to hype people up for an imminent release of a new website.
The release wasn’t imminent. Instead we were met with… well, let’s call it a Series of Time-Consuming False Starts.
As 2020 grew closer, some passive superstition started gnawing at me. This time the screaming was internal, and kept me awake at night at the thought of entering the new decade with an old website (a perfectly normal reaction, right?). Our fans making fun of the site didn’t help either, dealing further damage to a project I now considered the measure of my pride.
Fuck it. I’ll make it myself.
And I did. You’re looking at it! The monument to my mediocre design skills, superior patience, love for colour orange, and some help from the rest of the team (as well as our IT partner Vessinge).
Gregor, Kira, and Alex, sharing between them about 2,5 brain cells worth of WordPress experience.
So, what’s new?
The main new thing is that I’m nuking the concept of posting content on separate platforms. All future news and blog posts (previously on our Blogspot) will be posted here and here only. I have gone through all (376) past blogs and news articles, as well as posts on our forum and mysterious third-party platforms, and hunted down the images and videos, fixed or removed all broken links.
Other new things, in no particular order, include:
There wasn’t quite enough time to finish everything before winter vacation. Here are some things you can expect to see in 2020:
A press kit page for media
Additional information for prospective employees, both about working at Frictional and working in Sweden
People of Frictional posts (including mine and the people who have started before me who I’m waiting on)
Make early Frictional-related games (Fiend, Unbirth and Energetic) available, if we can find them
Design improvements (if any fans out there know WordPress, hmu)
More good old tech and design blogs
And now Frictional Games is off for a winter vacation! (Great timing considering all that clicking has driven me to the edge of yet another carpal tunnel.)
Here’s to a great 2020!
PS. Is something broken? Should we add something else? Let us know in the comments!
Winter is coming for us in the Northern Hemisphere. Get a hot drink, curl up under a blanket, and start up the HPL level editor – it’s time for Frictional’s Winter Modding Jam!
Join us for a month-long event focused on HPL modding! You’re welcome to participate alone or in a small team (up to 5 people). For peer support, head on over to our Discord server.
Are you an artist, writer, or other kind of creator? You can still participate by teaming up with one of the modders. Head on over to #winter_modding_jam on our Discord and find your team! We will also be holding specialised events for you in the future.
Duration
The Jam will start on the 11th of December 2019 and last until the 19th of January 2020.
You can submit your work on the night of Sunday the 19th, as the submissions will be checked on Monday morning.
Theme
Winter and/or Hibernation.
One or both themes should be present in the Fan Jam entry. You are welcome to interpret them however you wish. The mods don’t have to have a connection to Frictional Games titles.
Medium
This Frictional Fan Jam is specifically for HPL modding. You are free to use HPL2 and HPL3, or even HPL1 if you’re brave enough.
Aside from the game assets, you are also welcome to utilise other assets you can legally use, or have permission to use from the creators.
The jury of Frictional Games employees will pick the winners of the jam. Discord moderator team will not be voting on entries, and are therefore allowed to fully participate in the event.
The winners will receive A5-sized posters of a game of their choosing sent to their home address (team members will be sent theirs separately). The Frictional team from the Malmö office can sign them if you wish. Once our next project is out, the winners will also receive a download key for the game on an available platform of their choosing.
Depending on the amount of entries, the Malmö office Frictional team will stream all of the entries, or only the winners.
Contact
The Fan Jam is organised by Frictional Games’ community manager Kira, with support from the Frictional Games Discord moderators. The easiest way to contact either is through the Frictional Games Discord server’s #winter_modding_jam channel. The channel can also be used to share ideas with other community members, get feedback, and look for team members.
If you don’t have a Discord account, you are welcome to contact Frictional Games through Twitter or our Contact Form, and we will help you as soon as we can.
For general questions: Contact Kira, for example by pinging them on the Discord channel.
For technical questions: Join our Discord server which has an active modding community.
Have fun, we’re looking forward to your wintery creations!
The autumn is getting cold, but our hearts have been warmed by the participation in the Frictional Fan Jam 2019! We would like to extend an equally warm “thank you” to everyone who participated. The outpour of love and creativity has been overwhelming!
We have now gone through the entries, voted among the Frictional Games staff and the Discord Moderator team, and picked the winners – as well as a few special mentions! The entries were divided into Mods/Games, Fanart, Fanfiction, and Other, and one or more winners were picked of each category.
As promised, the winners will receive a few physical goodies, a mention in our video, as well as keys for the upcoming game. People who got special mentions will receive keys! We will be in contact with these people next week.
This is enough bureaucratic talk: please behold our winners! The winners of each category will be showcased in the video below, or you can read about the entries under the video. All entries can be seen on our the Fan Jam Showcase on our Discord server.
The Fall of Freedom takes us on one Pathos-II employee’s journey through the now-infested station. Unlike the mods, this game is made in Unity and uses a minimalist yet efficient pixel style. It’s short and (bitter)sweet, with Frictional-type puzzles translated into a 2D environment, and great sound design.
Ever wondered how Alexander ended up on Earth? TiMan’s Hollow imagines Alexander’s story on his home planet, and how his banishment came to be. It has a distinct Amnesia feel despite being made on HPL3, the SOMA engine, and the custom assets make it fun to explore. The puzzles and gameplay have a classic Frictional feel, making it easy to play as a standalone installment.
Special mention: Amnesia: Decayed History by Sabatu
Sabatu’s Decayed History mod did not fit the requirements of expanding upon one of Frictional’s titles, yet we felt that it deserves a special mention. The HPL2 mod is an impressive length considering it was made in three short weeks, and the writing is great despite Sabatu only having studied English for about a year. The protagonist is given a task to find old documents in their childhood home, claiming their right to the house. But things are not quite as they seem…
Kripi’s cutoff of Castle Brennenburg might as well be a professional technical drawing! The longer you look at it, the more details you see, making it an ideal doll house for tiny Daniel, Alexander, and the rest of the residents.
Some things mustn’t be forgotten… and this artwork is one of them! Lou’s piece reveals more than you see at first glance – the falling leaves are petals of the Damascus Rose, akin the drops of blood, and a spider looms in the background, tying the characters together.
Hazel, Daniel’s sister, has a melancholy story told in the notes of The Dark Descent, and Cypii has captured this mood with lonely composition and muted tones. You don’t need to see Hazel’s face to know that she is withering away, just as the leaves outside.
Special mention: SOMAuse by i3670
I (Kira, your community manager) almost drove my bike into a traffic sign because I got teary-eyed from thinking about this picture. The little mouse in the reflection still has hope in its eyes… and thankfully we don’t see the expression on the other side. Dammit, I’m crying again. And that deserves a special mention.
Writing
A Hymn for the Curie by FrenchRoast
A Hymn for the Curie takes us aboard MS Curie around the time of the comet’s destruction. FrenchRoast’s version of the events features a cast of believable characters, from the stoic Captain Palander to the empathetic Hopper, whose points of view have you live the events alongside them – have hope, despair, and ultimately perish.
Cadiz also tells the survivor story of another team, landing ashore Cadiz – a realistic description of a landscape ravaged by desperate humans before the comet has the chance to strike. The characters have have very human musings about the imminent destruction. The story starts a bit slowly, but the end had us in tears.
Unfortunately this piece of writing didn’t have a link, but you can find it on our Discord server.
Other
Untitled Song by Tosha
Themes can be hard to portray through music alone, but we truly felt the cold winds of autumn in the Untitled Song by Tosha. It plays on the themes of Amnesia: The Dark Descent’s soundtrack, but delivers an original composition.
Thank you once again for participating and cheering others on! We hope to see you back for another Fan Jam in the future.
PS. We played the mod entries and read some fanfiction during a stream. You can find the video on our Youtube:
September is a meaningful month for Frictional Games, as it marks several of our anniversaries. This year on the 8th of September Amnesia: The Dark Descent will be turning 9, on 10th Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs will be 6 years old, and on 22nd SOMA will have been released for 4 years.
Therefore we would like to make this month special by celebrating your community creations. Please join us for Frictional’s Fan Jam of 2019!
We have recently launched an official Discord server, so you are welcome to ask questions, share ideas, and chat with other participants in the #fan_jam channel.
Overview
The goal is to create a new fan work related to one of Frictional’s games: SOMA, Amnesia games and the Penumbra series, or older titles such as Unbirth. You are free to create any transformative work: a mod, fanart and fanfiction, cosplay, or something different like a video or a plushie. The project should be at least loosely related to the given theme.
Since some projects (for example mods) can require more effort than others, you are also welcome to participate in teams.
Please see submission guidelines below!
Theme
Autumn/Decay
Deadline
The event kicks off on Friday the 6th of September. The deadline for submissions is 23:59 UTC on Sunday the 22nd of September. The jury will be going through submissions starting Monday the 23rd.
Prizes
The jury of Frictional Games employees and Frictional Games Discord moderation team will pick the winners of the jam. Jury members can participate in the event, but are disqualified from winning.
The winners will receive a poster of a game of their choosing, signed by the Frictional team members, sent to their home address (teams can decide on one address, max 4 prizes per team). The Frictional Team will also be featuring the works on a video with comments from Thomas and other employees. And finally – upon release of the next game, the winners will receive download codes for the game on an available platform of their choosing.
Contact
The jam is organised by Frictional Game’s community manager Kira together with the moderation team of the official Discord server, proposed and drafted by Draugemalf. The easiest way to contact the organisers is on the Frictional Games Discord server’s #fan_jam channel. The channel can also be used to share ideas with other community members, get feedback and look for team members.
If you don’t have a Discord account, you are also welcome to contact Frictional Games through Twitter or our Contact Form, and we will help you as soon as we can.
Submission guidelines
The works must be related to one or more of Frictional’s games (SOMA, Amnesia: TDD, Amnesia: AMFP, Penumbra, and Unbirth, Fiend, Energetic)
The works must be at least loosely related to the the thematic of Autumn/Decay
The creation must be submitted on 22nd of September the latest
The work must be your or your team’s original creation
For mods you are free to use assets you can legally use, or have the permission to use from the creators
Submitting your work
You can submit your works through several channels, either by posting an image (for fanart, cosplay and similar) and/or a link (mods, fanfiction and similar).
On Discord, you can share the project on the #fan_jam channel. Please make it clear that it’s your final version.
On Twitter and Tumblr, you should mention @frictionalgames and tag the submission with #FrictionalFanJam.
If you don’t have a social media account, please send your submission to team@frictionalgames.com with the title “Frictional Fan Jam”.
Due to Instagram and Facebook’s limited searching and tagging tools, we will not be accepting submissions through those platforms.
All submissions will be posted by the jury on Discord’s #fan_jam_showcase channel for easier judging.
And that’s it! Go get creative! We’re looking forward to all your great projects!
Frictional Games is a distant and cryptic game developer, quietly tinkering with unspeakable horrors in the darkest depths of Europe. Yet over the past while we have been chipping away at that image, exposing a softer core. And now we’re ready for the final nail in the coffin of mystery: an official Frictional Games Discord server, where you can talk directly to us, or to other fans!
We hope that having a fluid, shared space like this will help casual and hardcore fans alike connect over topics that interest them, from lore conversations to sharing the cutest K8 plushie sewing patterns, from best uses of AddUseItemCallback to fanfiction tips. And, of course, anything and everything Frictional Games.
Aside from community-centered involvement, we hope to bring us developers closer to you with events like Ask Me Anything threads, and an occasional casual chat. Who knows what else the future will bring?
Upon launch the server includes channels for:
– Frictional’s news, sales and patch notes, – Discussions about SOMA, Amnesia games, Penumbra games and Frictional Games in general, – Showcasing your mods and other fan creations like art, cosplay and videos, – Connecting with peers and discussing modding, creating fanart, or how to avoid overheating when wearing a Grunt suit, – Social media feeds, – Buying our games directly from Discord.
To celebrate the launch, all our games are heavily discounted at the Discord store pages.
So, you have decided to apply for a job here at Frictional Games? Great, we would love to hear from you!
…But before you hit that “send” button, you want to make sure that you are showing yourself and your talent in the best light possible. We have already written a blog post on how the recruitment process works, so you can mentally prepare for that.
In this blog we will help you construct a good application, consisting of a CV, a cover letter and the portfolio, and even get down the nitty-gritty of the email. While we hope you apply for our positions, you are obviously welcome to use the tips when applying for other jobs too.
Just remember the most important thing: Always customise your application for the position you’re applying to.
A job application is like a love letter. You have to show interest in the recipient, and tell them why the two of you could be a good match specifically. You can write a letter about how great you are and send the same version to different recipients, but be warned – that’s pretty transparent, and will not likely land you a (business) relationship, no matter how good you are.
In this economic situation it might be tempting to say fuck it and cast a net as wide as possible (yes, we have moved on to fishing metaphors now). But the best fish will slip through the loose holes of a haphazardly set net. Instead, try finding one good spot and throwing in a hook with a juicy bait – the juicy bait being your best application. If you are good enough, a fish will definitely bite, and a love letter recipient will definitely swoon.
Frictional is a small company with little turnover. We’re not looking to burn through talent, but to find the right applicants who will stay with us for a long time. That’s why we want the applicants to be interested in and motivated to work with us specifically.
Do you love us? We love you too! Now let’s go write that application!
1. Read the job posting
This might sound obvious, but start by reading the job posting. Then read it again.
If you’re exactly what the posting is looking for, then great. You can use your previous work as examples of why you’re a good match. Are you a generalist? Pick your strong points that you would use in this job.
(But be realistic about it. If your skillset is wildly different from what the job would be, you might want to wait for another opening. Otherwise you are mostly wasting your own time.)
Now compare your skills to the job’s requirements and get ready to use those points in the next steps.
2. CV
The CV is all about you, dearest. It’s your dating profile where you can show your best angles, or that really big fish you caught once.
When the perfect job comes along, you don’t want to spend hours digging out when exactly you interned at that one place. Keep a meta-CV of all your experience, skills and achievements. This can be a document, or it can be a website or LinkedIn page you can link in the CV. An accessible online CV especially good if you have gaps in your relevant experience because you were helping out at your cousin’s ice cream business or similar.
Remember the previous step where we looked at the job requirements? You can now cherrypick the most relevant points from your meta-CV and put them in your tailored CV. Quality over quantity and all that. Start from the most recent relevant one.
A good CV is 1–2 pages long. If you only picked the most relevant experience, you should be able to keep it tight. But do write in detail about the relevant experience. If you only gloss over your experience in big strokes, the employer will not be able to tell what you have actually done and achieved. Share specific tasks and examples, list your best achievements.
If you have skills outside your field, such as multiple languages or software, you can list those too. Just keep them tight. But, despite being your so-called dating profile, listing hobbies might not be very relevant. But if you’ve done game jams or similar, go ahead! They are relevant and they count.
Do:
Keep a meta-CV.
Always customise your CV based on the position.
Start with the latest relevant experience.
Write in detail about your relevant experience.
Don’t:
Send the same CV to every position.
List every job you’ve ever held.
Start your CV with the first job you ever had.
Start with education instead of work experience (unless you’re a recent graduate).
3. Cover Letter
If the CV was your dating profile, the cover letter is your love letter. And a love letter cannot just be a glorified dating profile.
Picking relevant experience for the CV already shows that you put thought into your application. But the cover letter gives you an opportunity to show that you truly care about the company, their games and the position – or at least have knowledge about them. It’s incredibly easy to spot if someone sends the same cover letter to everyone, because they only talk about themselves. You can reuse lines you’ve written for similar positions, but make sure to keep them relevant.
The cover letter is also a great opportunity to talk more about why the skills you have acquired would translate well into the position advertised – especially if your experience is moreso from hobby projects. Convince the company why you would be a good match for them.
It’s easy to get lost in profound expressions of love, but a good cover letter is half a page to 1 page long. Being concise is also a skill.
If the job posting mentions expected salary, this is a good place to mention it.
Do:
Talk about why you want to work with this company specifically.
Talk about your skills in relation to the job’s requirements.
Tell the company why they should hire you. Be bold.
Don’t:
Send the same cover letter to every company. It’s easy to spot.
Only change the name of the company in the letter. Generic wording is also easy to spot.
Only talk about yourself with no relevance to the company or the position.
4. Portfolio
For better or worse, looks are important. In this case your dating profile pictures are your portfolio. The portfolio is a way to back up the claim that you’re as good as you say you are, for both artists, programmers and other folks.
While a good portfolio looks different depending on whether you’re an artist, a designer or perhaps a communications person, there are still good general practices when it comes to putting one together. In this segment we will use artists as an example, but you can use your imagination to apply the tips to other fields.
Just like with a CV, keep a master portfolio. For artists it can be sites like Artstation or Behance, or perhaps your own site. Pick the pieces you are most proud of, but are varied enough to show off your versatility.
From the master portfolio, you should again pick the pieces most relevant to the position and create a tailored portfolio. If the company is looking for a props and environment artist, those are the things you should be concentrating on. Also look at the stuff the company has previously done. Have they only done high-poly? Their next product will probably not be low-poly.
There is no rule to how long the portfolio should be. The key is making it easy for the recruitment team to immediately see if you are a good or potential match. For an open position you can choose some pieces relevant to the position and put them in a PDF, or link them from the master portfolio. For an open job query, pick a few pieces that are most in line with what the company is doing.
It is also a good practice to mention what you actually did for your works. Here at Frictional we wear all of the hats. The artists do everything from whiteboxing to textures. We need to know if you know how to do those and didn’t just make others’ textures and assets look good.
Do:
Keep a master portfolio of all your work.
Send a portfolio or links to a few relevant pieces.
Mention what you worked on for the pieces.
Don’t:
Send the same top picks to every company and every position.
Send all the portfolio pieces as separate files (links are ok).
5. Email
Chances are, there are also other jobs you have or will apply for. It’s good practice to have a professional email account for official business. Something with a neutral email handle and your real name as the sender. It makes it easier to find your application later. Having a signature with your contact information and links to your master CV and portfolio is also handy.
Some email platforms will show your profile picture, so make sure you at least know what it is. You might want to think twice before using a topless beach pic or a dank meme. The recruiter will probably have a chuckle, but might not be left with the best impression.
Make sure you include some sort of cover text in the email. It can be pretty generic, informing of your interest in the position and the attachments you have provided. This is also a good place to mention your master CV and master portfolio. Even better if you get a short elevator pitch in.
Do:
Use your real name in the email.
Have a signature with contact info and links.
Write a short cover text, like an elevator pitch for your application.
Don’t:
Have a shirtless profile picture. No, seriously.
6. Personal Information
Getting a feel of a person is important, but not all information you provide will help us with that. There are some things the employer is not even allowed to ask (family relations, religion…), and being upfront about them puts the potential employer in an uncomfortable position. Emphasis on the potential part. If you get hired, we will ask you for the details we need.
What a potential employer DOES need to know:
Real name
Email address
Country of residence
Links to your master portfolio and CV
Phone number (we don’t need it but most companies do)
What a potential employer DOES NOT need to know:
ID number
Birthday
Home address
Marital status and/or children
Ethnicity or nationality, gender, religion. disabilities or similar
7. Think of the recruiter
The recruitment team might get hundreds of applications every day. Sometimes the recruitment team is just one human being, who also does other things.
Just like with life in general, the key word is empathy. So send the kind of application that you would like to receive.
Make sure the application easy to go through, and that the attachments are easily accessible and in proper file formats. Be sure the relevant links are easy to find, and that they work. If you want to make a recruiter happy, include your own name in the attachment names (so it doesn’t become CV(69).pdf on the recruiter’s computer).
Do:
Save your CV, cover letter and any other files in PDF format
Make everything easy to find
Don’t:
Save your text files as doc/x, rtf or txt, or especially png or jpg.
Send your portfolio pieces as multiple separate files.
8. Afterword
There is no sure-fire way to make the perfect application. But the more tailored your application is, the better your chances are.
And lastly: even in an application, feel free to let your personality show. If the company doesn’t like your genuine application, you wouldn’t be happy working with them anyway. If they do… they will remember you.
A year ago we brought SOMA to the Xbox One, and along with it the Safe Mode. The optional mode removed the hostility of enemies and let players explore Pathos-II in relative peace. Most players were pleased with it, and at best it meant that players that hadn’t dared to traverse the Atlantic ocean floor before now had a chance to experience it.
Now finally releasing the Amnesia: Collection on Xbox One, and decided to also spice it up with a little treat. We bring you the polar opposite of the Safe Mode: the Hard Mode!
Amnesia: Collection will be released on Xbox One on the 28th of September, after which the mode will be available on Xbox and PC.
What is the Hard Mode?
It is really just as the title suggests: a mode that makes it harder to beat the game. You know, in case The Dark Descent wasn’t stressful enough for you.
The Hard Mode has the following features:
Autosaves are disabled, and manual saving costs 4 tinderboxes
Sanity dropping to zero results in death
Less oil and tinderboxes throughout the levels
Monsters are faster, spot the player more easily, deal more damage and stay around for longer
There is no danger music when the monsters are near.
So in summary: the environments are harsher, the monsters more unforgiving, insanity is deadly, and death is final – unless you pay a toll.
You can pick between normal mode and Hard Mode when starting a new game of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The mode changes some fundamental elements of the game, and therefore can’t be changed halfway through.
A Machine for Pigs and Justine do not feature this mode.
How does this affect achievements/trophies?
Beating the game on Hard Mode will earn you a new trophy called Masochist. Because, you know, you pretty much have to be one to complete the mode.
The mode affects the Illuminatus achievement, which you can’t get during playing in Hard Mode as it reduces the amount of tinderboxes throughout the level.
Will it be on all platforms?
Yes! The Hard Mode will launch on Xbox and PC versions (Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle) simultaneously. We have started working on the PS4 version with our porting partner, and hope to have it out soon.
Extra
Want a Hard Mode wallpaper? Download a 4K version with and without the logo on our public Drive folder.
Today, the 16th of July 2018, Simon Jarrett would have turned 30. He never quite made it, the proposed treatment for his brain damage proving ineffective.
And yet he did. A Simon Jarrett made it to the ARK, facing eternity among the stars. Another(s), infinity below the sea, at least as long as the batteries last. But he didn’t just live, he left a legacy. His scan, for a generation of programmers to use. The ARK, preserving humanity until the Sun burns out.
And you.
Simon lives on in every fanart, every mixtape and cosplay. He gets a different story in a fanfic, be it finding a cure, finding love, sometimes dying, yet still living on through those moments. You have taken him well beyond 4.0, and for that we are thankful.
As a small celebration we have collected 30 of some our favourite fan works of Simon, one for each year since his birth. In all honesty 30 is an arbitary number, a cutoff point to keep this post from being far too long. We love each and every one of your fan creations, as well as mods, meta commentary and even just coming together as a community.
From us, and from Simon: thank you!
PS. If you want to see more fan creations from SOMA, Amnesia games and Penumbra, we have an official Tumblr blog where we have collected your works from Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Deviantart. The blog updates daily! (We might not have found your work, so please tag us on social media, or send us a message!)
Zerachieamora is one of the top creators in our community, having done cosplays of all our protagonists, as well as having time to run ask blogs and make art. Their stuff always has top-notch detail and creativity. We certainly hope our next protagonist will be cool enough to inspire them to make another cosplay!
Sketchinisfun has made a lot of awesome contributions to the fandom, such as TinyCatherine, but this animation has to be our favourite – everyone knows just how much dedication that requires!
One of our favourite levels deserves some love, and Shaidis delivers! This piece is beautiful, and it is no wonder it shows up whenever you search for SOMA fanart.
Is it a screenshot? Nope, just Rennerei working their magic!
This pick might be biased as our community manager has followed Rennerei since the early TBFP/Motorcity/TF2 days. It is truly inspiring to work on something, and then receive fanart from someone you admire.
Doseph has made an incredible set of all our major protagonists that you can find in their Frictional Games tag. The detail, atmosphere and claustrophobia in the works is astonishing.
Ess and her brother did an amazing job on the diving suit, down to the glowing eyes, WAU-infested trousers and even an Omnitool! And Simon eating pizza with a kawaii Reaper is the crossover we didn’t know we wanted, but have now been enlightened.
Sadunacc has created a lot of lovely fanarts, including some more beautiful Leggy Catherines. But this doll is so unique we had to share it – just look at it! A pocket-sized Simon!
It is always cool to see artists’ work progress – and for this work you can also see the progression shots! Piranyeaah did a lovely job capturing Simon’s confusion.
If you’re Simon and I’m Simon… then are there also other Simons, possibly disguised as Roombas? Let’s not think about that, and instead think about how nice it is to see all of them together.
Inspiring people to push their limits and make something awesome is great! Steampoweredwerehog – if you’re reading this, we’d love to see the final cosplay!
Art by S.paceheart
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These were the good times! Glad to have them captured in a picture, forever in a state of “:D”.
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Wha- huh? What’s this? Someone was supposed to update the website? We’ve been too hard at work on our two new games, and kind of forgot there was this thing to upkeep.
Look, we know the site looks like it hasn’t been updated in about 10 years… and that’s because it probably hasn’t. But now we have a person who has time for that, so hopefully it will look nicer soon! Shouldn’t take another decade. But you never know.
In the meantime we are active on several social media platforms that you can follow us on: Twitter Facebook Instagram Tumblr for fan works And our Dev blog, obviously!
As always, tech support can be found on our Forum, and we’re slowly adding new stuff, like a Careers page (pretty empty for now). Keep checking back, and maybe you’ll be met with a shiny new site some day!
