What follows is something of my thoughts on inspiration but mostly a review of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs:

One of my favourite genres to write in is horror. The macabre, the creepy, the gross and disgusting. That’s not to mention the more cosmic-horror of a Lovecraftian bent. For inspiration I don’t go to other horror writers. As a general rule I just don’t look to other writers for inspiration within the genres I write; it seems rather incestuous (though without the kink factor).

These days when I look to media for inspiration, I go to movies or video games for my fix. The great thing about inspiration is that it can come from both good and bad sources. Some of my best work (from a personal perspective) was inspired by mediocre or cheesy stuff that planted a seed of an idea into my mind.

The summer provided a few movies for me, the Conjuring and You’re Next coming to mind. I enjoyed them both in their own way, but the biggest source of drive and inspiration as of late has been in the world of video games.

It started off unimpressively enough. Resident Evil 6 drew Michelle and I in with its co-op, deep sale price, and fond memories of surviving the previous game together. Though ultimately it disappointed, becoming something of a tedious slog that the rest of the gaming world has detailed by now.

We jumped ship from there to Dead Space 3, which from the get-go provides a beautifully terrifying cinematic atmosphere. We’ve yet to finish it; time to game together as a couple is rare, so it’ll be a while before we make our way through entirely.

Knowing that, I moved on myself in my free time while Michelle was away.

Resident Evil: Revelations took me in, and from that I already conjured ideas for an upcoming novel about a woman in the 1930’s, venturing across the atlantic on a luxury liner. It’s one I’ve been toying with for some time, and this was just the inspiration I needed to solidify that.

I devoured that game quickly and enjoyed it for what it was. It put me in the mood for some more genuine scares. Luckily, the sequel to my all-time favourite horror game was just around the corner.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a masterpiece of horror gaming. You are a helpless, frail, afraid man, robbed of your memories and unable to do anything but run and hide from the coming darkness.

It instantly changed the entire genre for me. Everything that came before it was trite, hamfisted and comically inept at creating tension and horror by comparison. That is, I believed, until this past month.

Let me get something straight immediately. Some people like playing terrifying games to boast about how they were immune to its tortures. I, however, was more than rattled by the first Amnesia. I kept having to stop, cease my playing and take a break. My blood pressure rising with the tension. It was a struggle to get through that game, and thoughts of playing a sequel sent both a thrill and a sense of dread through me.

The frights, the terror… that’s what I wanted. But I absolutely didn’t at the same time.

Memories of slowly stalking the halls of that old German castle, terrified of accidentally opening a door too quickly and gaining something’s attention, lingered with me. Of hiding in a dresser as some creature I was too afraid to even look at searched for me.

I played the game in the dark with my headset on for full effect. No interruptions, nothing to break my immersion.

With those memories still in my mind, from my single playthrough years ago, I dove into Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs with trepidation.

This was not the sequel I had waited for. It was not even made by the same developers.

The Chinese Room are the developers who made the indy darling title Dear Esther. The epitome of art game, I bought it for $2 on sale once and enjoyed it thoroughly. A short but thoughtful experience, it was unique to me. Some people described it as frightening, but I’d say creepy. At times.

It was a beautiful game in its own right, that started off as a Half-Life 2 mod. I’d recommend you give it a go. There’s little in the way of gameplay, but it’s a curious experience, if you’re into that sort of thing.

A Machine for Pigs owes much to those roots from Dear Esther. It is an atmospheric game, a creepy game, though rarely a genuinely terrifying game.

The most profound memory I have of the first Amnesia was in a basement supply room, my character’s sanity frayed, the world a blur. Everything was dark, but for the sliver of moonlight that slipped through a tiny little slot overhead. I could hear his breathing, his heart beating, the terror in him like in me.

He had just encountered some monstrosity in the dark halls outside. With no way to fight it, and even glancing at it causing his mental state to deteriorate, I had little idea of what the thing even looked like. But I feared it. I feared it as much as I — and he — embraced that sliver of light for the comfort it brought.

Second most pronounced memory was of squatting down in another room, staring into the faint flicker of a candle for more comfort. Knowing this was the only light I would have for a while, because I was all out of lantern oil and I must now traverse the next stretch in the dark. Alone.

A Machine for Pigs has no such moments, primarily because it completely axed the sanity mechanic and the inventory system. Your character’s heart does not race, he does not fear the dark, nor does he seem perturbed by watching horrific monstrosities walk by you, nor does stumbling into a charnel house of gruesome gore irk him. He certainly doesn’t begin to see and hear imaginary things because of the toll those things took upon him.

The dark, with its many unknowns, its awful abominations, does not strike fear into him. Besides, he has a lantern that has no need of fuel, and the only reason to turn it off would be upon a rare occasion when some creature might be drawn to its light.

All the fright you might experience in the game is yours, because your character is a typical video game sort, and has no fears, no pains or injuries that don’t disappear of their own accord in time.

Don’t mistake me for the type of gamer who bangs on constantly about how a game needs challenge. For the most part, I am a casual gamer now. My days of leading a guild through raid dungeons in MMOs is over. My time mastering hardcore challenges in titles like Megaman 2 (or X) are long past.

Typically when I play games today, it’s for relaxation. The one real exception to that is horror games. I want those games to make me feel uncomfortable. To give me strange and gruesome inspiration as they make me so uncomfortable I have to stop and relax my aging psyche. I never got that from A Machine for Pigs.

I also never found a single puzzle. Not in honesty. The puzzles of the first game often made me pause to solve them, A Machine for Pigs is bereft of such things. With no inventory system the most complex “puzzle” was picking up a fuse and carrying it one room over in front of me — for I had no pockets I presume — and slipping it into a slot automatically. A disappointment, as good puzzles are a treat, and the first Amnesia had that.

Though I did get an interesting story. Even if I saw the twist coming from within seconds of my start. It was a beautiful walk-around through a creepy place, experiencing an awful tale. Though I never once had to stop playing because the terror was too much for me. I blazed through the game in two sittings, the interruption only due to the obligations of a busy real life.

That’s another thing, if you’re the sort who thinks four hours of entertainment is not worth $20, stay away, wait for a sale. For that’s what you’ll get out of this. It’s by no means a mark against it in my book; I enjoy short gaming experiences, as long as they are worthwhile. I hold nothing against it for that length, and frankly to say it should’ve been longer would be to ask for an inferior title. I do not feel the developers of the Chinese Room had it in them to extend this journey any further without wearing upon its product all the more.

Had it come out a year ago when it was supposed to — and been the simple expansion/DLC/spinoff as intended — I could understand these things. Though with so long in development, I did expect more. I expected something along the lines of the first game in quality of experience.

As I said, however, A Machine for Pigs owes at least as much to Dear Esther as it does Amnesia: The Descent into Darkness. For once I realized my caution of checking rooms for hiding places, plotting escape routes, was all for naught, I also began to realize there was little gameplay to be had in general. It was mostly about walking forward, collecting bits of the story and experiencing that story for what it was. Unlike the first game, it has no alternate endings. Just one ending upon a single path.

Hiding from enemies seems unnecessary. In fact, it seems as if you were never really intended to do so. Usually when you encounter the creatures it is scripted and they aren’t intended to see you, or so it seems. On those rare times they do pose a threat, there are never any hiding places about, and the only way forward seems to be to draw their attention and run on regardless.

It leads me to believe that this “stealth” aspect was wholly unfitted to their game. That A Machine for Pigs should’ve just gone full tilt and been even more like Dear Esther. Gutted it of this last vestige of Amnesia just as it had the sanity and inventory systems.

I genuinely think the game would’ve been better as simply a story you walk through and observe, than this story you walk through and observe with occasional moments of awkwardly outrunning pig-monsters.

Am I bitter? Resentful? I hope I don’t sound as such. I enjoyed my time with the game, don’t regret my purchase. The four hours of creepy storytelling was worth the price of entry as far as I’m concerned. It just wasn’t the sequel I was waiting for or expected, and already it bleeds from my memory, not near so notable as the first.

Yet while I am of mixed feelings on A Machine for Pigs — I laud it as a good but flawed game in its own right, but mourn it as a totally different game  from its namesake predecessor — I do see hope. When I played Amnesia years ago, I saw in it the chance for a rebirth in the horror genre. Video games that truly terrified, by not only stripping away the unnecessary vestiges of typical combat gaming, but by honing the craft of suspense and tension building.

A Machine for Pigs did not deliver on all that. It stripped out too much and did not hone  those other things well. Yet I’ve only sunk about an hour into the game Outlast and already I feel it to be a true spiritual successor to Amnesia.

Perhaps it’s too early to tell, but I’ve been taking stabs at the game for a while now but I simply can’t force myself to keep playing it for too long without breaking. My anxious tendencies just can’t handle it. And that alone brings me back to those special memories.

There is no sanity system that I can tell, though my character’s heavy breathing as he cowers in dark hiding spots seem to alarm him and I both. For the sounds of the deranged inmate is coming closer. He’s checking the lockers next to ours, searching for the intruder. Not content to simply leave them unchecked as the monstrosities of Amnesia: The Dark Descent had done.

I already feel more ideas coming from this one.