Amnesia: The Dark Descent Creative Director Thomas Grip: Extended Interview

Ars Technica is proud to present our extended interview with Thomas Grip, creative director at Frictional Games and designer of the 2010 survival horror classic Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Learn more about the challenges Thomas and his collaborators faced in bringing their terrifying vision to life, the creative decisions that would echo through Frictional Games’ future titles and other surprising facets of what went into making one of the most frightening games ever.

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00:00 Introduction
00:23 It All Started With Penumbra
03:05 Removing Combat In Penumbra
08:33 Inspiration For Amnesia
10:02 The Team
11:09 Can We Make It Simpler?
15:08 Financial Constraints & Creative Direction
18:53 Game Loops & Traditional Game Design
22:00 Games As Art & Influence On Gameplay
25:02 False Starts
28:56 How To Make Light & Dark Scary
30:31 Sanity System
38:51 Using The Unknown To Create Horror
42:04 Directing Players To Focus On Details
43:30 Using Player Imaginations To Create Tension
50:13 Guiding Expectations Using Familiar Environments
53:51 What We Learned & How It Influenced Soma


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Amnesia: The Dark Descent Creative Director Thomas Grip: Extended Interview