Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs



"The year is 1899. Wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus has returned home from a disastrous expedition to Mexico, which has ended in tragedy. Wracked by fever, haunted by dreams of a dark machine, he recovers consciousness in his own bed, with no idea of how much time has passed since his last memory. As he struggles to his feet, somewhere beneath him, an engine splutters, coughs, roars into life..."

Developed by thechineseroom and published by Frictional Games, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Taking place in the same universe as The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs takes place sixty years later, in Victorian London, on New Years Eve, 1899, where wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus has awoken from a fevered comatose state that lasted him several months, haunted by nightmares of a vicious, dark, elaborate machine of mysterious purpose. He must trace his life back to find out what happened during his months of unconsciousness, and figure out what happened during his ill-fated trip to Mexico that immediately proceeded it...

""This world is a machine fit only for pigs. Fit for the slaughtering of pigs.""
 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Justified, as they were designed to accommodate all the biological waste from the "products" stored above, then use the methane from it to further fuel the machine.
 * Animal Motifs: Diary entries repeatedly use Pigs heavily to represent people.
 * Artistic License – History: The story takes place in the last hours of the 19th century, on the 31st of December 1899. Problem is, the Victorians were more careful with their calendar than our generation, and celebrated the turn of the 20th century when it actually happened, at midnight on January 1, 1901.
 * Bookcase Passage: Plenty in Mandus' mansion. There are several hidden doors, leading to narrow passages inside of thick walls, with one-way mirrors for spying on people in rooms. At least one of these doors is behind a bathtub, the entirety of which rotates along with the floor and adjacent wall to expose the passage.
 * Building of Adventure: Most of the story takes place inside Mandus' meat factory.
 * Camera Abuse: There is blood smeared all over the screen when Mandus takes hits by the Manpigs.
 * Collapsing Lair: Due to Mandus' sabotaging, parts of the machinery collapse at the end.
 * Concealing Canvas: There is a lever behind a painting in one of the bathrooms that opens a secret door.
 * Double-Meaning Title: A Machine for Pigs has dual meanings. It refers both to Mandus' meat factory, and Mandus' personal metaphor for the coming industrialization of tyranny and war in the 20th century: a world-spanning machine that turns all of humanity into pigs for the slaughter.
 * Eternal Engine: A horror version.
 * Fade to White: The screen fades to white when you die.
 * The Grotesque: Considering it's set in the same universe as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it's no surprise the game is filled with Body Horror-like squealing Pig Man creatures and rivers of blood.
 * Hazardous Water: Sections of the machine are flooded, and Mandus must activate the bilges and release valves to get the water level low enough to pass. However, strange electrical disturbances in the water indicate the presence of something unseen wading through it.
 * Industrialized Evil: Seems to be a major Motif, if the concept art is anything to go by. Images of factory settings, often uncomfortably cramped, and stained with blood and blurry figures in the distance.
 * Interface Screw: While the eye-bending screen filters from The Dark Descent at low sanity aren't here, there are still some subtle changes in clarity and field of view.
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Oswald's last journal, which stands in for an objective: "I search for instructions, for advice, for help in my goals, but in return the system mocks me. Simpleton, it says, you must find your own answers now."
 * Mission-Pack Sequel: Averted. Was intended to be a small Gaiden Game with some experimental gameplay set in the Amnesia universe. However, as the writing for the project grew, the developers realized that the game had to grow along with it. The result is something closer in breadth of scope to the original game.
 * Mobile Maze: Some of the architecture changes as Mandus moves through the corridors of the machine. He might go into a small side area, only to turn around and have a much longer backtrack through a series of unfamiliar halls, or going into a small cul-de-sac might have a different exit when he turns back around.
 * Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The developers freely admit that A Machine For Pigs was an odd name for a sequel to a horror game, but the more they thought about it, the more that they liked it. They kept the name in part because it was so odd, that it would stick out in people's minds, and not fit into a neatly defined category for what people expect. The intention was to make it seem just a little uncomfortable. More than that, it has a Meaningful Name too. To quote writer Dan Pinchbeck:


 * Purple Prose: Oswald seems to enjoy writing like this, as it is seem both in the pages he does not remember writing and in his in-game journal.
 * Resources Management Gameplay: Averted, unlike the original game, as there is no inventory, no tinderboxes, no oil limits on your lantern this time around. The developers have said that as a Survival Horror game, they are easing up a bit on the "survival" elements to shift more of their creative attention to the "horror" elements.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: Female-voiced soft opera music will often play over scenes of squalor and slaughter. Justified via Source Music, as the music is played over speakers in the machine as part of the process of soothing the "products" and keeping them calm as they traverse down the piglike.
 * Story Breadcrumbs: The backstory unfolds as we discover Oswald's journal entries, which are received through the course of the whole game.
 * Trophy Room: Full of preserved large game, such as a bear, a hippo and a large anteater, contained in glass displays. Mandus appears to have been a Great White Hunter in his past.
 * Victorian London: The setting for the game. To quote Dan Pinchbeck, "We're going full on Victoriana." While London has always been important to the main character of all previous Frictional Games, this is the first one to feature it as a setting.
 * The Voice: "The Engineer", a mysterious presence who contacts Mandus via telephone lines set about the environment, urging him onward.
 * You Wake Up in a Room: The story begins with Mandus waking up in a room not remembering more than his name, and that his children need him, which he immediately sets off to search for.