Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

• Main
• Trivia
• YMMV
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

"This world is a machine fit only 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...

Tropes used in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs include:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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:

"This world is a machine fit only for pigs. Fit for the slaughtering of pigs."

• 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.