#i mean there's also the new release amnesia: the bunker which is good that ppl may be hearing about afresh

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also enjoyed some delightful behind-the-scenes bonus material sort of videos for a:tdd from frictional:

the sound design demonstration video is a complete gift

the soundtrack composition and a tour of the composer's digital setup (so, all at one desk here lol):

a funny little edit presumably just serving as some teaser material:

and this video on Story:

which pairs really well w/an ye olde dev blog post i read abt their approach to immersion as well by trying to make the player feel like they Are the protagonist / doing what they would do, vs thinking of themself as just operating within the constraints of piloting a specific guy around, and had comments on what they chose to do to enhance this / what they think did or didn't work....sure noticed that frictional overall focuses on Story a lot, which i think is neat even if it comes at a tradeoff for how the game itself works sometimes, though the game serving the story and story serving the game works so well in a:tdd for sure, i also felt that the story did enough in the bunker, though the focus felt on the gameplay itself more so....it was funny hearing that apparently many players interpreted daniel's Read Aloud Diary Entries as being read aloud by him Now, Speaking in the Present, and would then be confused why he doesn't speak aloud to agrippa, though agrippa acts like daniel's responding....got the lore that agrippa was added fairly late in development, and that they considered removing the voiceover for diaries (which: noooo lol i love it. Eye didn't interpret it as [daniel is doing a dramatic reading for us Now] & it's so fun. but i note henri (& lambert's? i think) notes are Voiced Over in the bunker, so, win) or some different approach for agrippa (which, i also still really enjoy As Is imo, and sure interpret as either [imagine that daniel is speaking but we don't hear it] or [assuming agrippa is telepathic what with the mouth situation & we aren't hearing daniel's Thought Responses, which also aligns then with daniel just declining to have those thought responses for alexander lol)....talked abt Not doing cutscenes or anything where control was taken from the player, though there could be "reflexive" instances of forcing the View onto some event/item, and saying most ppl didn't mind this but they were wondering if even that was unnecessary....estimating that fifteen to thirty percent of players were annoyed by the Auditory Responses of daniel's reactions like, the heartbeat sfx, gasping, audible breathing, but to hell with them lol. i suppose i'd say that maybe daniel's Reactions like so were really what makes him feel very Present as a character, not as Necessarily an extension of the player, but (a) when Eye was playing i'd had the bonus confidence of enough familiarity via playthroughs to not be taken by surprise for the most part; the blog also said that Most Players were either neutral or felt daniel's noticeable reactions Enhanced the effects for them & (b) also Thee Story just serves to make daniel A Character in the first place, even if he didn't react thusly....but it'd be like, oh, gotta look after the guy separate from me, daniel, and make him feel a little better by standing in torchlight or collecting an item or something. but it's also like how it says in the video there, wherein this is Like having to mind your avatar's health stats. i realize I'm not wounded, but you find some laudanum about it (versus anything more like a Heal Kit lol. hangin in there), maybe I'm not crackling with fear rn, but i find daniel some light about it. and if i Was really in this creepy castle i Would be really quite scared i bet....you have to carry on....whilest it's also like, of course impossible to Ignore how well daniel's doing on that front, since even though he Doesn't become more easily found by enemies by any direct mechanic, having darkened shaky/blurry vision ft. hallucinations & that if you upset daniel enough he falls over for a few seconds = you really are in more danger b/c of all That....anyways obviously i like daniel's Presence as Past & Present character.