[SSUK]

So I've been watching a Let's Play of Amnesia: The Dark Descent lately, and I stumbled upon the fact that the game comes with a little extra content by way of a Super_Secret.rar file which comes with the game data. It's a nice little extra, containing artwork and videos of the game in development. I'll try my best to point out differences in the videos.



Start: The game seems to start at the front entrance of the castle the game takes place in. In the final game, it does not start from here at all. You start out in a secluded part of the castle instead. This part is still in the game, however. But you cannot leave, something blocks the door.

0:17 - Quests aren't present in the final game. Well, not as shown here. Occasionally notes will be added to your notebook which give you nudges as to where to go, however they do not appear on-screen like this, nor do they make a sound when given.

0:23 - Items, doors and other interactive objects have a slight glow around them. This does not happen in the final.

0:25 - A percentage of completion is given for each area in the game before you enter it. This was removed in the final.

0:43 - Sanity doesn't work like this. Here it depicts the game showing you 'odd' or 'scary' things when your sanity is dangerously low, whereas in the final game, your vision just goes blurry and you have a chance of fainting at random. I believe you can also have silhouettes walk infront of your vision. It also does not mention that standing in darkness lowers your sanity, perhaps not actually a part of the game yet.

0:52 or 1:35 - Sanity Potion. This is actually called a Landrium in the final and restores health, not sanity. Staying in the light and accomplishing progress in the game restores sanity in the final.

0:57 - Coins. Currency is not found in the final. Nor would there be any logical place to use it in context to the final game. Perhaps there were others in the game initially, however were removed for a more recluse environment.

1:08 - Notes look different. In the final, notes are displayed on a page, not as they are shown here. Once again the area completion percentage pops up, increasing as he takes the note. This doesn't happen in the final.

1:37 - Inventory screen is quite different. In the final, items are closer together, health, oil and sanity aren't displayed in percentage points but visually. Coins collected are also displayed at the top, the currency is Thaler.

1:46 - Tinderboxes have to be selected from the inventory menu here. In the final, the tinderbox doesn't have to be selected in this way. You can just click on a candle to light it.

2:29 - This sequence exists in the final, however the note itself does not. There is a note in that place in the final, however it reads differently.

3:12 - It mentions that nearby enemies will drain sanity. In the final, looking directly at monsters will decrease sanity, not just being around them.

3:29 - What appears to be a note as a place holder for later voicework.

4:00 - A rope pully sits in the wine cellar, however is not there in the final. Instead there is a ladder. The hand-crank is used later in the game, however.

4:04 - The monster depicted here is not in the game. It's a placeholder from Frictional Games' previous game: Penumbra.

4:17 - Two things, one, monsters wont find you easier in the final with lower sanity. However, lower sanity means you have the chance of randomly breaking down and fainting while fleeing monsters making you a sitting duck. Two, there's a pickaxe in his inventory. To my understanding, there isn't a pickaxe to be acquired in the final game.

4:25 - The monster speaks. In the final, the most monsters do is make a funny noise every now and then. Here it speaks to the player. The AI here is also pretty weak, completely walking past the player cowering in a corner. In the final, monsters aren't so stupid and will come look for you inside rooms even without catching you in eye-sight alone.




Lots of little things in here. For one, none of these rooms are used in the final. There's placeholders for mouse graphics with simple wording like "Grab" and "Push". Which is interesting, you don't do a lot of "Pushing" of objects like tables, infact I can't recall if you ever can. This may have been removed altogether, I might need some verification on that. When an object is picked up, it's shown being pushed away from the camera, something which you can't do in the final, other rotation is still there. This demo also introduces two elements of the game which are only really shown much later into the game, so big spoilers: the "Help me" voice you hear is actually in the final game, however most likely re-cast later down the road. The swirling particle effects also introduce the game's more 'magical' fantasy elements which are not abundantly clear until at least half way through the game.

[SSUK]

And completing our trip back in time, here we have an Engine Test video showing the game in it's very primitive stages. Other than showing lovely debug information, it also shows a prison area. Most likely the game could have originally intended to start out in this prison, dungeons are part of the game.


Here's the above map in the in-house model editor. It also showcases the already complex lighting system the game has. This also backs up my aforementioned prison-as-start-of-game theory, as the filename for the map is "prisontut", tut most likely more than anything else short for "tutorial".

[SSUK]

Here is a timelapse video of a more advanced level editor in action for the game. It also explains the monster shown in above videos are actually placeholders from a previous game. It also shows the quest text/noise, coins are still in the game at this point, tinderboxes are not considered inventory items, but now part of the statistics in the bottom left-hand corner, the lantern has a different icon in the final and is displayed in your field of vision when used, not to mention the fact the lantern is a lot stronger in the final with a more orange hue, in order to open chests you need to spent money, as there's no money in the final, chests can simply be opened. Once again, monsters speaking to you.


Another oddity is this trailer which was officially released:

Lots of differences here, the area which this occurs is very different, the monster... What seems to be some glowing ghost like figure isn't in the final as far as I'm aware, the woman crying out happens but only once and not all that related to this scene. The score used for the backing soundtrack was most likely added as the in-game audio is nothing like this, neither does the player character ever really react in the way he does here. It does demonstrate the 'only lose sanity when looking at monster' mechanic, though.

Sorry for the multiple posts, btw. Forum doesn't like more than 2 media tags per post.