Poll: Would A Machine For Pigs be a good place for people to get into horror?

[RogueNinja299]

Being a big fan of The Dark Decent I was a little disappointed by A Machine For Pigs but I stared wondering if it would be a better game for people to start with than that Descent.

With Pig's much simpler gameplay and puzzles it would allow players to get use to how lighting and avoiding enemies works. Then when they move on to Descent these two features interact more closely and they'll have a new level of difficulty with the sanity meter and monitoring their health, oil and tinderboxes.

The inventory system would add more depth and complexity to the puzzles, although not by much it would serve as a good step up.

Finally the story. Seeing as Pigs isn't a direct sequel and with only a few mentions here and there to Descent I think that it would work well playing Pigs first. While It would leave the player with questions as to what the "Egg" is and wanting more details about this "Vitae". Upon their discovery in Descent they would look back at Mandus' actions with more disgust.

What do you guys think?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I've always been of the belief that the best starting point to "get into" anything is by plunging head-first into the deep end. So no, an easy game isn't a better starting point.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Well the gameplay in A Machine for Pigs is very simplified and linear compared to in The Dark Descent, but the story and atmosphere/setting are absolutely incredible. So I'd say its a good place to start as its one of the easiest survival horror games I've played and also the most engaging in terms of the story.

I'd also recommend the Penumbra series for a good starting point into survival horror games. The first game starts off pretty easy, with relatively tame enemies and a way to fight them. The second game ramps up the experience by taking away all of your weapons and throwing scarier enemies at you. Both games have tons of puzzles which shouldn't be too difficult for even a beginner to work out.

I'd definitely consider The Dark Descent as jumping into the deep end in terms of gameplay.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Isn't the point of horror to get the adrenaline pumping and having fun with jump scares and feeling vulnerable? Surely then the best thing to do is go straight to the top... Play the scariest games first and enjoy the scares?

 

[LAGG]

Yes, any casual horror game for that matter.
These games are not only good to introduce people to horror games, but game in general.

If anybody is confused for the use of "casual horror" this is what I meant:
http://www.dreamdawn.com/sh/post_view.php?index=8302

 

[Benpasko]

I'd also recommend the Penumbra series for a good starting point into survival horror games. The first game starts off pretty easy, with relatively tame enemies and a way to fight them. The second game ramps up the experience by taking away all of your weapons and throwing scarier enemies at you. Both games have tons of puzzles which shouldn't be too difficult for even a beginner to work out.

I disagree, the dogs scared me far more than any of the enemies in Black Plague. Penumbra is a great starting point, one of my favorites for sure.

 

[Fox12]

I've always been of the belief that the best starting point to "get into" anything is by plunging head-first into the deep end. So no, an easy game isn't a better starting point.

I have to agree, there's no point in testing the waters. I would recommend jumping into Silent Hill 2, or a classic Resident Evil if you want something more accessible.

 

[RJ 17]

Eh, it'd be as good as any other, really. As the comment section for the official Escapist Review of the game suggests, while most of the people didn't like it or it's brand of horror - even going so far as to say that there was no horror at all - others (myself included) seemed to enjoy it. It's much more environmentally scary (or at least it's supposed to be) than substantially scary. By that I mean you're supposed to be creeped out by where you are, what you're seeing, the oppressive atmosphere, the claustrophobic feelings the dark, narrow, brick corridors create. Dark Decent, on the other hand, did have good atmosphere but the terror it inflicted was more about running for your life from shambling monstrosities while forcing yourself to play within the confines of the game's mechanics (inventory management, sanity meter, etc.).

So really it boils down to if you're the type of person who enjoys less substantial kinds of fear (as seen in Machine for Pigs) or if you're someone who enjoys more substantial kinds of fear (as seen in Dark Decent).

 

[Hazy]

To anyone who may be on the fence about this game:
No. Believe me - do not even consider buying it. Watch a walkthrough online or read the wiki if you really want to discover the story, because the game is a chore to play. The puzzles are elementary, the encounters with enemies are boring (I walked past my first enemy encounter,) and everything in-between is dead air.

The potential was completely squandered and The Chinese Room are forever on my blacklist. I see people heralding the story as deep, but really, it's silly, needlessly metaphorical in a vain attempt to sound smart, and what should be big plot points are glossed over and never spoken about again.

It should be noted that stuff like this is never shown in-game:

What a waste. Such a great setting too. I actually emailed Frictional games, asking if they could potentially salvage this game, and pleading with them to never let TCR touch another one of their titles again.

 

[Eve Charm]

Ya it's be a pretty good starting point with less stuff for them to have to bother with. It's basically another refer to that extra credits episode again about introducing people to gaming. It fits the bill.

 

[[REDACTED]]

A bit off topic here, but am I the only one here who really doesn't find pigs scary, like at all?

You can warp and twist and mutate them all you want, but at the end of the day they're not scary, they're bacon.
Yea, it certainly doesn't help that we EAT pigs on a regular basis, that kinda takes away from the scariness potential.

I dunno. Bacon or not, their squeals alone can place them pretty far up on the "Animals with the potential to be creepy" list.

 

[Headsprouter]

Spoiler

hide from a monster in a room full of dead bodies, with the sound of buzzing flies all around

Spoiler: Awwwww, yeahhhh!

The first brute non-cinematic encounter in the morgue! That was terrifying!

I don't know. When I decided I wanted to try true survival horror, I was thinking something along the lines of "Go big or go home! I want to piss my pants!" but even so, that didn't really happen...

But still, I feel if someone willingly decides to give horror an honest try they might at well go for the most effective tool. A tool for scares is what I mean.

Besides, I think the gameplay in AAMFP was too simple to be rewarding, shutting a door on a grunt and having to make a quick decision while it breaks the door down -- and succeeding in that -- is very rewarding. I had such a blast getting into tough scrapes with the monsters of TDD that I instantly declared survival horror (the REAL kind) as one of my favourite genres. In AAMFP I didn't feel like I'd accomplished very much, if anything at all, I felt no need to pat myself on the back for walking around a few pigs with bad AI.

So no. If you want to play a scary game, go for the scariest game you can find. There's no point in being only halfway there.

 

[TheCaptain]

I wouldn't recommend that, because while the athmosphere is creepy and the setting somewhat nighmarish, this isn't the kind of game to find out if you like being absolutely terrified by a video game.

What I do believe is that it's best to stick with the indies, because there are quite some who remember how to do horror right - in part out of necessity. Character design is usually... not photorealistic, and to keep the antagonists scary, the developers must keep you from looking at them to hard. Which is exactly what makes horror work.

That's, by the way, my main beef with AMFP: The fact that nothing kept you from always keeping an eye on the enemies while you really had no reason to light the lantern and give away your position. In TDD, you had to recover in the light, and when you looked around the corner to see if it was gone Daniel would whimper and moan and the monster in question would come a-runnin and bash your face in.

And this is how I like my horror games, really. The monster you really can't see, or can't look at, or can only glimpse is always bigger and scarier and more dangerous than the ones you can carefully examine.

With that in mind, I wouldn't recommend AMFP as a starting point for indie horror games; it's too atypical for the genre. Also there's a chance that someone who would like indie survival horror games as a genre could be put off by the deliberately super-pretentious style of AMFP's narrative.

I recommend starting with Slender: The Arrival. It's only ten bugs, not quite as frustrating as the original, tense, you can't look at the man because that's what kills you, it's short enough to see through to the end even while you're not sure if you like that sort of games...