Early in development, we had the idea of basing the game a lot on movement, such as climbing, extending bridges, and jumping on platforms. Side Note: The impact that basic mechanics have on space and character is quite interesting and worth thinking about.

This also meant a lot of player attributes, such as jump height and speed, got better suited for the mood we wanted to portray. The original darkness system required the player to survey large areas in order to form proper strategies, whereas the sanity system worked well in cramped spaces. Good horror often comes from claustrophobic spaces and thrives on low visibility. Most importantly, though, was that it allowed us to compress the environments. The scenarios got more interesting, the environments more believable, and having the protagonist fear the dark worked perfectly, narrative-wise. This system worked a lot better narrative-wise, too. 'We made the decision that it was time to go back to what we knew best: making adventure-style games with less focus on mechanics, and more focus on narrative and ambiance.' So what started out as our core mechanic - the fear of the dark - had been demoted to an aspect of the of the overarching sanity system. The player would lose sanity from seeing monsters, from witnessing horrific events, and of course from being in the dark. We found that it was a lot easier to fit the concept of insanity into our game. Partly inspired by games like Call of Cthulhu and Eternal Darkness, and partly by a continuation of features from our Penumbra games, the sanity system was born. This also made us decide to add actual monsters and other kinds of (non-darkness-related) puzzles as well. Instead of having the darkness being directly linked to player's health, it made a lot more sense if it affected their mental well-being. This was the point when we first came up with the sanity mechanic. In order to get the proper gameplay going, rooms had to feature countless mirrors, awkwardly-sized furniture, and nonsensical layouts. The lighting was all off, and the environments made no sense at all. The problem is that once you start mixing something that's very aesthetically meaningful - like darkness and light in a horror game - with a game mechanic, you ruin the aesthetics and the mood. With this as our foundation, we then started to design some maps.

Being in the dark too long meant your health would suffer and the player had manipulate the environments in a way that kept them away from the shadows.

We began by designing, on paper, a mechanic in which players could manipulate things like windows, candles, and mirrors in order to control the dispersion of light and dark. The issue was now to figure out a way in which the player could interact with the darkness. This would help us cope with our limited resources: When we started out the project, there were only three people, including a sole artist at the time. You wouldn't be running from monsters, but running from this pitch blackness. An idea popped up: 'Why not get rid of enemies altogether?' Instead of having physical monsters present, we'd just have the dark as an enemy. Early on in the development of Amnesia, around the time when we were applying for funding from Nordic Games, we thought a lot about ways to develop a game without having to spend too much money and resources.

Amnesia the dark descent lore