Frictional Games and thechineseroom have already been very crafty with the reveal of Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, giving us a run around the globe with various teasers back in February. Now they’re keeping us in suspense with a new countdown timer which was initiated on the official A Machine For Pigs website. But does it mean anything?

We’re warning you now – this could lead to a very disappointing denouement, or it could be the most exciting news of the week. The countdown timer appeared on the website (top left corner of the box) yesterday with two days on the clock. One thing is certain, which could mean that there’s nothing to this countdown. The timer is synced up to finish when the Humble Bundle V does, which Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a part of. It seems odd that they would place a countdown on their website just for that though. If they have, then they’re probably having a good old laugh at those expecting anything to come from this.

What it could mean, or rather, what we hope for it to mean, is that we’ll be getting some new media once that countdown comes to a close. Screenshots or perhaps a trailer would be rather fantastic. We’re forced to keep our hype meters running very low for now though. In all reality, it will probably be nothing more than a countdown to mark the end of the Humble Bundle. But why put it on the website for A Machine For Pigs, other than to mess with heads?

We’ll keep our eye on it all, as we’re sure you will be anyway. Let’s hope for the best!

One of the greatest survival horror titles of all time, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, is now on a three day sale over on Desura – if you don’t have it, now is the time to face your fears.

Grab your headphones, wait for nightfall and then turn off all the lights – it’s Amnesia time. What’s that? You don’t have Amnesia: The Dark Descent? Outrageous. Good news though, it’s on sale for the next three days on Desura for just £3.25 – my money converting robot tells me that amounts to $4.99 for you US folk.

What’s more, Amnesia is the most popular game for user-generated content on IndieDB with over 100 custom stories to download and play free of charge for more scares and a reported 80 more on the way at this moment in time. You won’t get much better gaming quality and quantity for such a small price. So go and buy one of my favorite games and certainly my top one from 2010, go on.

Oh Amnesia, I do love you so. Without you, we would never have such epic lines like, “oh shit I have a bag of milky ways”…let the screaming commence:

More information on Amnesia: The Dark Descent can be found on the game’s official website.

Frictional Games‘ survival horror masterpiece, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, is now on the Mac App Store.

One of the most outstanding indie titles in recent years is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It’s a survival horror in the most pure and twisted form and has become renown for making people scream, panic and probably urinate. You follow Daniel who awakens in a dark castle with no memory of how he got there. Finding notes left be himself, he finds out he must travel down through the castle past its many haunts and murder someone he doesn’t know and for an unknown reason.

The Dark Descent will be getting a follow up with A Machine For Pigs which is being developed by thechineseroom with Frictional acting as producers – we expect big and horrible things. If you haven’t played it yet and you’re a Mac owner then definitely consider picking it up from the Mac App Store now it’s on there.

More information on Amnesia: The Dark Descent is available on the game’s official website.

After teasing just about everyone, in particular us and their community, Frictional Games seem to have unveiled a tiny bit more information on their upcoming Amnesia project.The ARG laid out by Frictional Games has been keeping their community busy. It has led to the discovery of more letters and the full concept art image that was waiting for them. From solving the anagram that the letters formed, they got the following message:“The world is a machine. A machine for pigs

Original Source: Frictional Games: “A Machine For Pigs Coming Fall 2012″

This Article was originally posted on our sister site, The Indie Game Magazine written by Chris Priestman.

Die hard fans of horror meisters Frictional Games have been hard at work chasing all of the clues that the developers have left for them since unveiling the teaser site for their next Amnesia game. Here’s the story so far…We reported on the unveiling of nextfrictionalgame.com just the other day – it featured a blurred out image, the words “something is emerging” and a link to a Google Map of China. The press and excited players all scurried around it and then it was forgotten. Well, almost

Original Source: Fans Unveil More Clues And Teasers For Next ‘Amnesia’ Game

This Article was originally posted on our sister site, The Indie Game Magazine written by Chris Priestman.

Justine has now been repackaged for fans of Frictional Games’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent. For those of you just joining us, DIY’s Erik Johnson gave horror adventure Amnesia a glowing review last year. Turns out the judges of the 2011 Independent Games Festival felt the same way, handing out three awards: Audio, Technical, and Direct2Drive Vision.

It’s great to see the team hasn’t gotten slothy with its IP. This update includes a collection of five short-stories set in the world of Amnesia. Says the press release, “They are sure to answer some of your questions about our universe, but also have you come up with a few new ones.” Justine and the story collection will be available through the Amnesia v1.2 update, which became available this week. The update also includes some bug fixes and now includes Russian voice and subtitles.

With sounds great enough to win an IGF award, Amnesia‘s team is smart to release a soundtrack. This week also marks Mikko Tarmia’s soundtrack landing on Frictional Games’ Store.

Ready for that update? Grab it on the link below. Come back and let us know how scary these new stories are!

Amnesia update 1.2 (Win, Mac, Linux)

This weekend only, Frictional Games are offering their well-received horror adventure, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, at 50% off its original price ($19.99). That means the game is going for a measly $10, and that’s great news for any of you who were a little strapped for cash or questioning whether the purchase was truly worth it. Moreover, Frictional has eased your method of purchase by offering up a texting option in which you can simply pay for the game through your mobile provider, adding the cost to your phone bill without having to go through the hassle of inputting credit card information and the like.

Amnesia runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux and system requirements are relatively scaled back. A demo is indeed available on Steam as well, so there are no excuses for not checking the game out. Finally, it should be noted that Frictional is also offering The Penumbra Collection at 50% off as well for $9.99. If you want to pay online, check out Frictional’s page right here. If you want to go the mobile route, here’s your chance.

[Frictional Games]

It’s been roughly a month since Frictional Games launched their immersive adventure horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. With things looking alright–but not fantastic–a week after release, the developer has much better news regarding the game and its sales this time around.

First off, the dev shares that everything as a whole went “better than expected on all accounts.” As of the article’s publishing on October 8, Amnesia has sold a total of 36,000 units (including pre-orders, excluding retail sales in Russia.) With Frictional’s sales goal, the determining factor if the team could continue to make games, set at 24,000; the developer is pleased to share that they will “live to create another game.” Hurrah!

The user and press response was the same as it had been at the first checkpoint, in that it was “overwhelming” to the dev. An 86% on Metacritic is especially high given the niche of the game, and they saw a significant sales boost (from 150 a day to 600 a day) following the combination of reviews from Zero Punctuation and Gamespot.

The team also shares several specifics regarding the platform sales of the game. As expected PC is the leading platform, dominating with over 80% of the total sales pie. Linux grabs around 5% of total sales with the dev pinning Mac copies between 8%-12% total.

Other notes from the long blog post include a heavier focus on pre-orders next time around, and the team facing the sad reality of piracy. They draw a comparison to why Amnesia suffers more from pirates than a game like Minecraft with higher replay-ability and more consistent updates, because of the mindset taken with the more single-time/single-player experience the game presents:

“Once you have played Amnesia there is little meaning to play again. A person pirating the game and finishing it has no real reason to go back. So even if a player likes it and determines that it is well worth paying for, there is no incentive to do so. It is quite common to read on forums that people have downloaded a pirated version and say that they will probably buy it later. The question here is how many actually does this?”

They’re not about to pout though, with the title recouping all expenses the team can now receive more “normal salaries.” During the development of Amnesia the team worked long hours for low wage, and on a budget that they reveal won’t be possible to do with their next game.

Bottom line, the outlook for Frictional Games is solid. With the success of Amnesia, the team can now turn their attention to the next project. Apparently the sky’s the limit:

“As this will be our first project were [sic] we know from the start that we can finance it ourselves, it will be very interesting to see what can be done.”

[Amnesia: The Dark Descent]

Impulse clues us into Frictional Games releasing a new update for their recently released (and thus far critically acclaimed) adventure horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, now available for download.

The 1.01 patch brings a number of bug fixes, level tweaks, texture fixes, and specifically resolves the ATI Radeon X1000 series issues that have been reported. The windows demo now reflects the update as well.

Frictional has also shared something of a postmortem over on their development blog. They have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from both the press and players, had a piracy scare that could have been much worse and so far have received good but not great sales. They also mention that while the game saw a great push for pre-orders and on launch day, sales have since declined “almost exponentially” since the Steam 20% off deal ended shortly after its release.

The game is out now for PC, Mac and Linux. Any reason(s) you’ve held back throwing down the completely reasonable $20 for a really unique experience?

[Amnesia: The Dark Descent]

Mods are one of the hallmarks of PC gaming, and doubly so for budding indie developers, so it’s always good news when developers release the tools to hack apart their games and rebuild them from the ground up.  That’s exactly what Frictional Games has done, making a suite of editing tools available for Amnesia: The Dark Descent.  Were you wondering about that “Custom Story” option on Amnesia’s main menu?  Well, wonder no more, as that is where the levels and campaigns created by modders with Frictional’s tools will appear.  Not that there was much wrong with Amnesia’s story already, as Erik already detailed in his review, but you can never have too much of a good thing.  Right?  Even when that good thing is a twisted parody of the human form, watching from the shadows, waiting to devour you at any moment.

Among the documentation for Frictional’s fittingly named HPL2 Engine you will be able to find everything needed to make your own interactive horror.  Once you download the editing tools, you’ll have everything you need to modify levels, models, particles, and materials.  Don’t know how to do that?  Then check out the tutorials for for help with all of those as well as some basics to get you started with scripting.  Or if you just want to see what new levels people are making then you might want to start by browsing the Custom Stories and Modifications section of Frictional’s forums.  There are already a couple of mods uploaded, including one to touch up the original game’s textures, a handful of original stories, and even a remake of the first level of Doom.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is available now for $20 for PC, Mac, and Linux from Frictional’s store, or from a number of online retails including Steam, Impulse, and Direct2Drive.