History Fridge / AmnesiaTheDarkDescent

** Notice when a Grunt starts breaking down a door, a rough box appears in the center. [[Film/TheShining "Heeeere's Jonny!"]]

** Notice when a Grunt starts breaking down a door, a rough box appears in the center. [[TheShining "Heeeere's Jonny!"]]

** Notice when a Grunt starts breaking down a door, a rough box appears in the center. [[TheShinning "Heeeere's Jonny!"]]

* FridgeBrilliance: In games like ''Amnesia: The Dark Descent'', the player is stranded in one specific location, like a building. Games like these usually evoke a strong desire to go outside and leave. So what does the game do? Make the only instance where you "go outside" (that's not a flashback) dark and dreary. Ever wonder why the Study is the only place where the outside is so dark? It's to stop players from feeling a sense of relief and escape when they traverse the window ledges, and are officially outside the castle. It then goes so far as to have something tear down trees. It's basically letting you know that you ''can't escape'', and you ''will'' be hunted down.

!!FridgeLogic
* The protagonist has to light torches and lanterns to hold back the darkness and keep his sanity. He will pass ''hundreds'' of books and pieces of wooden furniture just lying around over the course of the game. Apparently, those don't count.
** Also, light sources other than one lantern cannot be moved under any circumstances (there are plenty of candles around) and they can only be lit by a tinderbox, never from another light (including the oil lamp you carry).
*** There's a bit of a running gag among some parts of the fandom that Alexander had his servants glue all of the candles to the tables.
*** Those could be justified (Albeit weakly, like he doesn't want to risk setting the room alight), but on more than one occasion you come across windows blocked by ''curtains'' that you can't remove or pull aside to let light in. For a game based heavily around physics something like that is just silly.
*** Not pulling aside the curtains is justified by the fact that while being in the dark is bad for your sanity, ''not'' having dark to hide in is bad for your continued existence.
** Speaking of which, why does darkness make you insane?
*** You're being hunted by a ''shadow''. Why wouldn't the dark make you paranoid and nervous?
* You pass bandsaws, but can't pick them up as a weapon. Or the hammers nearby. Or the shovel. You can pick up a crowbar to open a door, but it's dropped immediately upon use.
** Perhaps Daniel just has the sense to know he doesn't stand a chance against the powerful monsters.
*** You never saw [[VideoGame/{{Half-Life}} Gordon Freeman]] give up when [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer all he had was a crowbar]].
*** I saw Gordon Freeman give up when he didn't have his HEV suit though...
*** Even if he can't ''kill'' the monster, at least he might be able to use the crowbar / shovel / hammer to wound and distract it. In fact, when you throw crates and other items at the monsters, it actually delays them and gives you more time to escape. So wouldn't it make more sense for Daniel to keep his weapons instead of discarding them?
*** Didn't Daniel say towards the beginning of the game that he'd already tried fighting the monsters with weapons, and that it had no effect?
* In the level the entrance hall you need to dissolve the meat moss blocking access to the refinery, however attempting to leave the castle reveals that the door is blocked off by the same meat moss. Daniel could have escaped the castle right then and there by using the acid he found to dissolve the meat moss blocking the exit and gotten out of there. (however because the devs think of everything trying to do this has no effect)
** It could be that Daniel, in spite of his amnesia, still senses the shadow closing in on him, and, since his past self is all he has to go on for information, and his past self is saying to go deeper into the castle and kill Alexander, he thinks it would be better to follow his own advice and try to fix the problem instead of running away. However if [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything they had thought of everything,]] they should have let you go out the door, walk a few hundred feet, hear the noises of some monster, and get dragged off into the swamp like some of the notes that you pick up hint at happening. Would have added some "My God... That was almost ME" paranoia to the game, [[SarcasmMode because God knows it needs more of it...]]
** This is something that the designers at Frictional are aware of, according to the [[WordOfGod in-game commentary]]. The dissolve-the-slime-barrier-with-acid puzzle was one of the first designed, and while that section of the game went through several redesigns, the puzzle stayed the same. In the original version, the MeatMoss did not start filling the entrance hall as the player progressed, but was added later, and kind of undermined the concept of the puzzle. However, by that point in development there was not enough time in the project schedule to come up with a different puzzle that fit the newer level design. They left it in because they needed something there for the player to overcome, but were not fully satisfied with the end result.
* In the 'Entrance to Cistern' there is a puzzle requiring you to lower an automatic ladder, except that for some reason a pipe is in the way. Makes you wonder if the ladder was put in first, and the plumber decided to mess with the engineer, or some lazy engineer decided to slap the ladder down early and call it a day
* At some point in the game, you have to [[spoiler:inject yourself with the blood of a corpse to pass into the next level.]] Anyone ever wonder that just maybe [[spoiler:that guy might have a different ''blood type'' than Daniel?]]
** Daniel frequently [[spoiler:hallucinates]] about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_hissing_cockroach giant Hissing Cockroaches]], which are indigenous to Madagascar... Despite [[spoiler:his only time spent in Africa, to the knowledge of the player, is in Algeria, on the other side of the African continent.]]

*** You never saw [[HalfLife Gordon Freeman]] give up when [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer all he had was a crowbar]].

* FridgeBrilliance: In games like ''Amnesia: The Dark Descent'', the player is stranded in one specific location, like a building. Games like these usually evoke a strong desire to go outside and leave. So what does the game do? Make the only instance where you "go outside" (that's not a flashback) dark and dreary. Ever wonder why the Study is the only place where the outside is so dark? It's to stop players from feeling a sense of relief and escape when they traverse the window ledges, and are officially outside the castle. It then goes so far as to have something tear down trees. It's basically letting you know that you ''can't escape'', and you ''will'' be hunted down.

** This is something that the designers at Frictional are aware of, according to the [[WordOfGod in-game commentary]]. The dissolve-the-slime-barrier-with-acid puzzle was one of the first designed, and while that section of the game went through several redesigns, the puzzle stayed the same. In the original version, the MeatMoss did not start filling the entrance hall as the player progressed, but was added later, and kind of undermined the concept of the puzzle. However, by that point in development there was not enough time in the project schedule to come up with a different puzzle that fit the newer level design. They left it in because they needed something there for the player to overcome, but were not fully satisfied with the end result.

** This is something that the designers at Frictional are aware of, according to the [[WordOfGod in-game commentary]]. The dissolve-the-slime-barrier-with-acid puzzle was one of the first designed, and while that secion of the game went through several redesigns, the puzzle stayed the same. In the original version, the MeatMoss did not start filling the entrance hall as the player progressed, but was added later, and kind of undermined the concept of the puzzle. However, by that point in development there was not enough time in the project schedule to come up with a different puzzle that fit the newer level design. They left it in because they needed something there for the player to overcome, but were not fully satisfied with the end result.

** This is something that the designers at Frictional are aware of, according to the [[WordOfGod in-game commentary]]. The dissolve-the-slim-barrier-with-acid puzzle was one of the first designed, and while that secion of the game went through several redesigns, the puzzle stayed the same. In the original version, the MeatMoss did not start filling the entrance hall as the player progressed, but was added later, and kind of undermined the concept of the puzzle. However, by that point in development there was not enough time in the project schedule to come up with a different puzzle that fit the newer level design. They left it in because they needed something there for the player to overcome, but were not fully satisfied with the end result.

** It could be that Daniel, in spite of his amnesia, still senses the shadow closing in on him, and, since his past self is all he has to go on for information, and his past self is saying to go deeper into the castle and kill Alexander, he thinks it would be better to follow his own advice and try to fix the problem instead of running away. However if [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything they had thought of everything,]] they should have let you go out the door, walk a few hundred feet, hear the noises of some monster, and get dragged off into the swamp like some of the notes that you pick up hint at happening. Would have added some "My God... That was almost ME" paranoia to the game, [[SarcasmMode because God knows it needs more of it...]]

*** You never saw [[HalfLife Gordon Freeman]] give up when all he had was a crowbar.

*** Except not. Not pulling aside the curtains is justified by the fact that while being in the dark is bad for your sanity, ''not'' having dark to hide in is bad for your continued existance.

The protagonist has to light torches and lanterns to hold back the darkness and keep his sanity. He will pass ''hundreds'' of books and pieces of wooden furniture just lying around over the course of the game. Apparently, those don't count.

* FridgeLogic: The protagonist has to light torches and lanterns to hold back the darkness and keep his sanity. He will pass ''hundreds'' of books and pieces of wooden furniture just lying around over the course of the game. Apparently, those don't count.

** You pass bandsaws, but can't pick them up as a weapon. Or the hammers nearby. Or the shovel. You can pick up a crowbar to open a door, but it's dropped immediately upon use.
*** Perhaps Daniel just has the sense to know he doesn't stand a chance against the powerful monsters.