The Chinese Room Responds To Criticism – Jump-Scares, Fabrications and Generalisations

Whenever a major franchise changes hands between developers, it is always a source of concern for any fandom. Views might change, approaches might differ and the dreaded statement of approaching a “Wider audience” sometimes involving the words “Call of Duty” might be uttered. For fans of the hit horror title Amnesia, this came in the form of its sequel by The Chinese Room. A divisive developer, they have been praised and criticised alike for building atmosphere but, to quote developer Jessica Curry “Mechanics will never be our core focus.”

This might sound like a film producer claiming that visualappear will never be a priority, and indeed Amnesia:A Machine For Pigs was streamlined to the point of completely removing manyinteractive mechanics. Some critics emphasised upon the lack of sanity meter,inventory management and non-linearity which had made the first game sofrightening and risky to play. Not to mention enemies who would not followbeyond very limited areas. While the game did indeed have a much improved artdirection, tighter story and excellent voice acting, some players of theprevious still heavily criticised many changes. Representatives of The ChineseRoom Dan Pinchbeck and Jessica Curry have now responded to these critics in anarticle on TheGuardian, but with not quite the answers people wanted.