When creating Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a series of unconventional design choices were made. The game is recognized as being incredibly tense and immersive, yet it breaks many traditional rules of game design. We ended up removing fail-states and much of the challenge, all traditionally key devices in a horror title. This talk will explore these seemingly strange choices, how they came about and how they resulted in a far better experience. It will also discuss how this kind of thinking extends beyond horror development to other genres as well.