When clever ARG-crackers uncovered this message on nextfrictionalgame.com , the internet leapt to the conclusion that the next Frictional game would be called Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and that it would be coming out later this year. It was even rumoured that the game was being created in collaboration with Dear Esther developers thechineseroom.

As it happens, the internet was absolutely correct. A Machine for Pigs is set in the same universe as Amnesia but features new characters and a new setting. thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck told Joystiq that the game takes place in the same horror-laced alternate history as its predecessor, but won't continue the same story. It's set in 1899, when wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus returns home from Mexico and lapses into a months-long coma during which he dreams of a terrifying machine. When he wakes, the machine is real: and presumably what follows is an entirely pleasant experience in which no-one is dismembered.

The combination of Amensia's panic-inducing physical scares and Dear Esther's top-tier writing and atmosphere makes for a really promising collaboration - to the extent that 'promising' means 'bum-clenchingly terrifying'. I'm also starting to suspect that the machine isn't really for pigs. Just a hunch. Better to be safe than sorry.