Dear Esther [image heavy thread]

[Venetia]

Dear Esther ... Is ... Technically a game.

I mean, you have a player character. You move him around. Things that you do affect things that happen.

However ... It is, in many ways, not a game.

It's also not an interactive movie, nor ... Nor anything, really.

You control a man, of whose name you can only try to figure out on your own. You move him around the island. You try not to die ... And yet, there is no real penalty for dying.
There are no visual indicators. No HUD. A very very sparse pause/menu screen.

What is the goal?

Well, ... There isn't one.

The character you play states a series of monologues ... Each of which are disjointed and ... Well, more like beautiful, poetic musings. You know for sure that the guy is depressed as shit. And you can get some ideas as to why, from sparse clues around the island, and from hints in the monologues. You also can never really shake the feeling that you are in some sort of dream ...


The game itself is only like 2-4 hours long ... If you really pause to smell the roses. If you didn't give half a shit and were just trying to breeze through it w/o exploring, it could probs be conquered in like 1.5 hours.
I paid $9.99 for it on Steam ... Not entirely sure if $10 was worth it for so little gametime, and yet, it was longer than a movie, and a MILLION times more emotionally touching than any movie I've seen in recent memory, and about the same price as a theatre ticket, so, well, maybe it IS worth it?

I really was quite impressed by the visuals and the writing. When I was done, I felt somewhat inspired, and ... deeply moved. Which is an incredibly weird feeling to glean from a game.
The music -- though there isn't an overabundance of it -- is haunting, and just freaking gorgeous.

Anyway, it was originally a Source engine mod, released for free in 2008. It was picked up by a studio as a part of the Indie Project and given a lot of polish. If you buy it, you won't feel bad since you're helping out the indie games movement :D.


I took screens of my journey. Some of them are so beautiful, I'm making them my desktops :X. Here are a few of the highlights (though still screens REALLY don't do the game justice):

If you've played it, or the original source mod, talk about it :D

 

[coyotecraft]

Steam says the audio, visuals, events and the story is all randomly generated so every play through is unique.
Sounds intriguing. But I'm not sure I would care enough to play it.

 

[mawk]

I've only seen videos of this, which I promptly turned off since I figure it's best experienced in person. Once I have some walking-around money, I figure I'll pick it up.

I haven't really heard much of it post-polish, however. I understand that the original source mod had some issues with volume (i.e. the bgm swelling up dramatically and drowning out the narration), but that was a fairly ubiquitous complaint and, I'm sure, the first thing they ironed out. From those screenshots, I'm liking it already.

 

[Venetia]

the polished version just came out on the 14th so it hasn't had much time for much internet chirpings yet.

I still feel like I paid too much for so little gametime. I'd say wait to buy it until it gets down to like 5 or 6 bucks.

a LOT of amazing ideas in level design here though. there'll be more than a few times that you go "oh ... oh wow, that's clever" about an area's dynamics, or walk into an area and just stop to just ogle at things. a couple of times, if you pay attention hard enough, you'll notice shit that is downright HAUNTING. and, while it's linear, it never really FEELS linear, because you're always sort of feeling like you're given free will to make your way towards a certain thing ... a stark building, a weird hole, a gigantic, shining moon, a pulsing red beacon. and despite all the intense scenery, you never get lost.

i'd recommend it to any wannabe level designer. it's a feat to be able to inspire emotion in a video game level, even without using any music, words, actions, or cinematics.

 

[coyotecraft]

I watched some lets play videos of it. Nearly put me to sleep, but it was pretty to look at. Not something I would buy though.