Dear Esther with the developer commentary on is a more enjoyable experience than Dear Esther with the plot narration.
Is that because the commentary nodes give you more of an objective and incentive to explore than environmental details? Because the developer commentary is more engaging audio than the flowery narrative? Because the description of the game the developers think they made is better than the game they actually did?
... All of the above?
Is that because the commentary nodes give you more of an objective and incentive to explore than environmental details? Because the developer commentary is more engaging audio than the flowery narrative? Because the description of the game the developers think they made is better than the game they actually did?
... All of the above?
I didn't get it. Everyone was like OHHH THE VISUALS THE GOO CAVE WOW! It was just kinda ok.
There's something about these Hebridean isles that makes it pleasant to just exist in Dear Ester, whether walking or just standing still.
I do wish it did a little more with the mathematical and chemical symbols than it does.
I do wish it did a little more with the mathematical and chemical symbols than it does.
Un walking simulator que no ha conseguido transmitirme nada, pero que cuenta con unas preciosas melodías de acompañamiento durante la hora y media que me ha durado el recorrido por la isla.
I'm an absolute sucker for a good Walking Sim game.
This one absolutely sucked. I did not enjoy it one bit and almost fell asleep quite a few times.
This one absolutely sucked. I did not enjoy it one bit and almost fell asleep quite a few times.
Wow this is... really boring!
I felt almost no emotional connection with the narrative (I assume there's a narrative?) or the "gameplay" (mainly bumbling about the island like a bear wading through a field of molasses) and I honestly cared little about what the main character had to say or how meandering about the island related at all to anything. There is absolutely nothing important about this game, and that's the sin of being notably boring instead of notably bad; at least I remember playing something if it's notably bad.
I felt almost no emotional connection with the narrative (I assume there's a narrative?) or the "gameplay" (mainly bumbling about the island like a bear wading through a field of molasses) and I honestly cared little about what the main character had to say or how meandering about the island related at all to anything. There is absolutely nothing important about this game, and that's the sin of being notably boring instead of notably bad; at least I remember playing something if it's notably bad.
The most pretentious "game" I've ever "played"
both simultaneously overrated and overhated. it's fine. adequate way to spend an hour, if just to see what it's about. yes, the narrative is flowery and doesn't actually say very much, but, like, it's a walking sim, and one of the first at that. shouldn't be a huge surprise that it takes itself a bit too seriously for its own good
Dear Esther Tarih Yazdı...
Consiste en caminar.
No, en serio, está bien, es un juego poético sobre la pérdida, la depresión y el camino a seguir ante un amor que no volverá
No, en serio, está bien, es un juego poético sobre la pérdida, la depresión y el camino a seguir ante un amor que no volverá
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom
When it first came out, Dear Esther gained fame for pioneering what would eventually be labeled the walking simulator. Having played a couple of these in my time as a gamer, I can definitely see the appeal in them: after all, the idea of purely exploring a beautifully-rendered environment as you slowly unravel its narrative is the heart of mystery novels. And with video games offering visual treats to accompany the story, such a combination can be an emotional experience.
Unfortunately, Dear Esther has been significantly outclassed by later entries in the genre it inspired, not because they did anything particularly innovative with the concept so much as they avoided the basic pitfalls that render Dear Esther an example of what not to do.
I don’t want to be too harsh since The Chinese Room put a lot of thought into their project, so I’ll begin on some positive notes- graphically, Dear Esther is solid. I played the Landmark Edition, which reportedly rebuilt the game in the Unity Engine, and while I’m unable to pinpoint any specific differences from the original, the end result is splendid. The isle is essentially restricted to muted verdant coverings, tall cliff-faces, and streaming water, the three looking as though they were taken from a pictorialized Hemingway novel. What I mean is the art style isn’t pure realism, instead dialing back to a more storybook-esque format that provides aesthetic elements simultaneously minimalist and enriching in appearance. Overlooking the oceanic horizon with the wind bellowing about you as waves crash below evokes a peace of mind; seeing derelict houses or abandoned trawlers in the distance imbues melancholy. At times, it really does feel like you’ve stepped into an old fisherman’s recollection of events from yore.
Rocks, in particular, are incredibly well done from a texturing and variety perspective. Usually these are the facets that get skimped over by developers since, well, let’s be honest, who truly cares about stone? Well, here The Chinese Room evidently did, and you get a lot of diversity, from the granite bluffs above sea to the ore boulders laden with gold veins to even the slightly-damp speleothems adorning the subterranean depths. There are enlarged pebbles on the coastlines, cairn-like monuments on the mainland, quartz crystals on cavern walls, and more I’m sure I’m missing. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in the art department was a geologist because they really took their time to throw in more motifs than your typical sedimentary limestone.
Unfortunately, that same thought wasn’t put into the grass, which is literally the same weed clusters copy/pasted ad nauseam. This wouldn’t be inherently ugly were it not for them being noticeably spaced apart from each other and having this 2D visage that stands at odds with the overall 3D landscape. I also wasn’t a big fan of how dust, as kicked up by the breeze, was rendered, with such clouds looking more like yellow brown will-o-the-wisps than particles of dirt. In addition, the vast majority of consumerist paraphernalia you find strewn about have significantly-less work done on them than anything else (the sole exception being paint cans), with papyrus-based items like magazines, books, and pages being particularly blurry. Any lettering, in general, was hard to read, even those illustrated with bright white pigments, to the point where I stopped making an effort to decipher such messages towards the end of my playthrough.
I’ll end this section on a positive note: the use of colored lighting. This takes place primarily in the final two chapters during your descent into the grottos, though you can see it beforehand in the sky where clouds float past the sun, emitting pink/gray shades. Tons of static hues are thrown at you, from reds to blues to greens, and it varnishes nicely on the craggy and watery surfaces, creating a mesmerizing climate.
Soundwise, Dear Esther isn’t quite where it needs to be. You only have a single voice actor for the protagonist, a man named Nigel Carrington (not to be confused with the knight lawyer of the same name), but he was clearly directed to just be a stereotypical, monotone narrator. With the exception of his last two entries, he recounts his story with unwavering intonations and inflections, no matter the subject matter or emotional context. Then again, maybe this was for the better, given that his attempts at infusing passion in those aforestated final entries falter as mediocre.
Music comes up at specific cues, primarily whenever the Narrator speaks, and it generally occupies a dismal tone played through classical instruments like pianos and fiddles. Towards the endgame, it switches to a slightly-more upbeat melody that’s less about happiness and more about acceptance. Overall, the score by Jessica Curry is befitting to the story beats, its sole drawback being its constant reinsertion into the game whenever you trigger a voice over prompt that feels more abrupt than natural. Gone Home had a similar issue, but because the diary entries were linear, it actually felt cinematic compared to Dear Esther, where it tends to be akin to a jumpscare in terms of its suddenness.
The SFX is adequate, yet limited in scope. You technically have all the noises you would associate with an uninhabited island: birds cawing, gales booming, riverheads trickling, and water descending (either partially or wholly), but they’re not synchronized well with their associated strata. You’ll hear the sonar of a brewing gust, but it happens at intervals rather than operating on a constant (which would make sense given that you’re in a constant air pressure zone). Approaching a shoreline yields the appropriate gurgle of a stream; however, it seems more like a stock din given that there isn’t strong flow. Drips fall from holes above onto the ground below, but a quick glance will show almost none of them resonate concurrently with their aural counterpart.
To put it bluntly, all of this is me saying that the sound feels like it was implemented secondhand, which doesn’t help the ambience that a walking sim is meant to generate (and what the devs of all people should have known given that their intention was to strip a game down to its bare components).
On that note, we can move onto the gameplay and story, which shall be talked about simultaneously since there isn’t much gameplay. Dear Esther is built around ambling along an unnamed holm, setting off monologues from the aforementioned speaker as you enter designated catalyst points. Theoretically, those pieces of dialogue are meant to unveil the truth behind what is going on and build-up to a major (and hopefully satisfying) finale. Sadly, though, the story takes on one of those non-linear, unreliable narrator motifs wherein you’re given pieces from different points of the Narrator’s life and essentially forced to draw your own conclusions. What makes things slightly more complicated is the presence of two other characters that the Narrator is chronicling about: an author that he was following who had previously led an expedition to the island, and the Narrator’s wife Esther.
Look, it’s not like you’re dealing with a Memento-type fragmentation here: things can be put together, and an overall picture assembled. But regardless of how you interpret things, the end result is honestly not very entertaining and, at worse, exploitative of serious subject matter. You don’t end up caring about the Narrator, his past, or his present situation because not enough time is spent fleshing out who he is as an individual. In terms of exploitation, see my footnote at the end because it deals with spoilers.
A further thing that might make the narrative unappealing to prospective gamers is the syntax. William S. Burroughs was reportedly an influence on the script, with the writing taking on a poetic feel that integrates feelings and memories with powerful, flowery prose. As an English Major, I actually really enjoyed this, but I fully contend this use of language will not be appealing to a decent sect of the gaming populace that just wants to hear a tale unfold.
As I said before, there isn’t much gameplay- the developers wanted to cut a video game down to its core essence (though if you were really digging deep, wouldn’t you just go back to old-fashioned text-based adventures?), but what’s baffling is how basic features weren’t inputted. You can’t run, you can’t pick up objects to examine them further, you can’t climb over ledges, nothing. All you have is a zoom-in option (literally keyed to every button), which does help with reading some of the murky lettering, but is otherwise pointless. Really, though, the absence of a run function is just pitiful. Maybe the developers were worried it would result in players speeding through the world, resulting in conversations being cut-short. However, there was a simple solution to this: put a brake on the jog until the dialogue completes, in which case the original velocity resumes (consider the fact that Dear Esther LITERALLY does this in the last part).
What’s worse is how the game impedes exploration. Despite being set on a modest, beautiful island, you are very limited in terms of where you can go: fence posts, unclimbable bluff sides, and deepwater pools all prevent you from going wherever your heart may desire, and none of it is for story reasons since the transitions between the four portions is handled through definitive moments of falling to a lower plane.
There was no reason for this- tons of gorgeous sights are missed out on because you are literally unable to get there. What’s worse is when the game throws in objects or environs that look like they should be searchable, only for you to waste time getting as close as possible and realizing that you can’t touch them. Exploration is the one aspect of walking sims that should be unadulterated, yet Dear Esther decided even that needed to be hampered. And even when you can go somewhere, the developers don’t reward you for it. You might unlock a secret oration (though I can attest there are only three off the beaten path), and the game reportedly has four urns you can collect (though I never found them despite [trying] to navigate everywhere), but as you can tell from my parentheticals, those are sparse, meaning 9 times out of 10, you’ll literally hit a wall or another one of those natural barriers, making the excursion feel annoying and downright misleading (if you weren’t going to give anything here, not even a secret message, why even have it present as a space for investigating? Why not just close-it off entirely?).
Then again, considering the explorable parts of the game (abandoned huts, shipwrecks) literally don’t have anything of value in them (lacking sufficient belongings and detail outside of the occasional novel), maybe this was to be expected.
So yeah, Dear Esther fundamentally fails at even its sole mission of telling a story while a player roams around freely. You are restricted in what you can do and where you can go, and the story being told isn’t particularly intriguing enough to offset these flaws. And while the game stands out visually, eliciting a calming atmosphere brought about by a windy cliff in the middle of the sea, it lacks robust audio to truly capitalize on this evocative foundation. While I can look back at other genre pioneers like Super Mario Bros. and GoldenEye and still find enjoyment in them despite their mechanics being elaborated on by their followers, I can’t say the same for Dear Esther. Combined with a $10.00 price tag for not even two hours of content and you’re better off playing any one of its many successors over it.
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*One thing that is consistent is that the main character is dying. I don’t know how I feel about the game taking on this notion of a guy deciding to isolate himself away from society so that he can wither away- it strikes me as engaging too much in a romanticized vision of death that glorifies the quiet vanishing motif that you see in other fictional works like Star Wars, albeit here it is more disturbing given the realist tone of everything. We should always work to prevent the elderly from being viewed as burdens that need to just disappear.
The worst part is that it literally ends with the Narrator committing (or implied to be committing) suicide (on a side note, is it just me, or did The Witness rip-off the ending to this game with the whole floating around the island?).
When it first came out, Dear Esther gained fame for pioneering what would eventually be labeled the walking simulator. Having played a couple of these in my time as a gamer, I can definitely see the appeal in them: after all, the idea of purely exploring a beautifully-rendered environment as you slowly unravel its narrative is the heart of mystery novels. And with video games offering visual treats to accompany the story, such a combination can be an emotional experience.
Unfortunately, Dear Esther has been significantly outclassed by later entries in the genre it inspired, not because they did anything particularly innovative with the concept so much as they avoided the basic pitfalls that render Dear Esther an example of what not to do.
I don’t want to be too harsh since The Chinese Room put a lot of thought into their project, so I’ll begin on some positive notes- graphically, Dear Esther is solid. I played the Landmark Edition, which reportedly rebuilt the game in the Unity Engine, and while I’m unable to pinpoint any specific differences from the original, the end result is splendid. The isle is essentially restricted to muted verdant coverings, tall cliff-faces, and streaming water, the three looking as though they were taken from a pictorialized Hemingway novel. What I mean is the art style isn’t pure realism, instead dialing back to a more storybook-esque format that provides aesthetic elements simultaneously minimalist and enriching in appearance. Overlooking the oceanic horizon with the wind bellowing about you as waves crash below evokes a peace of mind; seeing derelict houses or abandoned trawlers in the distance imbues melancholy. At times, it really does feel like you’ve stepped into an old fisherman’s recollection of events from yore.
Rocks, in particular, are incredibly well done from a texturing and variety perspective. Usually these are the facets that get skimped over by developers since, well, let’s be honest, who truly cares about stone? Well, here The Chinese Room evidently did, and you get a lot of diversity, from the granite bluffs above sea to the ore boulders laden with gold veins to even the slightly-damp speleothems adorning the subterranean depths. There are enlarged pebbles on the coastlines, cairn-like monuments on the mainland, quartz crystals on cavern walls, and more I’m sure I’m missing. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in the art department was a geologist because they really took their time to throw in more motifs than your typical sedimentary limestone.
Unfortunately, that same thought wasn’t put into the grass, which is literally the same weed clusters copy/pasted ad nauseam. This wouldn’t be inherently ugly were it not for them being noticeably spaced apart from each other and having this 2D visage that stands at odds with the overall 3D landscape. I also wasn’t a big fan of how dust, as kicked up by the breeze, was rendered, with such clouds looking more like yellow brown will-o-the-wisps than particles of dirt. In addition, the vast majority of consumerist paraphernalia you find strewn about have significantly-less work done on them than anything else (the sole exception being paint cans), with papyrus-based items like magazines, books, and pages being particularly blurry. Any lettering, in general, was hard to read, even those illustrated with bright white pigments, to the point where I stopped making an effort to decipher such messages towards the end of my playthrough.
I’ll end this section on a positive note: the use of colored lighting. This takes place primarily in the final two chapters during your descent into the grottos, though you can see it beforehand in the sky where clouds float past the sun, emitting pink/gray shades. Tons of static hues are thrown at you, from reds to blues to greens, and it varnishes nicely on the craggy and watery surfaces, creating a mesmerizing climate.
Soundwise, Dear Esther isn’t quite where it needs to be. You only have a single voice actor for the protagonist, a man named Nigel Carrington (not to be confused with the knight lawyer of the same name), but he was clearly directed to just be a stereotypical, monotone narrator. With the exception of his last two entries, he recounts his story with unwavering intonations and inflections, no matter the subject matter or emotional context. Then again, maybe this was for the better, given that his attempts at infusing passion in those aforestated final entries falter as mediocre.
Music comes up at specific cues, primarily whenever the Narrator speaks, and it generally occupies a dismal tone played through classical instruments like pianos and fiddles. Towards the endgame, it switches to a slightly-more upbeat melody that’s less about happiness and more about acceptance. Overall, the score by Jessica Curry is befitting to the story beats, its sole drawback being its constant reinsertion into the game whenever you trigger a voice over prompt that feels more abrupt than natural. Gone Home had a similar issue, but because the diary entries were linear, it actually felt cinematic compared to Dear Esther, where it tends to be akin to a jumpscare in terms of its suddenness.
The SFX is adequate, yet limited in scope. You technically have all the noises you would associate with an uninhabited island: birds cawing, gales booming, riverheads trickling, and water descending (either partially or wholly), but they’re not synchronized well with their associated strata. You’ll hear the sonar of a brewing gust, but it happens at intervals rather than operating on a constant (which would make sense given that you’re in a constant air pressure zone). Approaching a shoreline yields the appropriate gurgle of a stream; however, it seems more like a stock din given that there isn’t strong flow. Drips fall from holes above onto the ground below, but a quick glance will show almost none of them resonate concurrently with their aural counterpart.
To put it bluntly, all of this is me saying that the sound feels like it was implemented secondhand, which doesn’t help the ambience that a walking sim is meant to generate (and what the devs of all people should have known given that their intention was to strip a game down to its bare components).
On that note, we can move onto the gameplay and story, which shall be talked about simultaneously since there isn’t much gameplay. Dear Esther is built around ambling along an unnamed holm, setting off monologues from the aforementioned speaker as you enter designated catalyst points. Theoretically, those pieces of dialogue are meant to unveil the truth behind what is going on and build-up to a major (and hopefully satisfying) finale. Sadly, though, the story takes on one of those non-linear, unreliable narrator motifs wherein you’re given pieces from different points of the Narrator’s life and essentially forced to draw your own conclusions. What makes things slightly more complicated is the presence of two other characters that the Narrator is chronicling about: an author that he was following who had previously led an expedition to the island, and the Narrator’s wife Esther.
Look, it’s not like you’re dealing with a Memento-type fragmentation here: things can be put together, and an overall picture assembled. But regardless of how you interpret things, the end result is honestly not very entertaining and, at worse, exploitative of serious subject matter. You don’t end up caring about the Narrator, his past, or his present situation because not enough time is spent fleshing out who he is as an individual. In terms of exploitation, see my footnote at the end because it deals with spoilers.
A further thing that might make the narrative unappealing to prospective gamers is the syntax. William S. Burroughs was reportedly an influence on the script, with the writing taking on a poetic feel that integrates feelings and memories with powerful, flowery prose. As an English Major, I actually really enjoyed this, but I fully contend this use of language will not be appealing to a decent sect of the gaming populace that just wants to hear a tale unfold.
As I said before, there isn’t much gameplay- the developers wanted to cut a video game down to its core essence (though if you were really digging deep, wouldn’t you just go back to old-fashioned text-based adventures?), but what’s baffling is how basic features weren’t inputted. You can’t run, you can’t pick up objects to examine them further, you can’t climb over ledges, nothing. All you have is a zoom-in option (literally keyed to every button), which does help with reading some of the murky lettering, but is otherwise pointless. Really, though, the absence of a run function is just pitiful. Maybe the developers were worried it would result in players speeding through the world, resulting in conversations being cut-short. However, there was a simple solution to this: put a brake on the jog until the dialogue completes, in which case the original velocity resumes (consider the fact that Dear Esther LITERALLY does this in the last part).
What’s worse is how the game impedes exploration. Despite being set on a modest, beautiful island, you are very limited in terms of where you can go: fence posts, unclimbable bluff sides, and deepwater pools all prevent you from going wherever your heart may desire, and none of it is for story reasons since the transitions between the four portions is handled through definitive moments of falling to a lower plane.
There was no reason for this- tons of gorgeous sights are missed out on because you are literally unable to get there. What’s worse is when the game throws in objects or environs that look like they should be searchable, only for you to waste time getting as close as possible and realizing that you can’t touch them. Exploration is the one aspect of walking sims that should be unadulterated, yet Dear Esther decided even that needed to be hampered. And even when you can go somewhere, the developers don’t reward you for it. You might unlock a secret oration (though I can attest there are only three off the beaten path), and the game reportedly has four urns you can collect (though I never found them despite [trying] to navigate everywhere), but as you can tell from my parentheticals, those are sparse, meaning 9 times out of 10, you’ll literally hit a wall or another one of those natural barriers, making the excursion feel annoying and downright misleading (if you weren’t going to give anything here, not even a secret message, why even have it present as a space for investigating? Why not just close-it off entirely?).
Then again, considering the explorable parts of the game (abandoned huts, shipwrecks) literally don’t have anything of value in them (lacking sufficient belongings and detail outside of the occasional novel), maybe this was to be expected.
So yeah, Dear Esther fundamentally fails at even its sole mission of telling a story while a player roams around freely. You are restricted in what you can do and where you can go, and the story being told isn’t particularly intriguing enough to offset these flaws. And while the game stands out visually, eliciting a calming atmosphere brought about by a windy cliff in the middle of the sea, it lacks robust audio to truly capitalize on this evocative foundation. While I can look back at other genre pioneers like Super Mario Bros. and GoldenEye and still find enjoyment in them despite their mechanics being elaborated on by their followers, I can’t say the same for Dear Esther. Combined with a $10.00 price tag for not even two hours of content and you’re better off playing any one of its many successors over it.
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*One thing that is consistent is that the main character is dying. I don’t know how I feel about the game taking on this notion of a guy deciding to isolate himself away from society so that he can wither away- it strikes me as engaging too much in a romanticized vision of death that glorifies the quiet vanishing motif that you see in other fictional works like Star Wars, albeit here it is more disturbing given the realist tone of everything. We should always work to prevent the elderly from being viewed as burdens that need to just disappear.
The worst part is that it literally ends with the Narrator committing (or implied to be committing) suicide (on a side note, is it just me, or did The Witness rip-off the ending to this game with the whole floating around the island?).
Kinda pretentious and I figured out the story well before the end which left the ending feeling kind of flat..
Still it's only an hour long so not much time spent.
Still it's only an hour long so not much time spent.
I've been a fan of Dear Esther ever since I first played the Half Life 2 mod, under-aged, disenfranchised, looking for something deep; more importantly, new free things to pad out my experience with PC gaming. Since that time, I've realized just how much of my sensibilities of what I want from not just games, not stories, but whole experiences in general is so heavily informed by things from this game. It helped drive a lot of my own interests in design, sitting at the recesses of my taste as I would figure out what kind of artist and designer I wanted to be. So now for the fourth time, I've decided to play the most recent iteration of it, with the newly included Director's Commentary mode. I really wanted to get a better idea of what was going on in their minds when they were making this, see if I can maybe come out with some strong takeaways.
The commentary was more or less divided into four parts, much like game itself. Scattered throughout the usual landmarks were clip bits you'd interact with to hear the audio tracks, much like other games directors commentaries, and delivered very reminiscent to System Shock 2, which the team directly cites as an inspiration for the design. Design being the principle and most important topic of discussion, but also the audio, visuals, and logistics of pulling the project off. Design, Art, and Music leads all sitting together, chiming in on the most meaningful parts as I nostalgically walk along the familiar derelict island that grew up along with me.
The general design and influence talk, what works for the story, what they had in mind and how they went about managing it was the most important for me to dig into.. They really had no point of reference for what they were doing and were trying to pull more from a great deal of different things and ideas rather than falling into any kind of convention, and I think it's one of the reasons why it stands out so strongly from similarly depressive island based games like your typical Dark Falls or Barrow Hills that float in a similar area of the adventure game world and came out around a roughly similar time as the initial mod.
They called it a ghost story in a sort of casual and half hearted manner before they really could put exactly what it was to words. They constantly talked about how important the subjectivity and dreamlike nature of the narrative was. They put a great deal of effort into randomizing certain sound cues and props that spawn in so that it would deliberately draw from more intensely loaded symbolism and personal experiences in the viewer so that it could give a truly unique kind of interaction. Not interaction as a cold mechanical set of systems and functions, but along the lines of how you feel about it, what these instances mean and how you'll look back at all of the moments in the game later.
Because of the unique nature and tone expressed through the writing, visual design, and way they decided to even structure the gameplay and level design, the game is an amalgamation of profound moments of silence to reflect on more serious topics.. There's a deep silence and sparseness all throughout the game, especially enhanced by the music. By the end of the game, the climb up the tower and soar down around the island ends up meaning something to me that other people ultimately can't understand, because my feelings are my own, and the game deliberately designed for me to interpret things the way I personally do. In spite of the fact the game was made by atheists, I always find myself likening the whole experience to a purging from the fields of asphodel.
The music and art leads both really just are a joy to listen to when they express their process. How they ended up making the caves work and how the music would shift away from a more sparse direction and more into a strongly vocalized and feminine kind of expression as you'd pass out of the threshold, in the worst of the memories the narrator carries you through. How the sound wasn't designed to be running on constantly to try and force you how to feel, but rather inform you about the character of the island and narrator, their emotional states, tying the audio motifs in with their concept designs.
There's really so much more to talk about in this game.. It's just a treat for people who can look past what they were instructed games are supposed to be.. But you may already have played games like this and think half of what I'm saying is elementary or shallow readings.. It is, but I'm more trying to celebrate these formative elements in a work that really gave me a lot of inspiration. And hopefully enough, convince an artist or a gamer struggling with some kind of burnout to find that same spark I did in my experiences playing this game.. Each stage of my life I went back to play it, I got something else out of it. Felt something different.. There's not much like it out there and I'm thankful they made a commentary version on this release.
The commentary was more or less divided into four parts, much like game itself. Scattered throughout the usual landmarks were clip bits you'd interact with to hear the audio tracks, much like other games directors commentaries, and delivered very reminiscent to System Shock 2, which the team directly cites as an inspiration for the design. Design being the principle and most important topic of discussion, but also the audio, visuals, and logistics of pulling the project off. Design, Art, and Music leads all sitting together, chiming in on the most meaningful parts as I nostalgically walk along the familiar derelict island that grew up along with me.
The general design and influence talk, what works for the story, what they had in mind and how they went about managing it was the most important for me to dig into.. They really had no point of reference for what they were doing and were trying to pull more from a great deal of different things and ideas rather than falling into any kind of convention, and I think it's one of the reasons why it stands out so strongly from similarly depressive island based games like your typical Dark Falls or Barrow Hills that float in a similar area of the adventure game world and came out around a roughly similar time as the initial mod.
They called it a ghost story in a sort of casual and half hearted manner before they really could put exactly what it was to words. They constantly talked about how important the subjectivity and dreamlike nature of the narrative was. They put a great deal of effort into randomizing certain sound cues and props that spawn in so that it would deliberately draw from more intensely loaded symbolism and personal experiences in the viewer so that it could give a truly unique kind of interaction. Not interaction as a cold mechanical set of systems and functions, but along the lines of how you feel about it, what these instances mean and how you'll look back at all of the moments in the game later.
Because of the unique nature and tone expressed through the writing, visual design, and way they decided to even structure the gameplay and level design, the game is an amalgamation of profound moments of silence to reflect on more serious topics.. There's a deep silence and sparseness all throughout the game, especially enhanced by the music. By the end of the game, the climb up the tower and soar down around the island ends up meaning something to me that other people ultimately can't understand, because my feelings are my own, and the game deliberately designed for me to interpret things the way I personally do. In spite of the fact the game was made by atheists, I always find myself likening the whole experience to a purging from the fields of asphodel.
The music and art leads both really just are a joy to listen to when they express their process. How they ended up making the caves work and how the music would shift away from a more sparse direction and more into a strongly vocalized and feminine kind of expression as you'd pass out of the threshold, in the worst of the memories the narrator carries you through. How the sound wasn't designed to be running on constantly to try and force you how to feel, but rather inform you about the character of the island and narrator, their emotional states, tying the audio motifs in with their concept designs.
There's really so much more to talk about in this game.. It's just a treat for people who can look past what they were instructed games are supposed to be.. But you may already have played games like this and think half of what I'm saying is elementary or shallow readings.. It is, but I'm more trying to celebrate these formative elements in a work that really gave me a lot of inspiration. And hopefully enough, convince an artist or a gamer struggling with some kind of burnout to find that same spark I did in my experiences playing this game.. Each stage of my life I went back to play it, I got something else out of it. Felt something different.. There's not much like it out there and I'm thankful they made a commentary version on this release.
Very pretty but otherwise terribly boring.
One of my favorites. The atmosphere, storytelling, music are all great.
I want some renegade indie developers to mod this game so that you shoot a bunch of monsters in it, just to make a statement.
El paisaje melancólico, las notas dulces y la voz suave del narrador no sirven para elevar lo suficiente una propuesta que es demasiado grandilocuente para lo que quiere contar y en otro orden de cosas la navegación por la isla no despierta ningún interés. Al menos es honesto y mantiene su estilo lento y sin florituras hasta sus últimas consecuencias.
It's good to finally play one of the genre-defining titles of "walking sims" after having played a lot of the later ones.
...I get where the term comes from now.
...I get where the term comes from now.
Adoro jogo de passeio, e dear esther alem de ser muito bom é um dos 'pais' desse estilo. Vale a pena
Gameplay - 6/10
Visuals - 7/10
Music / Sound Design - 8/10
Story - 8/10
Visuals - 7/10
Music / Sound Design - 8/10
Story - 8/10
woah looks like u left the game at home, fellas
Something that this game gives me that other walking sims like "The vanishing of Ethan Carter" didn't is actual landmasses. This island is carved with the feelings of nature, the altitudes and heights and cliffs and winds and the anticipation lying behind the elevations in the terrain, knowing that it hides everything at the other side.
For what is worth, this makes me want to organise another trip to some mountain with friends.
For what is worth, this makes me want to organise another trip to some mountain with friends.
Videoxogo cortiño (unhas 2 horas), con unha BSO bonita e cunha historia que ao principio un tanto confusa, pero canto máis te achegas ao final vamola entendendo mellor.
Recomendado ? É un xogo curto, polo tanto si o recomendo.
Recomendado ? É un xogo curto, polo tanto si o recomendo.
This review contains spoilers
"who knew britsh people were just birds!"
going into dear esther, i had no clue it had any kind of stigma around it. walking sims are a very divisive genre, however, i have a fondness for them. while i do agree with the notion it can feel very pretentious and overly artsy, i think what is here is worth seeing once. the landscape, music, and narration are all fantastic at building a mood of melancholy, and a feeling that our time has passed.
the ending, however, i found ridiculous. as a man who hates the "the curtains are just blue" line of thinking, i still have trouble putting these pieces together in a satisfying way. it feels like it's trying too hard to be mysterious, and it doesn't succeed at getting that vibe across because of it. the premise of the narrative intrigued me, an older man who came to an island to let go of himself once he explored what he felt he needed to. then he turned into a bird? what? i know it's symbolic for freedom of guilt or burdens or something else i'm sure is very nuanced, but i kind of would have preferred if he just died. it would have felt more in line with how grim the lead up to that moment was. the way it is though, it kinda soured my outlook on the whole venture.
dear esther is an ok walking sim that doesn't offer much than some pretty landscapes and an englishman with a nice voice. i got it for free so i can't be too hard on it, but i don't think i will ever visit this island again
going into dear esther, i had no clue it had any kind of stigma around it. walking sims are a very divisive genre, however, i have a fondness for them. while i do agree with the notion it can feel very pretentious and overly artsy, i think what is here is worth seeing once. the landscape, music, and narration are all fantastic at building a mood of melancholy, and a feeling that our time has passed.
the ending, however, i found ridiculous. as a man who hates the "the curtains are just blue" line of thinking, i still have trouble putting these pieces together in a satisfying way. it feels like it's trying too hard to be mysterious, and it doesn't succeed at getting that vibe across because of it. the premise of the narrative intrigued me, an older man who came to an island to let go of himself once he explored what he felt he needed to. then he turned into a bird? what? i know it's symbolic for freedom of guilt or burdens or something else i'm sure is very nuanced, but i kind of would have preferred if he just died. it would have felt more in line with how grim the lead up to that moment was. the way it is though, it kinda soured my outlook on the whole venture.
dear esther is an ok walking sim that doesn't offer much than some pretty landscapes and an englishman with a nice voice. i got it for free so i can't be too hard on it, but i don't think i will ever visit this island again
The developers made beautiful landscapes. An ok story. Writing that flits about from being too flowery to decent to word association on par with a GCSE English student. These are elements of a game which could have been fine.
Dear Esther is a valid expression of games as a medium; I think the question as to whether it is only arises because the gameplay glue that should hold those previously mentioned elements together has been minimised drastically, which would probably be shocking back in 2008.
While playing, I couldn't help but think back to Metal Gear Rising - maybe the most polar opposite game to this you could find - specifically when the second phase of a boss hits and you get some dialogue as the vocals kick the fuck in and the stakes get even higher. Slightly different than slowly walking around an island. But the point is, the gameplay holds all those elements you can find in other media together and that's what elevates this medium. So by minimising the interaction with no subversion, you lose so much of what makes the medium special. You don't get an "Art Game" - it goes without saying that all games are art - if anything you reduce it's artistic merit.
Taking away pieces of a medium is valid exploration of it, but remove the interesting parts of it and play the rest straight? It's not surprising that the game is uninteresting, but the experimentation here giving an unsurprising result is the biggest sin of the whole thing. Maybe the fact that I'm talking about what gaming can be was the point of the entire game. In that case, I love that games can be this, but I just don't like, well, this.
Dear Esther is a valid expression of games as a medium; I think the question as to whether it is only arises because the gameplay glue that should hold those previously mentioned elements together has been minimised drastically, which would probably be shocking back in 2008.
While playing, I couldn't help but think back to Metal Gear Rising - maybe the most polar opposite game to this you could find - specifically when the second phase of a boss hits and you get some dialogue as the vocals kick the fuck in and the stakes get even higher. Slightly different than slowly walking around an island. But the point is, the gameplay holds all those elements you can find in other media together and that's what elevates this medium. So by minimising the interaction with no subversion, you lose so much of what makes the medium special. You don't get an "Art Game" - it goes without saying that all games are art - if anything you reduce it's artistic merit.
Taking away pieces of a medium is valid exploration of it, but remove the interesting parts of it and play the rest straight? It's not surprising that the game is uninteresting, but the experimentation here giving an unsurprising result is the biggest sin of the whole thing. Maybe the fact that I'm talking about what gaming can be was the point of the entire game. In that case, I love that games can be this, but I just don't like, well, this.
I remember the days when Dear Esther first launched; the firestorm of controversy and the raging debates of "what is a game actually?". As if answering what is and isn't an interactive experience makes the games industry better in some way. All of which seems silly this many years removed.
The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter. Just as who is and isn't a "true" gamer doesn't matter. (Though on that one, anyone that plays any game is a gamer). Dear Esther would go on to inspire the creation of many games, some of which are a favorite of mine. So, if you don't like it, you can at least admit it was influential.
My opinion is that this genre should be called Journey Experiences. Certainly less derisive than Walking Simulators tend to be. A genre tag that is inaccurate to begin with, pressing WASD isn't simulating anything. If that is indeed all it takes to be a simulator, then your favorite FPS is also a walking simulator. There's another game out there that seems to be an actual walking simulator but that's a review for another time.
Dear Esther strays a bit too pretentious for my liking but I can't deny that there is an excellent crafting to the story here. In an age of maps being randomly generated and pieced together, stories told in fragmented and meaningless ways, experiencing a lonely island with intention feels like a breath of fresh air. And the story's melancholy works well. The soundtrack and sound editing is excellent and haunting. Can't believe I'm saying it, but yeah, Dear Esther still holds up.
The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter. Just as who is and isn't a "true" gamer doesn't matter. (Though on that one, anyone that plays any game is a gamer). Dear Esther would go on to inspire the creation of many games, some of which are a favorite of mine. So, if you don't like it, you can at least admit it was influential.
My opinion is that this genre should be called Journey Experiences. Certainly less derisive than Walking Simulators tend to be. A genre tag that is inaccurate to begin with, pressing WASD isn't simulating anything. If that is indeed all it takes to be a simulator, then your favorite FPS is also a walking simulator. There's another game out there that seems to be an actual walking simulator but that's a review for another time.
Dear Esther strays a bit too pretentious for my liking but I can't deny that there is an excellent crafting to the story here. In an age of maps being randomly generated and pieced together, stories told in fragmented and meaningless ways, experiencing a lonely island with intention feels like a breath of fresh air. And the story's melancholy works well. The soundtrack and sound editing is excellent and haunting. Can't believe I'm saying it, but yeah, Dear Esther still holds up.
El juego en sí no es feo, pero es pretencioso, lento, y escrito regular. Que ellos mismos se autodenominen "maestros de la narración" ya dice bastante. El modo con comentarios es, si cabe, aún peor. Y todo esto siendo un walking simulator en el cual tu personaje va LENTÍSIMO... Horrible.
Dear Esther no es un juego para todo el mundo, y también importa mucho en la época y momento en el que te encuentres al jugarlo. Yo lo he jugado en dos "momentos" diferentes: en directo, en mi canal de Twitch y luego yo sola en privado. Comentarlo con colegas y jugarlo con tu propia reflexión, hace que me haya replanteado muchas cosas de su historia y sobre todo de su final.
La historia, como ya he dicho, la cuentan salteada, mareándote un poco y sin enterarte de la copla hasta su final; yo esto pensaba que no me había enterado por jugarlo y comentarlo a la vez, pero no... Al jugarlo sola, me di cuenta de que es un detalle, mecánica del propio juego, para no dar toda la historia o los motivos y por qué de su final, al principio, sino que NOSOTROS, con nuestro paseo y observación, vayamos sumando las partes de esta. Hay que resaltar que al ser un Walking simulator, si no pones este tipo de mecánicas, pues el juego se haría terriblemente tedioso. Cosa que no ocurre en absoluto, sino que te hace quedarte durante horas perdido en esa isla.
Dear Esther es un juego corto, de apenas 5h de juego, pero extremadamente rejugable, sobre todo si queremos descubrir TODOS los secretos "logros" de la isla. Es un juego sensorial, para jugar con auriculares o los altavoces al máximo, para no perdernos detalle en su narración y de la atmósfera que nos rodea. Es una experiencia para degustar poco a poco y sin prisas. Dear Esther es como un pequeño viaje de fin de semana para desconectar del mundo y perderte en un buen libro. Es un paseo en Myst, quitando puzles y todo lo que sea complicado. Simplemente paseando y escuchando el sonido del mar, mientras nos cuentan una historia.
Dear Esther es uno de esos juegos para jugar despacito y disfrutando de la experiencia.
La historia, como ya he dicho, la cuentan salteada, mareándote un poco y sin enterarte de la copla hasta su final; yo esto pensaba que no me había enterado por jugarlo y comentarlo a la vez, pero no... Al jugarlo sola, me di cuenta de que es un detalle, mecánica del propio juego, para no dar toda la historia o los motivos y por qué de su final, al principio, sino que NOSOTROS, con nuestro paseo y observación, vayamos sumando las partes de esta. Hay que resaltar que al ser un Walking simulator, si no pones este tipo de mecánicas, pues el juego se haría terriblemente tedioso. Cosa que no ocurre en absoluto, sino que te hace quedarte durante horas perdido en esa isla.
Dear Esther es un juego corto, de apenas 5h de juego, pero extremadamente rejugable, sobre todo si queremos descubrir TODOS los secretos "logros" de la isla. Es un juego sensorial, para jugar con auriculares o los altavoces al máximo, para no perdernos detalle en su narración y de la atmósfera que nos rodea. Es una experiencia para degustar poco a poco y sin prisas. Dear Esther es como un pequeño viaje de fin de semana para desconectar del mundo y perderte en un buen libro. Es un paseo en Myst, quitando puzles y todo lo que sea complicado. Simplemente paseando y escuchando el sonido del mar, mientras nos cuentan una historia.
Dear Esther es uno de esos juegos para jugar despacito y disfrutando de la experiencia.
to be clear, i don't think that Dear Esther is boring, but the way it tells its story with dialogue triggers that tell random bits of it sure make it unnecessarily convoluted for what could have been a solid narrative told uniquely.
Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/dear-esther-landmark-edition-pc-os-x-linux-ps4-xbone-review/
The phrase “Walking Simulator” gets thrown around a lot when talking about games such as Dear Esther in a derogatory manor since these games have very little in the way of “gameplay”. I do think that stuff consisting of exploring an environment while the plot happens in an unconventional manner does have a place, regardless of popularity, which was originally an unpopular opinion, but has gained a lot of appreciate over the decade or more since the release of Dear Esther.
Dear Esther was originally a first person exploration mod for Half-Life 2 in 2008 by a small group of modders called The Chinese Room. 4 years later, in 2012, the game got remade into it’s own entity on a newer version of the Source engine with significant graphical upgrades. For it’s final version, released in 2017, Dear Esther was ported to the Unity engine with a few extra bills and whistles, and is called Dear Esther: Landmark Edition.
The game is told through narration as the player explores an uninhabited island with the narrator reading from a series of letter fragments to a woman named Esther, who is implied to be the wife of the person writing the letter.
Even though Dear Esther is incredibly linear, certain aspects of it are randomized, allowing for multiple playthroughs. The most obvious randomized part of the game is the narration, with the narrarator giving new information about what happened to the characters involved with the story from their perspective.
Other randomized parts of the game include an underwater highway and several ghosts that appear throughout the game as you make your journey across the island. Some apear off in the distance, others briefly appear in front of you, and one only appears on the beach in the reflection of the water. I’ve played the game twice just to get the general idea of how these segments work.
Although if you’ve played the game once, you’ve pretty much got the gist of the game and have already seen 90% of it. Although I’m pretty sure that most of the audience buying this game know immediately wether or not they like it from the trailer, images, and plot synopsis, so it’s not like most people are goign to wander into this game knowing nothing about it.
The Landmark Edition even comes with developer commentary, explaining the process from when it was first conceived and made a mod to becoming a game. Even if you’re not at all into the type of experience that Dear Esther is, the developer commentary might be a highlight for aspiring developers who want to get into game development or at least want to try something different from what they’ve previously made.
Despite the whole game being drab and grey as well as being set on a depressing and baron island, it is quite beautiful to look at and listen to. The soundtrack is haunting, adding onto the feeling of lonliness that was already there from having to wander such a lonely place. Ironically, what it intends to do it does with flying colors. It’s just that it does little outside of what it presents and could have easily been a bunch of randomized video and audio playing for 30 minutes, and that’s going to be the determining factor for a lot of people.
Dear Esther isn’t pretending to be anything else other than what it clearly is, which is a short experimental narrative game trying to invoke a very specific emotion and atmosphere. It could have easily been a more engaging experience, with more for the player to do. Not necessarily with puzzles, but definately with something else, but that would have gone against what the game is. And I can’t get annoyed at what the game isn’t trying to be.
The game is a love it or hate it experience. If you have no interest in it, I doubt anything will convince you to try it out. And if you’re not interested in it, you’ve probably already played it for yourself and like discussing it’s ideas, or have at least put it in your wishlist for when a sale inevitably comes along. But after playing it, I didn’t find any real depth beyond filling it a few cracks with a story that was already pretty obvious with where it was going.
The phrase “Walking Simulator” gets thrown around a lot when talking about games such as Dear Esther in a derogatory manor since these games have very little in the way of “gameplay”. I do think that stuff consisting of exploring an environment while the plot happens in an unconventional manner does have a place, regardless of popularity, which was originally an unpopular opinion, but has gained a lot of appreciate over the decade or more since the release of Dear Esther.
Dear Esther was originally a first person exploration mod for Half-Life 2 in 2008 by a small group of modders called The Chinese Room. 4 years later, in 2012, the game got remade into it’s own entity on a newer version of the Source engine with significant graphical upgrades. For it’s final version, released in 2017, Dear Esther was ported to the Unity engine with a few extra bills and whistles, and is called Dear Esther: Landmark Edition.
The game is told through narration as the player explores an uninhabited island with the narrator reading from a series of letter fragments to a woman named Esther, who is implied to be the wife of the person writing the letter.
Even though Dear Esther is incredibly linear, certain aspects of it are randomized, allowing for multiple playthroughs. The most obvious randomized part of the game is the narration, with the narrarator giving new information about what happened to the characters involved with the story from their perspective.
Other randomized parts of the game include an underwater highway and several ghosts that appear throughout the game as you make your journey across the island. Some apear off in the distance, others briefly appear in front of you, and one only appears on the beach in the reflection of the water. I’ve played the game twice just to get the general idea of how these segments work.
Although if you’ve played the game once, you’ve pretty much got the gist of the game and have already seen 90% of it. Although I’m pretty sure that most of the audience buying this game know immediately wether or not they like it from the trailer, images, and plot synopsis, so it’s not like most people are goign to wander into this game knowing nothing about it.
The Landmark Edition even comes with developer commentary, explaining the process from when it was first conceived and made a mod to becoming a game. Even if you’re not at all into the type of experience that Dear Esther is, the developer commentary might be a highlight for aspiring developers who want to get into game development or at least want to try something different from what they’ve previously made.
Despite the whole game being drab and grey as well as being set on a depressing and baron island, it is quite beautiful to look at and listen to. The soundtrack is haunting, adding onto the feeling of lonliness that was already there from having to wander such a lonely place. Ironically, what it intends to do it does with flying colors. It’s just that it does little outside of what it presents and could have easily been a bunch of randomized video and audio playing for 30 minutes, and that’s going to be the determining factor for a lot of people.
Dear Esther isn’t pretending to be anything else other than what it clearly is, which is a short experimental narrative game trying to invoke a very specific emotion and atmosphere. It could have easily been a more engaging experience, with more for the player to do. Not necessarily with puzzles, but definately with something else, but that would have gone against what the game is. And I can’t get annoyed at what the game isn’t trying to be.
The game is a love it or hate it experience. If you have no interest in it, I doubt anything will convince you to try it out. And if you’re not interested in it, you’ve probably already played it for yourself and like discussing it’s ideas, or have at least put it in your wishlist for when a sale inevitably comes along. But after playing it, I didn’t find any real depth beyond filling it a few cracks with a story that was already pretty obvious with where it was going.