Dear Esther

[Josef K]

Surprised there hasn't been a thread made for this already.
A new 'game' made using the Source engine, though you wouldn't believe it from seeing it.

Trailer is thus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7VJ4lP-05A
(won't let me embed for some reason)


Reading up on it, it's purely about story and the gameplay is reduced purely to walking around and looking at things. Personally I find this refreshing. Really intriguing premise and the score is hauntingly beautiful judging by the trailer.

[Zetetic]

It's worth noting that it's really an old mod - although the graphical improvements are significant (and perhaps more relevant given the nature of the game).

I think that it suffers significantly from quite how great the constrains on movement are given that, as you say, the player's interaction with the game is only through movement and observation.

[mcbpete]

Played this last night (here was my pre-emptive post about it a year ago - http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=27668.msg1445091#msg1445091 )  .... Spent about 5 minutes just walking up and down the first shoreline watching the tide wash between the rocks and the sea spray, erm, spraying !

From what I've played so far It's a definite improvement over the original (obviously there's graphical/musical improvements) in terms of narrative and direction. A [very] small quibble - I think I preferred the original's near-exclusive grey sky and restricted draw distance - what was probably just a technical restriction, like the fog in Silent Hill 1, actually added to the atmosphere of the mod. It reminded me of my early morning walks around the coast in my home town - a close mist or fog perpetually looming over you, isolating you from anything/anyone further than 10 yards away and constantly away that it could start to chuck it down any second.

But yeah, looking forward to playing the rest of the update. It's interesting that they've decided to remove the jump and 'use' buttons from the engine - I guess it adds somewhat to the ethereal experience of the whole experience, though as Zetetic says it does limit your interactivity a bit.

It's good to learn that they've already made profit on the thing, selling more than 16,000 copies in the first day (http://dear-esther.com/?p=630). Hopefully this'll spur them on to create further projects in this vein ...

[Cohaagen]

I "played" the original mod when it came out. I thought it was okay - an interesting use of triggers for what I think was basically a university project. The writing was alright, but so derivatively Ballardian that I'm afraid I thought "why the fuck am I bunny-hopping around this island[nb]sorry, but I was[/nb] listening to some guy go bananas about car crashes when I could be reading the real thing?".

[Rachel]

Reading up on it, it's purely about story and the gameplay is reduced purely to walking around and looking at things. Personally I find this refreshing.

This is... Daft.
I blimmin' hate this trend these days of removing the game from the video game for the sake of creating a 'cinematic' experience. It seems to utterly backward, why do people want to play interactive movies?

[Zetetic]

It's not to create a cinematic experience. Indeed, if it's doing anything it is striving to use the format afforded by perhaps not the computer game but the engine of a computer game[nb]I want to say 'simulation' or something, but that's not right. And 'interactive' belies the point that it's not interactive in the traditional sense anyway.[/nb], in a vaguely novel way.

Perhaps if there's a worthy comparison point, it's really with the Mysts and others of that ilk except doing away with the (often bolted-on?) puzzling element. It's a way of telling a story. I think it's a bit off to characterise it either as a game or a movie.

[mcbpete]

The writing was alright, but so derivatively Ballardian that I'm afraid I thought "why the fuck am I bunny-hopping around this island[nb]sorry, but I was[/nb] listening to some guy go bananas about car crashes when I could be reading the real thing?".

I'd say if anything it was probably closer to WG Ballard's - The Rings of Saturn. Well, maybe the mood generated by game itself rather than the narration.

[falafel]

Wikipedia says W.G. Sebald...

[mcbpete]

Oops, apologies - I did mean Sebald have no idea why my brain made me type Ballard (especially as I'd just come back from watching a 2 hour doc about the man)

[Wilbur]

I've got the original installed. I thought it was good. In a weird, quite disturbing way. Not sure if I'd pay for the re-vamped version.

[mcbpete]

Yeah there's not really that much difference aside from the graphical updates (there are a few path differences), I paid for it mainly as thanks to the author for how much I enjoyed the original model.

[Josef K]

I'd say it's worth paying for just to see how the Source engine can still impress.

[Dark Sky]

The graphics are gorgeous, though the rotating bitmap plantation annoyed me slightly.  Wonderful atmosphere, though, and various locations made me gasp with delight.

Think I need to play it through some more times to start really trying to figure out what it is or what it's trying to do, though.  I believe I read that a lot of the dialogue is randomised so each time you play you might get some different stuff coming up.  Dunno if that's true or not.

[Big Jack McBastard]

Just reached the beacon.

I *sort of* saw the ending coming while on the beach, knew it was only going to end one way but the late twist was an unexpected one.

Very pretty in places, quite grimy in others, all manner of little touches to see if you keep an eye open. Dropping into the pool at the end of 'Caves' was a brow raiser.

Interesting.... not Earth shattering but interesting.