Dear Esther encourages philosophical thought more than pretty much any game that springs to mind. well, all sorts of ideas begin to fly around. When, after following a seemingly never-ending pathway up a mountain, Bible verses scrawled on the rock, you turn a corner and come face-to-face with the word 'DAMASCUS', carved in huge white capital letters on the cliff face. On numerous occasions, the narrator alludes to the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. What's clear is that it's a narrative chock full of metaphor and even biblical references. As the narrator succumbs to infection and, towards the finale, becomes dilerious with fever, comprehending exactly what happened on this island, and on a stretch of motorway in central England some time before, becomes an impossibility. We never meet any of them, and their full identities are never overtly revealed. But it's also the story of a car accident, some time in the past, and how it changed the lives of Dear Esther's trio of primary characters. On the surface, it's the story of the last weeks of a man's life, the inevitabilty of his demise on the island, and his desperation to communicate, in some way, with the eponymous Esther - presumably deceased - before his own fate guides him away from the realm of the living. And, with each experience, some sort of plot - a possible interpretation of one, at least - begins to fall into place. To start with, the script sounds completely arbitrary, with little or no relevance to the island, or even to the other triggered voiceovers. Each trigger is set up with three possible voiceovers, each telling a slightly different version of the tale. As you explore the deserted island, your presence in certain locations triggers segments of the script, and on each play-through it will be radically different. But the ambiguity stretches beyond this and into every crevice of Dear Esther, to the point where personal interpretation is absolutely key. You're certainly not the protagonist, or even necessarily any of the supporting cast. The player context isn't just absent at the beginning: there's never any clear allusion as to who you are supposed to be. And you begin your journey into the history of the island and those who travelled to it.ĭear Esther's design is centred around the idea of ambiguity of character. As you start to walk towards the ramshackle building, a voice sounds. There's no immediate context: you've no idea who you are or how you got to this place. Behind you is a churning ocean in front of you a rustic hut, set against a backdrop of mist and mountains. On starting the game, you find yourself standing on the shore of a small island off the coast of Scotland. And I want you to understand that this is something I'd love for everyone to try out. Dear Esther feels more like an art-house film, or the mental picture conjured up by a good poem. Attempting to do so would only lead to futile conclusions like 'too easy', 'too short' and 'too ugly', none of which are remotely relevant to the quality of this whimsical creation. To this end, I'm almost tempted to say "this is not a review." Dear Esther doesn't function like most of its peers, so applying the relatively rigid structure of traditional games criticism doesn't quite work. Dear Esther is his and his team's attempt to apply this research to a full-scale project. The University of Portsmouth's senior Creative Technology lecturer Dan Pinchbeck has spent the past few years researching how first-person engines can be used to bring innovative new design ideas to life, in ways not commonly associated with gaming. The phrase may have become synonymous primarily with the alternate reality community, where suspension of disbelief and complete investment in the fiction are paramount to the whole experience, but it's equally applicable to the growing trend of 'anti-games' among certain independent development houses. And I want you to understand that this is something I'd love for everyone to try out." " Dear Esther doesn't function like most of its peers, so applying the relatively rigid structure of traditional games criticism doesn't quite work.
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