Dear Esther

[MJ12]

Anyone try this mod out?

I just played through it tonight, and I was impressed.
It actually got me a bit emotional.


Mind you, it's definitely not for everyone, there is zero action, and it's all about story through exploration and narration.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8tqnmkMgsg

A deserted island... a lost man... memories of a fatal crash... a book written by a dying explorer. Dear Esther is a ghost story told using first-person gaming technologies. Rather than traditional gameplay, the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly triggered by moving around the environments, making every telling unique. Features a stunning, specially commissioned soundtrack. Forget the normal rules of play; if nothing seems real here, it's because it may just be all a delusion. What is the significance of the aerial - What happened on the motorway - is the island real or imagined - who is Esther and why has she chosen to summon you here? The answers are out there, on the lost beach and the tunnels under the island. Or then again, they may just not be, after all...

 

[Reflex]

So what exactly do you do?
:|

 

[G-Dub]

Wouldn't normally interest me, but it's on the download now.

Just hope I play through it all and give it a chance.

 

[Dr.Freeman]

So what exactly do you do?
:|

Explore areas.

 

[G-Dub]

Explore areas.

How much action is there?

Is the action puzzles or shooting... or what?

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

I played this about a month ago and I'm interested as to how others have interpreted the story.

Spoiler

I haven't thought about it much but I think the narrator, esther and jacobson stole a book that an old relative of esther's wrote years ago about the island and the hermit. They even came so far as to visit the island he apparently lived on, then I get a bit lost because he said he was travelling the m5 or whatever searching for something using an ordnance chart, then I think there was a car crash and your character is in a coma and the island is in his mind. There's various symbolic things that support this.

 

[MJ12]

How much action is there?

Is the action puzzles or shooting... or what?

there is zero action, and it's all about story through exploration and narration.

You can walk around, jump, and pick things up if you wish and you have a flashlight. That's it for the "action", no shooting or puzzles.

Look at it this way, it's like a book, except it is being visually presented to you, and you're walking around learning about it.

The point of the game is to make you feel like you are there, on this island exploring it while finding out about this story.

(Btw, I just posted a little summary from a website on my OP)

I played this about a month ago and I'm interested as to how others have interpreted the story.
I haven't thought about it much but I think the narrator, esther and jacobson stole a book that an old relative of esther's wrote years ago about the island and the hermit. They even came so far as to visit the island he apparently lived on, then I get a bit lost because he said he was travelling the m5 or whatever searching for something using an ordnance chart, then I think there was a car crash and your character is in a coma and the island is in his mind. There's various symbolic things that support this.

It's a pretty hard story to fully grasp, but I think you may be partially right because supposedly most of the narration cues are random.

My absolute favorite part was when

Spoiler

When you are near the end and you find an old boat on the shore with tiny paper boats around it, and the narrator says something like "These are all the letters I've ever written to you, 34 letters to you. I set them sail on the Atlantic.... and I watched all 34 pieces of you sink."

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Yeah, I really liked that bit. Especially the lead up to it, with

Spoiler

"From here I can see my armada."

Also probably best I spoilertag my last post and this one.
The narration is really beautiful.
My biggest problem with the mod is getting friends to play it, really

 

[blackout]

so apart from walking around some island what is the storyline? and who were those people that made it that it mentioned in the video?

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

The storyline can be interpreted in many ways.

 

[MJ12]

The way I interpreted it was-

Spoiler

Both you and the narrator are dead, or perhaps just yourself.

And I figure that the island is just a figment of the narrators imagination, and you are visiting it, in some way (through the dream of a coma, or death, not sure)

Anyways, I think this because he says something like-

"I had kidney stones and you visited me in the hospital.. your speech and your outline blurred (narrator slowly dying?) and my stones grew into an island (a world created within his mind) and now you have been rendered opaque by the car of a drunk" (opaque, aka, translucent, ghost-like. You've been killed by a drunk driver and now you are visiting this imanagative island created by the narrator)

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Spoiler

I never considered the possibility of the narrator and player being different people. I thought the use of "you" was directed at esther, as this could be seen as a letter (beginning with "dear esther"

 

[MJ12]

Spoiler

Hm, interesting, I only considered that briefly.
See, I was the opposite, I thought I(the player) was Esther.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Very possible.

 

[MJ12]

Though your character does have a bit of a "manly" panting sound when you fall in the cave.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Could just be a game thing, really.
IIRC on the moddb page they said they were working on a new version and they wanted people to send them their interpretations of the story and what made them think this so they could make story cues more enlightening. I support this, but I dont think it should be made too enlightening, as the story would lose the multiple ways of interpreting it, which makes it discussible when the game is finished.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dear-esther
new version is out.

 

[Afnopo]

Level design was shit.

 

[Barnz]

You're shit.

 

[lawlasauras]

Hey um, I have a question: ***SPOILER ALERT***

At the end of the game when you reach the aerial, you hear the guys voice saying "Come back, Esther" then the sound of dissolving flesh. Is that the sound of the infection he was talking about? Though i dont know of a flesh infection that makes your flesh rot, and dissolve. He also said something about another kidney stone forming at one point. Can someone please explain to me whats going on here?

Also some of the pictures he drew on the walls seem to be some kind of bacteria. It's shaped like a cell and colored red, with little things trailing behind it.

 

[AlexModded]

I think the game ending means

I think the game ending is that you are playing the game in real-time as-in your meant to be given the feel of doing the climb right at that moment, but the narrations are when you were reading to Esther after the crash at the Island in Hospital and as you have done your lifes will and lived to as much as you can, you climb the arial and jump off, dying.

So you can be with Esther; forever.
This moved me alot when I figured it out.

 

[Maestro]

And here we have a high-level thread necromancer.