Dear Esther is part of a research project, creating experimental game mods, based at the University of Portsmouth, UK. The aim was to use Source to create something radically different from normal: an interactive story that dispensed with traditional gameplay and focused instead on an open-ended, semi-random narrative.

More information about the mod and its aims, and the overall project can be found on the website. Also look out for two more mods coming soon: Conscientious Objector (Doom 3) and Antlion Soccer (Half Life 2 Deathmatch)

Thanks for looking - any feedback would be fantastic.

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Dear Esther Remake - update 25/10/2009 Dear Esther Remake - update 25/10/2009 Dear Esther Remake - update 25/10/2009
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32 comments by Henley on Oct 31st, 2009 digg this super bookmark


Ghosts, Zombies, Vampires and other monster boggiewoggies. Halloween is a great time to get into the scarier movies and games to give yourself a good fright. Last year on ModDB I created a video for the top ten voted spooky mods by our community, it had some interesting results to say the least with the popular but not always scary mods took the cherry. This year we will do something a little different, I have compiled a list of singleplayer mods (because we all know being alone in the dark really sets the mood) for different engines that you should check out if you want to get your spook on.

Mistake -1 (Half-Life)

Mistake -1 is the prequel to 'Mistake' and tells the story of Steve Rick, a patient from the Andrew Parker asylum, who harbors a dark secret. A very spooky mod that uses the Goldsource engine very well. Creepy lighting and visual map changes creates something very unique and exciting.


Hollow Moon (Unreal Tournament 2004)

You arrive to the moon research station to work as heavy machinery engineer. From now on you are on your own. Created as more of an experiment for different means of showing audio-visual styles Hollow Moon boasts no environmental sounds, but what is produced is a thick atmosphere that few games or mods can come close too.


Paranoia (Half-Life)

You will play the role of a Russian officer of the secret service. Your first impressions are that this mission will be just like any other, but you really have no idea what nightmares future events have in store for you. Paranoia is one of the very best mods to come out of Half-Life for both engine expansion and content. A must download!


Curse Episodes (Half-Life 2)

Curse episodes is an Egyptian themed action/horror/puzzle/exploration FPS where the further you creep into the world of Curse the harder and more frightening the entire experience gets, its up to you how you want to play. A very unique and very amazing mod worthy of your attention and bandwidth!


Dear Esther (Half-Life 2)

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. If you want a very spooky interactive ghost story Dear Esther should be the mod for you, highly recommended by all the staff here on ModDB.


There are hundreds more mods and games out there that will help create a fantastic Halloween experience for you all, these are just some of the truly stand out mods that deserve to be the major source of your ghostly ahhs and eeiies. Hope you have a very frighting Halloween!

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Dear Esther v1.1 (fixed)

Dear Esther v1.1 (fixed)

Jan 22, 2009 Full Version 36 comments

Updated Dear Esther with fixed link to level 4. This fully replaces v1.0, please delete that and unzip this into your SourceMods folder

Dear Esther - Soundtrack

Dear Esther - Soundtrack

Jul 11, 2008 Music 17 comments

Jessica Curry's soundtrack for Dear Esther: 8 tracks as MPEG4s.

Dear Esther script

Dear Esther script

Jun 30, 2008 Guides 14 comments

This pdf contains the script for the interactive story Dear Esther, as requested...

Dear Esther.zip

Dear Esther.zip

Jun 27, 2008 Full Version 12 comments

Zip file for the Dear Esther mod. Unpack it into your source mods folder, restart Steam and it will show in the games list.

Comments  (10 - 20 of 432)
slayer200270
slayer200270 Oct 7 2009, 4:39pm says:

Where did you get the detail.vbsp at? Or did you make it yourself?

+1 vote     reply to comment
chineseroom
chineseroom Oct 9 2009, 4:45am replied:

This is a question for Rob really - hopefully he'll be able to answer next time he updates

+1 vote     reply to comment
thatmangleybloke
thatmangleybloke Oct 2 2009, 12:24pm says:

I really can't wait for the next version! It looks utterly stunning, really I think Valve could take some pointers from these techniques. It's great to see also that you're sharing information on how you've achieved such detail.

+3 votes     reply to comment
chineseroom
chineseroom Oct 6 2009, 6:27am replied:

Thanks, just listened to Podcast17, and they said they wanted us to quote them as saying that Rob's work is "truly fucking mindblowing". That sounds good... and also in response to that, yes, the sound triggers are being reworked to avoid that double trigger clash. We're also looking into completely re-recording the music and adding in live musicians to the digital sound work, which would really enhance the mod too. Just a question of finding the money for that, but we'll keep y'all updated (and cheers for the shout out from Podcast17 - thanks, guys!)

+1 vote     reply to comment
migmax
migmax Oct 2 2009, 11:40am says:

The mapping desgin are just great! The voice acting are amasinge and I can even see that this is a puzzle game and horror in one!
I bet that you have played Penumbra havent you?
But its great done but its kind of boring, but you did an extremly good job !

+1 vote     reply to comment
hunger66
hunger66 Oct 2 2009, 4:01am buried:

(buried)

this looks kind da boring what is this for a game zombie? action? strategy????

-9 votes     reply to comment
Dig1tal_Cha0s
Dig1tal_Cha0s Oct 4 2009, 9:41pm replied:

lol retard

+1 vote     reply to comment
ghostings
ghostings Oct 4 2009, 4:15pm replied:

Download it and see it for yourself before you spew nonsense.

+1 vote     reply to comment
DazJW
DazJW Oct 2 2009, 10:03am replied:

Read the mod summary?

+3 votes     reply to comment
DazJW
DazJW Oct 1 2009, 2:48pm says:

Bah, this wasn't meant to be here.

+1 vote     reply to comment
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chineseroom
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Released Jun 19, 2008
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