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...
Hey Dan
I finally got around to playing your work.
The narration was great. Stellar voice acting and writing, it really got me into the story. It genuinely seemed as though I was watching the last moments of a broken man's life, and that was quite something. However, it seemed that in your attempt to elevate narrative in games you forgot what makes a game, a game.
I was constantly being annoyed by the little things. Whenever my character entered an area where you thought I should have my light on, the light automatically turned itself on. This became almost comical, as there were times when I found myself wrestling with these "automatic" flashlight triggers, which seemed to toggle on and off as many times as I was prepared to back up and cross the trigger threshold again.
My character got stuck behind boats, barrels, and pieces of trash. I was killed when I tried swimming in water. There was no indication of which way I should go - the only way I found the correct route was by first getting killed by going outside of the map bounds, and then backtracking. I was unable to read all of the chalk text on the cliff-sides, because by the time some of it was fully visible, I was too close to read it.
As a demonstration of the power of narrative in games, I would say this mod is a success, and I look forward to purchasing the commercial version of Dear Esther when it arrives on Steam. As playable game , I believe this product has a long way to go before it can reach the standard many gamers would expect from even the most obscure adventure title.
I would love to see some engaging puzzles, a hint system, and a greater degree of control over the course of the narrative in the final version of the game. Fingers crossed you take this feedback on board and learn to couple your narrative strength with the possibilities of well considered, gratifying gameplay, because what you have here could truly evolve into a gem of adventure gaming.