I’ve had this sat on my Mac’s hard drive for some time now, but being a non-console game it never crosses my mind to play it. Not least because connecting up a TV and a controller and so on… Today I had a couple of hours free and a game a couple of hours long was available, so Dear Esther came out.
First, I should point out this isn’t a game. I know there are people who would argue that it is, but it’s no more game than it is fish. It’s a story wrapped in a mostly linear walk around an island. A confusing, broken story relayed out of order in paragraphs both lucid and on the edge of insanity. Walking to various places triggers a section of plot, and eventually your wandering leads you to the radio mast you can see in the distance from the very start of the game.
And there it ends. Along the way, if you’re lucky, your exploration will reveal a little about who you are, who Esther is, and why you’re on the island. Or it won’t, as these story snippets are apparently random.
I think I found enough to make a sense of the proceedings. Perhaps not the sense, but I can certainly make some organisation of the information my playthrough revealed. Er, not playthrough. As that implies a game. Which this isn’t. No, really – you do no game stuff.
But was it good? I don’t know. I’m glad I experienced it (narrowly avoided saying played there), and it was pretty and clever, but I’m not sure how much more I got out of it via this medium rather than by just reading a short story. It didn’t help that you move so slowly, artificially extending the length of the notgame. It took me only about an hour and a half in total, and even though the vistas were nice and the cave drawings and chalk scrawlings added a little, I think I’d have preferred more wordy exposition in that time, or less time.
(This suggestion from @Xexyzx)
Ah, I remember Dear Esther. It was probably the first proper Narrative Discovery Game 1 I played, back on a warm April afternoon a couple of years ago. I remember it was warm, because I had to open the window. I also remember I had to connect my Macbook Pro up to my TV in order to play it, then dig out my wired Xbox 360 pad, then sort out getting the screen resolution correct, then redo everything because when I closed the lid, my Macbook went to sleep and broke all the settings. Anyway, eventually it was all working well, but I never bothered playing games this way again.
Back then, I was a bit derogatory about Dear Esther. I suggested it wasn’t a game, as there’s no gameplay, but having played more of this type of game I’ve changed my mind – the game is to discover the story. There’s still not a lot of actual “playing”, but that doesn’t really matter.
As for the actual meaning of the game, well, it’s been two years and I’m not looking anything up for the purposes of this post so I could well be miles off the mark and have totally forgotten everything. Still, that won’t stop me.
Your man who you control is on an island. He discovers things on the island which somehow link back to bits of his life, including Esther. As you explore, broken bits of story are narrated to you, and the idea is you piece everything together to figure out 1) what went on, and 2) what’s actually going on now. Lots of things are, I suspect, metaphors and allegories with some more obvious than others.
Take, for example, the image at the start of the post. It’s like a little shrine to a broken car. I can infer from this that something happened involving a broken car. Do you see? At the end (spoilers, sorry) your man climbs a big radio mast and jumps off, turning into a bird who then flies around the island. I think this means he killed himself?
OK, putting together what I remember about the game, and what I remember about thinking about the game at the time, here’s what I think happened:
Your man had been drinking. He went for a drive in his car, like a naughty fellow, and got into an accident. I think he hit this Esther person, or she was in the car, or something. She was in hospital for a period of time (I’m pretty sure this is referenced somewhere in the game, at least), then presumably died. Your man was then wracked with grief, deciding to kill himself in the end whereupon he was finally free of his grief.
Possibly. And the island doesn’t really exist. I suspect maybe he was in a coma following a suicide attempt and the island was a Life on Mars-style limbo, with the on-island mast jump causing his final death… or! Maybe it didn’t! Maybe it released him from his coma now he was able to deal with what he’d done?
One of those things. It was a stupid question anyway.
Notes:Not “walking simulator”. ↩Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)MoreClick to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)
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(This suggestion from @SephyTheThird)
I’m not sure why it is topical (even when he suggested it, I wasn’t sure either – perhaps I missed some game news somewhere), but I am sure that I strongly dislike the term “walking simulator”.
I hold my hands up as one of those people who has used it in the past, along with “non-game”, “gameplay-less gaming”, and “press up to win”, but I’ve come to appreciate the genre for the tales they tell more than the gameplay they provide – or don’t, as the case maybe. No, I now prefer the term I possibly coined as I don’t recall reading it anywhere else before I started using it 1: “Narrative Discovery Game”.
Back when I played Journey for the first time, I was quite derogatory about it in terms of being a game. There was no denying the excellent art style, charm and story (such that it was), but I struggled to call it a game. There’s a small amount of platforming, and a little bit of hiding, and perhaps two very simple puzzles, but most of it is simple push forwards and discover. At the time, I think I said it was a terrible game but a great experience.
Gone HomeSince then, I’ve come to accept this sort of title as a game genre in its own right. The game is to discover the narrative, in whichever way it provides as a method of doing that. In Gone Home, you gather notes, messages and items that tell the story of your family’s lives while you’ve been away. There’s little in the way of puzzle or interaction, it all comes down to exploring the house and reading and examining what you find. Some of the story will still elude you even after you’ve completed the game, but that’s OK as some is open to interpretation anyway, and there’s enjoyment in ruminating on what you discovered to fill in the gaps yourself, perhaps discussing with others who may have had a slightly different experience due to clues they missed or ignored.
Dear EstherExpanding on the open to interpretation theme, Dear Esther, another game I unfairly maligned as a non-game back in 2014, has even less in the way of interaction or freedom, and even more in the way of vagueness. Some things you find can be taken as literal, or alternatively as metaphor, and even after finishing the story I was still somewhat confused. I wrote more here, but ultimately it doesn’t matter what I made of what I found – I discovered a narrative, which may differ from the correct one but still fits. Perhaps, in this case, different possible interpretations are intentional.
The Stanley ParableThe Stanley Parable is different again. Unlike the other three titles I’ve mentioned, the whole of The Stanley Parable is actually narrated, and you’re able to make choices as to whether to follow what the narrator is saying, or deviate. The game here is still to discover a narrative, however, but there are a number of narratives from the mundane to the surreal. Again, interaction is limited (you press buttons and open doors – that’s pretty much it) but you’re able to play through various outcomes. And it’s very, very funny.
I’ve played a few other games of this genre too, such as Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, which was a little like The Stanley Parable but told a single, specific story. The Beginner’s Guide was very strange, even for an NDG (let’s hope that catches on, yes?), and taking the style to another extreme there’s Emily is Away.
Emily is AwayThere’s no walking at all in Emily is Away. Everything is played out in the form of Ye Olde AOL Messenger, as you and your friend Emily leave school and go to separate colleges, chatting online every so often, and dealing with the obvious attraction between them that never seems to blossom because sending instant messages does not a romance make. You get to choose different things to say, but (spoiler!) although this changes your “route” to the end, inevitably you drift apart regardless of your decisions. In your final conversation with Emily you can’t even say the words you want, as your character types them, deletes them, and says something stupid instead. It’s clever, and there’s a narrative to find (and make) through your choices. In a way it’s an adventure game, but because the ending is unchangeable and so your choices just change the middle of the story, I can’t really describe it properly as an adventure.
Other games which drift closer or further away from so called “walking simulators” than the likes of Dear Esther – which is probably the poster child for them – include Firewatch (it has adventure elements, but ultimately you can’t not reach the end), The Starship Damrey (some puzzles and even shooting, but the actual aim is to discover the story), Attack of the Friday Monsters, and even Little Inferno approaches it. Perhaps the pinnacle of the genre for me, so far at least (I’ve not played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter yet, which may come close), is Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
It has no puzzles. You can pretty much skip to the end. There are red herrings, lots of irrelevant stuff to look at, and so many Raleigh Burners it’s untrue. But: there’s an excellent narrative to discover, piece together, and interpret. In fact, there isn’t just the story of possible aliens inhabiting technology that arches the whole game, but there are so many substories involving the characters who have disappeared and some of these are even more interesting than the main one. From the serious to the mundane, some relating to The Event, others not. Relationships, loss, crisis of confidence, financial ruin, xenophobia. It’s Emmerdale crossed with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and I loved almost everything about it. Not bad for a game from a genre I ridiculed not so long ago.
Everybody’s Gone To The RaptureIn Walking Simulators you may just walk, but that is missing the point. In a good one, you don’t even realise all you’re doing is walking. When you read a book, all you’re doing is reading but that isn’t the point, is it? The point is you’re absorbing the story as you read. Why can’t you do the same as you walk?
Notes:Dammit! Someone beat me to it! ↩Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)MoreClick to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)
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