mikemariano

Dear Esther

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I don't like starting a new thread just to say bad things, but I'm a bit upset by a comment in this Rock Paper Shotgun review of the new version of Dear Esther.

Yeah, the only bit of fun I had with the original mod was trying to bunny hop the fastest. Unfortunately that broke the voice lines timing.

The game had a jump button and they took it out? People were experimenting with the game and sequence breaking, and the only response is to remove a game feature entirely?

I said this in a Bioshock Infinite thread: this is bad for games.

I hope this wasn't the reason that the jump button disappeared; I hope their doing so adds something else to the play experience. But I'm not thrilled that on the surface it seems like it's a reaction to players exploiting their horrible, horrible freedom to have horrible, horrible fun unintended by the designers.

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I think that comment is probably a joking reference back to a very similar comment made about the original game...

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I think that comment is probably a joking reference back to a very similar comment made about the original game...

Hmmmm, I don't have the context for this, but I like this explanation better than my handwringing worrisomeness.

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I also presume that it's just sarcasm, joking about the original mod. However, if it's not sarcasm, he's completely missing the point of the game. The point of Dear Esther isn't to have "fun", it's all about immersive atmosphere and piecing together a very enigmatic narrative from the dialogue pieces you are given and environmental clues you are shown. If jumping broke the timing of the dialogue and no fix could be found in time for release, then I don't see a problem since the dialogue is way more important to the core concept of the game than the player's ability to jump. A slow walk is the best way to experience it, in my opinion.

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I thought it was pretty great; I love walking around in beautiful environments that have such incredible detail everywhere, without having to worry about being attacked by killbots. It made me want to fire up Riven again, and also made me want The Witness even more, since I expect the same kind of immersiveness from that.

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So the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article makes it sound like you just walk forward through basically corridors while a narrator just throws story at you? It's not that limited is it? I'd like to have some kind of interaction in the game if it's going to be in a medium that is all about interaction.

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Nope. It's just that, walking around (quite linear) and once in a while a voice over.

I'm rather disappointed with it, specially at that price point and game length (barely over a hour).

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I was disappointed with it even expecting a very linear and casual experience. It's really nothing more than a short walk on a pretty island. The voice over only detracts from the experience. I actually think the 'game' would have been better with only a walk/stop button and the mouse to look around, at least that way you wouldn't have to wonder where you can go and where you can't. It's not sign posted very well and the slow walking makes it feel like a chore.

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Spectacularly screwed up post on the Steam Forums:

I don't care about my $10. I care about the damage you've done to indie gaming

I'm befuddled. Quite confused. The reason for my befuddlement and confusion is thusly: why are you messing up indie gaming?

When people think "indie gaming", we've worked long and hard to ensure that the thought that comes to mind is "grassroots, good value, good fun". What we try to steer clear of is them associating indie gaming with "smash and grab ripoff to get my money".

See, when you release a game that is basically the sum total of its marketing screenshots, there's a problem. People start mistrusting indie gaming. Then they stop spending their one or two dollars on indie gaming. Then indie game devs stop making a living doing this and the indie gaming movement just stops and dies.

Because that's what you did. You released a game that is a full-motion version of the screenshots you released prior to that. Then you got the big, bad Valve hype machine in motion. Then you straddled the entire indie gaming brand and buttrammed it until it bled cash.

Let's not pick on your actual "game". Let's ignore that World of Warcraft was more of an exploration game than this. Let's ignore that if you go the wrong way, it takes five minutes to slowly trudge back to the last crossroads. Let's ignore that there wasn't even a story, that this was a glorified, five-year-old tech demo the likes of which used to come bundled free with your GeForce 1. Let's ignore the premium-high price (in indie game terms) that you reamed out of customers like me. Let's focus on what's real.

Stop ♥♥♥♥ing up indie gaming by muscling your way into the hype and taking advantage of people.

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Dear Esther,

You are the ungamiest of games (more ungamy than you have to burn the rope or Passage) and you suck besides. I like your looks, but that is hardly enough.

Sincerely,

Not your friend

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I really liked it. I didn't mind the lack of mechanics as I expected this going in, and the slow pace and lack of jump button encourages you to take in the surroundings and allows anticipation to build. It would have been terrible if you could have just bunny hopped to the next trigger point.

Despite not having any real gameplay I think it's an experience that would only work in this form. I disagree that you can 'play it for free on YouTube'... I absolutely wouldn't have watched a video of this for 1.5 hours, but I enjoyed playing it.

I guess this is one of those really marmitey games like Passage.

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It would have been terrible if you could have just bunny hopped to the next trigger point.

I disagree. I mean, while playing it, I thought "man, I wish I could bunny hop through this". Seriously. Well, I don't give about jumping, but a run button would have been nice. The fact that I was thinking about that and not able to do it was a worse immersion destroyer than actually doing it.

Whenever you guess wrongly about which path is the dead end that might have some more dialogue, you have to sloooowly walk back to the real dead end and then back again, if you want to find what's at every corner. It's punishing and is not cool. Luckily, I didn't guess wrongly much and I guess the game's learning curve actually is about getting better at guessing those things. You have some easy guesses in the beginning, and then it gets a bit harder. Oh, what brilliance.

The game definitely does not work as a movie, and it does not work as a game. Passage did work, because it was 5 minutes long. This is just the same, but stretched to 2 hours.

The story it told didn't really grab me. I'm sure if I was more open to it I could have enjoyed it more, but I was a little biased against it after playing the earlier version a bit.

I would have forgiven all that if they were mistakes the author(s) made, but I think they were willing decisions and/or lazyness and disrespect for the player's time and it all smelled of pretentiousness to me.

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I'm going to reiterate what I said earlier. I think a walk/stop button (meaning you don't even choose your own path) would have worked better. Taking away jumping and speed means the player has to work just to get ahead. The WASD paradigm implies you have a lot more control than the game offers. Exploration is something you definitely don't want to do, you'll just get stuck somewhere off the path. Since there is no interaction in the game, the game should free the player to make observations without struggling to get around.

Also, the voice-over really is terrible. It just steals the game of mystery. A very similar case to Braid, IMO.

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Whenever you guess wrongly about which path is the dead end that might have some more dialogue, you have to sloooowly walk back to the real dead end and then back again, if you want to find what's at every corner. It's punishing and is not cool. Luckily, I didn't guess wrongly much and I guess the game's learning curve actually is about getting better at guessing those things. You have some easy guesses in the beginning, and then it gets a bit harder. Oh, what brilliance.

I'm not finished, but I agree with Marek, I like it so far. I think this whole notion of seeking out the "real dead end" because it has some more dialogue is a very gamey kind of way of looking at it. When you look at a painting, I think people generally don't focus in on a particular part of the painting because it will somehow unlock extra content; you do it because that part of the painting is interesting to look at. So it goes with the geography of Dear Esther, IMO.

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The game definitely does not work as a movie, and it does not work as a game. Passage did work, because it was 5 minutes long. This is just the same, but stretched to 2 hours.

I also enjoyed how Passage was able to explore player movement as a metaphor. I can't think of any other games that have done that.

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Juuuust finished and decided to drop by for a look at some of the thumb reactions- I'm sort of surprised this one ended up being so polarizing, honestly.

Erkki is completely correct that this is neither a movie nor a game... It's purely a story that you walk through. I'm actually sort of glad that it wasn't trying to be something that it's not in terms of puzzles and interactivity- Even without 'use', 'run', and 'jump' I still

managed to use the walk physics and angles to fall through the world and sequence break a couple of times

before mentally slapping the QA tester in me down and getting back to enjoying the atmosphere.

I'm glad that it's available on Steam because I'm always pleased to see strange and interesting things get exposure and do well, but some of the reactions are making me wish it signposted its true nature a bit better... I wouldn't recommend this to most longtime gamers I know any more than I'd sit my grandmother down in front of Bulletstorm. (I'm actually hatching a plan to get her some time with Dear Esther as I write this, and am really looking forward to her reaction. As someone who reads books and avoids games, I think this might just fall into a space she'd enjoy!)

Anyway, just about every dead end I found myself at contained a little vignette of some sort that added to the symbolism- Are a lot of people just impatient and not into it enough to catch the

medical reports, family photos, car parts, surgical tools, bird's nests, briefcases, paper boats, ultrasound pics

, etc. or did they not feel like adequate explorational rewards? How else would one know that

Esther was likely pregnant when the accident occurred

?

Like Kuchera, I was also disappointed in

the lack of control at the end

, and it's not completely "my kind of game", but I'm glad I supported and experienced it and am looking forward to parsing different reactions and exposing some traditionally game-phobic individuals to Dear Esther.

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I disagree. I mean, while playing it, I thought "man, I wish I could bunny hop through this". Seriously. Well, I don't give about jumping, but a run button would have been nice. The fact that I was thinking about that and not able to do it was a worse immersion destroyer than actually doing it.

To be fair, the guy

has a broken leg for at least half the game, or the whole game, depending on how you read the narrative.

I'm with Marek on this one as well - I think there are enough games that do things like action, combat and puzzling to make it OK for this one to do none of those things. What it did do is far rarer and far harder to pull off. I'd played the original mod to death, so the mechanic was pretty familiar, but moments like

the motorway level, replacing the overturned car in the pool

really did make a difference.

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Despite not having any real gameplay I think it's an experience that would only work in this form. I disagree that you can 'play it for free on YouTube'... I absolutely wouldn't have watched a video of this for 1.5 hours, but I enjoyed playing it.

If you replay it, the text will be different in certain situations so watching it on YouTube wouldn't necessarily be the same experience that you might play through.

Also:

The freeway scene at the end of The Caves chapter may be different. The first time I came across two cars in an accident. The second time it was a hospital gurney with a blood IV hooked up to it.

There's a lot I didn't catch the first time that I noticed the second time around. There's more replay value than I expected which makes me feels better about parting with $10 for it.

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Randomization seems like a weird fit for this, but the numerous reports comparing people's first playthroughs confirm it.

I'll have to give it another go and see what I make of it...

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I've just played it through in a single sitting, having nothing better to do on a Friday night. And you know what? I loved it.

I'm dismayed at so many people who must be trudging through this constantly chanting to themselves, "it's the Half-Life engine, it's the Half-Life engine," apparently with their fingers in their imagination's ears.

There are some really trite, short-sighted criticisms being spewed about this as well, such as the vegetation being two-dimensional (as in the RPS unreview).

Really? That's the best you can come up with as critical appraisal of something? "Shoe-gazing" in its most literal sense. Suspension of disbelief is one thing; constantly driving around in your mind's eye in a giant pedantic bulldozer quite another.

I really am stunned at just how many people apparently can't just get over themselves - or the tropes of a withered husk of a genre - and just allow themselves to be absorbed into a small group's creative vision.

I think Dear Esther is something quite unique and special--something to be treasured and applauded. And I'm very glad I gave them some financial encouragement to do more.

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