mikemariano

Dear Esther

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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.

I couldn't agree more. All the negative comments about it really get under my skin. It's a thing that doesn't involve shooting people so of course you're going to have people who get "bored" by it and totally miss the original, creative and atmospheric aspects of it.

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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

What genre?

- and just allow themselves to be absorbed into a small group's creative vision.

The game doesn't make this easy. I'm sure if I tried harder I could have liked it more, but I just didn't find anything besides the Island itself (mostly visually) that seemed interesting.

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It's a thing that doesn't involve shooting people so of course you're going to have people who get "bored" by it and totally miss the original, creative and atmospheric aspects of it.

I don't know what you're trying to say here, except insinuate that everyone who didn't like it is a simpleton.

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I don't know what you're trying to say here, except insinuate that everyone who didn't like it is a simpleton.

That's not what I was implying, it's fine to not like it, I just meant specifically the people who have said things like this elsewhere such as Reddit. When they cite their reasons for not enjoying it because it doesn't have any action, that's what bothers me.

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I guess it's just one of those games you hate, dislike very much, dislike somewhat, are ambivalent towards, like somewhat, like very much or love.

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I guess it's just one of those games you hate, dislike very much, dislike somewhat, are ambivalent towards, like somewhat, like very much or love.

Haha. Well said!

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That's not what I was implying, it's fine to not like it, I just meant specifically the people who have said things like this elsewhere such as Reddit. When they cite their reasons for not enjoying it because it doesn't have any action, that's what bothers me.

Yeah sorry I took it the wrong way as I haven't read many opinions on it and was the main complainer in this thread

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The game doesn't make this easy. I'm sure if I tried harder I could have liked it more, but I just didn't find anything besides the Island itself (mostly visually) that seemed interesting.

I decided to expose and accept the limitations imposed on me, as a player character, very early on. Maybe it's because I'd read just enough about Dear Esther to know that it was something out of the ordinary and not meant to be experienced like a typical FPS.

I thought, "the designers must be limiting me for a reason, so I'll go with it and see where they take me." As the core motivation for the player character slowly became apparent, it seemed obvious to me why you can't run or bunny-hop

through a thoroughly depressed and now-aimless man's final moments alive

.

Why would you even want to? Wouldn't it be fair to say, if you were allowed to do these things, that the game would be guilty of trivialising it's subject matter?

Of making it a shallow use of game technology to lamely explore complex and difficult emotions?

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But why did you have to carry that broken ship's compass with you all the way? There was no place to use it.

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But why did you have to carry that broken ship's compass with you all the way? There was no place to use it.

All my character seemed to have on him was a battery-powered torch. I didn’t even try my inventory via the mouse wheel or number keys—there seemed absolutely no reason to, nor context where it would be necessary.

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I'm really interested in what comes from Dear Esther makers' (thechineseroom was it?) and Frictional Games' collaboration (Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs). In my idea, Frictional Games is currently at the forefront of moving first person games forward (away from shooters), and I guess thechineseroom is on the same front. What Frictional really handles well is still giving the player interesting stuff to do without involving combat. As I've said before I'd love to see something of Frictional's school in a non-horror genre and perhaps this is a step towards that.

I think this game is lead by thechineseroom rather than Frictional (?), and I imagine that a really interesting thing to see would be if they can take the mechanic(lessnes)s of Dear Esther and add a minimal amount of new mechanics to that in subsequent games. Dear Esther would then be the game where they wiped the table clean and started building new things on top of that.

Note: this doesn't change anything about me not liking Dear Esther.

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I stumpled onto this old gamasutra interview with Dan Pinchbeck and this helps me understand the game a bit better. Actually he doesn't come off as pretentious at all so I have to redact that comment.

[edit]Also, it is interesting that the games he mentions most are S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Far Cry 2.

Edited by Erkki

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I picked up Dear Esther yesterday as part of the steam sale, so far while it's holding my interest I can certainly see why a fair few people would react negatively to it. Though at the price I paid I don't think I will regret buying it even if I do feel more negatively with it by the time I'm done.

So far my biggest complaint would probably be the voice over and in particular the subtitles(which come switched on by default)which often feel somewhat jarring. With so much of the game seemingly focused on a sense of ambiguity (so far) it seems strange to have the dialogue there in black and white, the idea that I might mishear or misunderstand something is a possibility that I think I would prefer left open, so I'm thinking of switching the subs off for the rest of the game.

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I bought it too and either I missed something or they changed it from the original:

I could swear you saw the car that killed Esther hanging somewhere in the game, I didn't see it in this version.

Also, SWEET MOTHER OF MOTHRA is it pretty! And detailed too, I've never seen such diversity in flora in a game that didn't require you to use them as ingredients!

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I tried to give it a fair shake. I even sat through the beginning area again after my "can I swim?" experiment went poorly, but it just didn't manage to grab me.

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Ended up playing through the entire game in one sitting (with the subtitles off) last night after a minor bout of sleeplessness. I don't know if it was just that I was tired, or if playing it in a room with no lights and some good quality headphones on made the difference (or a combination of all of those factors), but whatever it was I hit a tipping point and my opinion went from tentative interest to outright adoration.

I have no idea how to even begin talking about it without sounding incredibly pretentious, but gawd darn it that was amazing.

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Does your guy ever learn to jump? For a game where the core input is movement, it really frustrated me.

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Does your guy ever learn to jump? For a game where the core input is movement, it really frustrated me.

Yes he does, spectacularly so infact

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