![]() ![]() ![]() You immerse yourself in a beautiful story and once it's done you Google the ending to try to actually understand it. I assumed that was just a fancy genre title and that you would walk around, collect items, or solve puzzles, but no, you walk, you look, and you listen. When I first heard about Dear Esther they told me it was a “walking simulator”. They discuss their reasoning for creating such an ambiguous storyline, but they don't explain what it actually means. Play the game once, or even more, to understand it, and if the director's thoughts interest you then turn on the commentary. The Landmark Edition of Dear Ester includes a directors commentary, which I do not recommend listening to the first time you play. The details are all there and really do a service to the story. The beauty of the game is in the tale it tells, and every aspect of the design really enforces that feeling. It makes every step feel like it's important and that you are actually achieving something. One of my favorite aspects of Dear Esther is that as you climb mountains and stairs, your character slows and you can feel the weight of having to trudge uphill. The Chinese Room really made the island and the narrator come alive which is necessary for a game where that's all you do is walk, watch, and listen. The night sky is the best I've seen in a game, and the view from any high point on the island is amazing. ![]() It is creepy and beautiful all at the same time. From the wind howling in your ear to the caves and cliff faces of the island, everything is gorgeous and really immerses you in the story the narrator is telling. The textures, music, ambiance, and sound effects are all incredible. Indeed, being forced to draw heavily from the atmospheric, mysterious cloudiness of impressionism, the engine's limitations were perhaps "the best thing that could have happened" for the project - give it a watch, and keep an eye out for useful design principles! And an ear - the talk was conceived by a disconnect between audio and visuals, after all.The beauty of the game lies in the art. Judging by the results, facing and solving these challenges helped not only mask the technical limitations, but also provided the perfect vehicle to present the bleak, stagnant island, in contrast to the damp, fluorescent viscosity of the caves. It effectively serves as a new way of formulating 'environmental storytelling', or 'diegetic narration'. Even the limited color palette helped to keep things simple at a technical level, avoiding conflicting lighting and oversaturating the landscape - extremely useful for gameplay application, to make sure that players stayed focused, through what Briscoe calls 'subliminal signposting' the low light and sparse, but well-crafted detail serve to guide players throughout the abandoned island without the use of overlaid waypoints, or literal signposts. However, due to limitations with the Source engine, he decided to take it in a more stylized direction the inability to throw the kitchen sink at the project led to the heavy reliance on scarce, ambient lighting, and the limited, though highly detailed art assets. Disappointed that such an interesting gameplay setting had such a bland look, Briscoe took it upon himself to provide a stronger set of visuals for the project, originally opting to use a realistic art style to aid with the player's immersion. Dear esther art mod#The inspiration for the project, a Mod for the original Half-Life, featured artfully crafted narration, narrative immersion, and unique thematic direction, but was lacking in the visual department - to the point where it detracted from the overall experience. In this lecture from GDC 2013, Robert Briscoe details his experience developing the environment of Dear Esther. ![]()
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