So I had that same feeling of ‘right, better focus up here’ so that’s when I went into the shed, looking for clues. Jo: I didn’t understand the first monologue. The poetic/arty style of it all made me think, crikey, am I going to have to concentrate a bit more than usual here? Rik: I have to say it was even with the first monologue that it hit me. The first thing I did was walk into a shed and try to pick something up, realised I couldn’t do it, and then had the ‘I hope it isn’t like this all the way through’ thought. Jo: Yeah, I was going to say it was pretty immediate. Rik: How soon after you started did you realise it might be a bit different from what you expected? (For me, it was about 5 seconds…) Having played this one, I can see where the term came from, even though I still don’t really think it’s applicable to the other games we’ve covered. The purest interpretation of the phrase ‘walking simulator’. Picking things up isn’t possible and even looking at them isn’t that important. But it’s *literally* just walking around. Jo: Which would make sense, as this paved the way for the games that followed. Rik: You still walk around and don’t do much else. Jo: Yeah, I didn’t know what to expect - although I thought it would be similar to most of the other games we’ve played so far, but it wasn’t, and that was a bit of a surprise. The tower in the distance acts as a focal point. I ended up being surprised that it was actually fairly different from what I expected, even though it is still clearly within the same genre. Rik: I knew it was on an island, and might be vaguely mopey. Jo: I only stumbled upon it after looking for more games like Gone Home, and this one kept cropping up. Rik: So, seeing as we have covered a lot of those types of games so far, I figured it might be good to go back to this one. Or was generally considered the first of its type in the modern era. I had heard of Dear Esther, but hadn’t realised it was older than GH. I had thought Gone Home was the first one of its type in the modern era. Rik: I talked previously about having the various ‘walking simulators’ mixed up in my head. Jo: I think we narrowed it down to three choices, and then we just plumped for Dear Esther… (actually, I think I plumped for it.) Rik: So, do we remember who picked this one, and why? Otherwise, as always, here’s our ***final spoiler warning*** for the discussion ahead. Hmm…what do you make of that, then? Well to find out, you could always play the game. However, as we shall see, many things in this game soon become a matter of interpretation. Each passage of audio begins with the game’s title, and it might at first be assumed that the narrator is reading letters that are addressed to his wife. Like many of these games, to say too much even at this stage risks potentially spoiling things, but Dear Esther is set on an island in the Hebrides, and the game involves exploring that island while listening to the words of an unnamed man, our narrator. It’s considered by many to be the original ‘walking simulator’ and as we’ve covered a few of those in this series, it seemed an obvious one to cover at some point. (We played the Landmark Edition, which moved everything to the Unity engine from Source, and comes with optional commentary from the developers). #Dear esther pc game modToday’s game is Dear Esther, which started life as a mod for Half-Life 2 in 2008, but was later completely redeveloped as a stand alone title and released commercially in 2012. Hopefully that admittedly quite clumsy title does at least tell you what’s involved, or enough for you to know that it’s best not to read ahead without playing the game under discussion first, unless you have absolutely no intention of ever doing so. #Dear esther pc game seriesIt’s part of an ongoing series that we’ve chosen to unimaginatively, and belatedly, call: Discussion: (spoilers!) Today we have another discussion of a modern indie adventure game, with significant spoilers. Hello! We are back, just as Christmas this year is cancelled, for those of us in the UK.
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