PyrosNine
02-16-2012, 02:07 PM
Dear Esther: the Remake/Steam port
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4241108/paul0123.jpg
Dear Esther was a Half Life 2 mod created by Dan Pinchbeck, as part of the development studio “thechineseroom” that attempted to study and create unique interactive first person experiences (“games”) with a government grant for the Arts. The game was interesting for it’s time for it’s lack of game-like structure, it’s non-linear semi-random story, and it’s haunting and deeply psychological if not poetic atmosphere. On top of AAA writing and voice work, it, like “The Parable of Stanley” was a free modification of Half Life that actually took the game’s engine and assets to create an entirely new gameplay experience. Or maybe it would be better described as a new storytelling experience. Or maybe, a good ‘ghost story’ experience.
I covered the game both on these forums and as a new form research paper for a rhetoric class. Just as I was writing this report, a modder and designer had taken up an ambitious project with the game mod, intending to replace the drab and somewhat stock created Dear Esther map and breathe some ‘life’ into it, with a total graphical rehaul. In the original game the island was nothing to look at, merely dark and mysterious with a few HalfLife 2 recognizable structures, but Robert Briscoe intended to custom create a new and more eyepopping version of the game’s hebridean island at night, while still staying true to the overall atmosphere and theme of the piece.
If the new Steam Page is any indication, he succeeded. With aid from Valve, thechineseroom, and the Indie Fund, Dear Esther has made the transformation from a deceptively simple mod into an independent game, selling for $9.99 in the US.
The only question remaining is: Why should you buy a game when you can play the original mod for free? (Aside from rewarding one man’s tireless work of several years)
Because the original game, like any good ghost story, left you haunted. And the best way to deal with a haunting is to take a closer look at what was left behind, the remnants, the marks, and all the scars.
This essay is for all those who have yet to play the game, to entice them to give it a try, and if they really like the experience, opt for the ten dollar enhancement. This is an essay for all those who saw it before, asking them to see it again, and maybe they’ll see something new this time, with or without a ten dollar enhancement.
Dear Esther is a ghost story. This is a game about ghosts. Dear Esther is a ghost story, not a horror story. The island is full of things dead, be they ideas, dreams, efforts, and people, and Dear Esther is an exorcism. The player is an exorcist, digging their hands into the muddy sands of the island and pulling the dead up by their boots and broken legs. We dig them up to hear, whether we want to or not, the last echoes of their existence, and their anguish as they begin to sink back down into the cold and wet.
The first thing you’ll notice about the island is it’s distinct lack of people. It’s a deserted island, but those who were here before you have left their marks, left behind their signs of having been there, lived there, and their thoughts of the island. Buildings, boats, trails, drawings. All the signs of life without the living presence: What do we call the empty void in the shape something human? A ghost.
Even if the island does not exist, the ghosts that haunt Dear Esther no less exist apart from it, the island acting as the medium in this seance. And the island itself is a ghost, the sum of it’s ghosts and the dead and dying idea of an island dredged up from the muck of a hebridean coast. What I’m getting at is that just because Dear Esther is a fictional game about an island and people that may not exist, doesn’t mean it’s just metaphor to be interpreted as a “kind of ghost story.” This is an exorcism, this seance with a medium calling forth a ghost who tells us about ghosts. The voice that speaks to us talks to us about ghosts, his or otherwise, even our ghosts: your ghosts. The player is no less a bodiless apparition wandering an empty island, listening to the whispers of a writer, a narrator, a family friend and a dying man; catching glimpses of the flickering remnants of life standing in doorways. The people in the doorways? They are only there in your memory, because a voice remembered them for you, and stuck them in that doorway like a pinned butterfly on display.
It’s more than just implied that everyone you hear about has long since left this world, and as you venture forth it’s not hard to get the idea that so too is that longing, poetic (and sexy) voice coming from the choir departed. And then there’s the feeling that you yourself, as you tread both ground and words in equal measure, are following him in his departure. This is a ghost story, and not like the Departed or the Sixth Sense where the character at the end looks in the mirror and realizes they’re a ghost, but one where you find yourself looking down the beach and wondering if those are your footsteps in the sand, and if they are or aren’t, asking yourself what that means.
The narrator is unreliable, it is a ghost story after all, but in a way that’s natural with writing. He’s lines and lines of ink on paper in a folded letter or an old journal, that has become wet in the cold sea air. His ink has begun to smudge, and he bleeds between the lines, the thoughts, the pages, while the page itself begins to deteriorate like wet tissue paper: not a violent crumbling or tearing, but a gradual dissolution. It’s up to you if his pages took a dunk on the boat ride to the island, or became drenched in tears, or fell under the rain after a vehicle accident on a nearby highway, but whatever the reason his words and thoughts become contradictory and combining. The writer, his subject, and the recipient have blurred together, and if you’ve listened closely the player and listener might be blurred into this mess too, all becoming one as Dear Esther comes to a subtle, but dramatic conclusion.
Dear Esther is a ghost story because days, weeks, years later, even after you’ve downloaded the script, browsed the ModDB’s forums and read the reviews, you still don’t know what to make of your experiences beyond the shapes, the sounds, the lingering mental pictures still in your head. It’s not vagueness for vagueness’ sake, Esther is not an atomic bomb, but she’s still blown a hole in you and one other person, and you’re left with the aftermath. If you go back again, you hear a different combination of ideas, images, and the sum of your experiences will be radically different. You can easily hear things that you didn’t hear the first time, and depending on your habits of exploration there may still yet be things missed. It’s the luck of the draw and the personal preference that makes each trip unique through the island. Unless you’ve played through it three or more times, you’ve no right to attempt to cobble some meaning or narrative out of it, and still at the end of the day any interpretation is just as valid as any other.
I could go on about experiences, images, and themes present in the work, but that would be spoiling- and I”m already potentially spoiling any virgin reader’s understanding and perception of the events in the game as is. I do want to argue that Dear Esther is indeed a game, and in some ways a game that plays you more than Silent Hill Shattered Memories. It gives you a bunch of shredded pieces of paper, and you and your rational mind logically create a coherent story out of it. The onus is on the perciever, the player, and there is no Word of God from the creator to justify the details, and come in at the end and tell you that the Misfit’s tale is about grace. At the end, the writer (as a researcher) was interested to hear your take on events, your satisfying explanation. Your explanation is no doubt built upon your familiarity with similar “artsy” stories, or your own lifetime experiences, or your own written exploits. It’s a fun game to talk to others about after the watching, like Jacob’s Ladder, or the Andalusian dog. It’s a fun writer’s exercise.
In closing, I would like to ask about your thoughts on the game, if you’ve seen it I’d like to hear about your experience, and if you haven’t I’d like to hear about why or why not you’d consider buying the $9.99 version.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4241108/paul0123.jpg
Dear Esther was a Half Life 2 mod created by Dan Pinchbeck, as part of the development studio “thechineseroom” that attempted to study and create unique interactive first person experiences (“games”) with a government grant for the Arts. The game was interesting for it’s time for it’s lack of game-like structure, it’s non-linear semi-random story, and it’s haunting and deeply psychological if not poetic atmosphere. On top of AAA writing and voice work, it, like “The Parable of Stanley” was a free modification of Half Life that actually took the game’s engine and assets to create an entirely new gameplay experience. Or maybe it would be better described as a new storytelling experience. Or maybe, a good ‘ghost story’ experience.
I covered the game both on these forums and as a new form research paper for a rhetoric class. Just as I was writing this report, a modder and designer had taken up an ambitious project with the game mod, intending to replace the drab and somewhat stock created Dear Esther map and breathe some ‘life’ into it, with a total graphical rehaul. In the original game the island was nothing to look at, merely dark and mysterious with a few HalfLife 2 recognizable structures, but Robert Briscoe intended to custom create a new and more eyepopping version of the game’s hebridean island at night, while still staying true to the overall atmosphere and theme of the piece.
If the new Steam Page is any indication, he succeeded. With aid from Valve, thechineseroom, and the Indie Fund, Dear Esther has made the transformation from a deceptively simple mod into an independent game, selling for $9.99 in the US.
The only question remaining is: Why should you buy a game when you can play the original mod for free? (Aside from rewarding one man’s tireless work of several years)
Because the original game, like any good ghost story, left you haunted. And the best way to deal with a haunting is to take a closer look at what was left behind, the remnants, the marks, and all the scars.
This essay is for all those who have yet to play the game, to entice them to give it a try, and if they really like the experience, opt for the ten dollar enhancement. This is an essay for all those who saw it before, asking them to see it again, and maybe they’ll see something new this time, with or without a ten dollar enhancement.
Dear Esther is a ghost story. This is a game about ghosts. Dear Esther is a ghost story, not a horror story. The island is full of things dead, be they ideas, dreams, efforts, and people, and Dear Esther is an exorcism. The player is an exorcist, digging their hands into the muddy sands of the island and pulling the dead up by their boots and broken legs. We dig them up to hear, whether we want to or not, the last echoes of their existence, and their anguish as they begin to sink back down into the cold and wet.
The first thing you’ll notice about the island is it’s distinct lack of people. It’s a deserted island, but those who were here before you have left their marks, left behind their signs of having been there, lived there, and their thoughts of the island. Buildings, boats, trails, drawings. All the signs of life without the living presence: What do we call the empty void in the shape something human? A ghost.
Even if the island does not exist, the ghosts that haunt Dear Esther no less exist apart from it, the island acting as the medium in this seance. And the island itself is a ghost, the sum of it’s ghosts and the dead and dying idea of an island dredged up from the muck of a hebridean coast. What I’m getting at is that just because Dear Esther is a fictional game about an island and people that may not exist, doesn’t mean it’s just metaphor to be interpreted as a “kind of ghost story.” This is an exorcism, this seance with a medium calling forth a ghost who tells us about ghosts. The voice that speaks to us talks to us about ghosts, his or otherwise, even our ghosts: your ghosts. The player is no less a bodiless apparition wandering an empty island, listening to the whispers of a writer, a narrator, a family friend and a dying man; catching glimpses of the flickering remnants of life standing in doorways. The people in the doorways? They are only there in your memory, because a voice remembered them for you, and stuck them in that doorway like a pinned butterfly on display.
It’s more than just implied that everyone you hear about has long since left this world, and as you venture forth it’s not hard to get the idea that so too is that longing, poetic (and sexy) voice coming from the choir departed. And then there’s the feeling that you yourself, as you tread both ground and words in equal measure, are following him in his departure. This is a ghost story, and not like the Departed or the Sixth Sense where the character at the end looks in the mirror and realizes they’re a ghost, but one where you find yourself looking down the beach and wondering if those are your footsteps in the sand, and if they are or aren’t, asking yourself what that means.
The narrator is unreliable, it is a ghost story after all, but in a way that’s natural with writing. He’s lines and lines of ink on paper in a folded letter or an old journal, that has become wet in the cold sea air. His ink has begun to smudge, and he bleeds between the lines, the thoughts, the pages, while the page itself begins to deteriorate like wet tissue paper: not a violent crumbling or tearing, but a gradual dissolution. It’s up to you if his pages took a dunk on the boat ride to the island, or became drenched in tears, or fell under the rain after a vehicle accident on a nearby highway, but whatever the reason his words and thoughts become contradictory and combining. The writer, his subject, and the recipient have blurred together, and if you’ve listened closely the player and listener might be blurred into this mess too, all becoming one as Dear Esther comes to a subtle, but dramatic conclusion.
Dear Esther is a ghost story because days, weeks, years later, even after you’ve downloaded the script, browsed the ModDB’s forums and read the reviews, you still don’t know what to make of your experiences beyond the shapes, the sounds, the lingering mental pictures still in your head. It’s not vagueness for vagueness’ sake, Esther is not an atomic bomb, but she’s still blown a hole in you and one other person, and you’re left with the aftermath. If you go back again, you hear a different combination of ideas, images, and the sum of your experiences will be radically different. You can easily hear things that you didn’t hear the first time, and depending on your habits of exploration there may still yet be things missed. It’s the luck of the draw and the personal preference that makes each trip unique through the island. Unless you’ve played through it three or more times, you’ve no right to attempt to cobble some meaning or narrative out of it, and still at the end of the day any interpretation is just as valid as any other.
I could go on about experiences, images, and themes present in the work, but that would be spoiling- and I”m already potentially spoiling any virgin reader’s understanding and perception of the events in the game as is. I do want to argue that Dear Esther is indeed a game, and in some ways a game that plays you more than Silent Hill Shattered Memories. It gives you a bunch of shredded pieces of paper, and you and your rational mind logically create a coherent story out of it. The onus is on the perciever, the player, and there is no Word of God from the creator to justify the details, and come in at the end and tell you that the Misfit’s tale is about grace. At the end, the writer (as a researcher) was interested to hear your take on events, your satisfying explanation. Your explanation is no doubt built upon your familiarity with similar “artsy” stories, or your own lifetime experiences, or your own written exploits. It’s a fun game to talk to others about after the watching, like Jacob’s Ladder, or the Andalusian dog. It’s a fun writer’s exercise.
In closing, I would like to ask about your thoughts on the game, if you’ve seen it I’d like to hear about your experience, and if you haven’t I’d like to hear about why or why not you’d consider buying the $9.99 version.