Dear Esther Released

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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby dissonance on Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:02 pm

saw that one coming when it took me four attempts to buy the game because the server kept timing out 8)


nub wrote:I was honestly a bit disappointed with the narrative side of things. While I thought the voice actor did a brilliant job, and the writing was pretty well done (though the "story" itself wasn't very coherent), it was really unsatisfying as a whole.
i know this sounds contrived, but play it again? the narrative shifts and changes each time you play.
nub wrote:The complete lack of interaction with physical objects detaches the player from the world,
via my interpretation of the plot:
Highlight to read:
that's because the player is dying, and walking around in a hallucinatory dreamworld induced by the oxygen-starvation of his brain.
i had fun once, and it was awful.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby TheDanishMaster on Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:09 pm

I was really impressed by this and it seems to be very nicely put together. Though, there's a lot of fancy words in the story and it kinda makes it hard for me to understand. I did get some of it but I think I'm missing something :/ Could anyone maybe just help me get the point of it or explain what's really going on? It sounds like that you're looking for what this Jacobsen guy discovered on this island before he died.

Help meh plz :3
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Smurftyours on Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:12 pm

Highlight to read:
Most detailed game I have ever played about dying from a penis disease.
jangalomph wrote:Wise words from a wise man. ^
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Armageddon on Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:21 am

TheDanishMaster wrote:I was really impressed by this and it seems to be very nicely put together. Though, there's a lot of fancy words in the story and it kinda makes it hard for me to understand. I did get some of it but I think I'm missing something :/ Could anyone maybe just help me get the point of it or explain what's really going on? It sounds like that you're looking for what this Jacobsen guy discovered on this island before he died.

Help meh plz :3

Here is my interpretation that still doesn't explain everything.

Highlight to read:
So the story talks about Paul and his journey to Damascus, and Donnelly who is a reporter or something, Esther who you probably got into a car wreck with, and Yakobson who was a sheep herder on the island. At the end of the game it says 'Esther Donnelly' flying beside me and 'Paul Yakobson' flying besides me, so it may not really be about four people but two. Still doesn't explain why you are on the island, they removed the whole hermit story almost, in the original the narrator kept mentioning a hermit who lived in the first cave you come across.

And the ghost was just freaking creepy man, I mean that model, holy crap that was scary.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Smurftyours on Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:34 am

Armageddon wrote:
Highlight to read:
And the ghost was just freaking creepy man, I mean that model, holy crap that was scary.

Highlight to read:
One on the hill right? Also, they did explain the hermit story if you go in the cave towards the beginning.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Armageddon on Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:40 am

Smurftyours wrote:
Armageddon wrote:
Highlight to read:
And the ghost was just freaking creepy man, I mean that model, holy crap that was scary.

Highlight to read:
One on the hill right? Also, they did explain the hermit story if you go in the cave towards the beginning.

Highlight to read:
Yeah he was on the hill in the second map, he also walked into the house on the second map as you walked up the hill, and if your fast enough he's carrying a lantern through the cave behind the house. He's also standing in the cave on the first map.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby joe_rogers_11155 on Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:47 am

Highlight to read:
When I looked up into the lighthouse's spiral steps, I saw a black figure with tiny white eyes peering down at me from the very top rails, and then after one very long second, it silently pulled away. It scared the ever-living shit out of me right at the beginning of the game.


Aside from that, I think the best part of the game was when...
Highlight to read:
...the striders blew up the radio tower.


And for those who want to understand the plot better, here is what I gather after playing twice...
(major spoilers here, i think):
Highlight to read:
The only fact that exists in the story is that Esther Donnelly was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. Everything else we "know" about the island and about Paul Yakobson is contradicted at some point by the narrator's increasingly agitated comments.

At some point throughout the varying lines of the narrator, Paul Yakobson is simultaneously referred to as four different people: he is the drunk driver who killed Esther, an old hermit who charted the island, a biblical figure on the road to Damascus, and even possibly the narrator himself.

Outside of Paul's situation...I think the island (sometimes "the stone") is a metaphor for the strife of both Paul and the narrator (if they are not the same person). The narrator deeply mourns the death of Esther, and wishes for her to "come back". He is bitter and cynical due to her death.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Ark11 on Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:46 am

I read somewhere that all those chemical formulas and circuit diagrams relate to
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the car crash, the chemical formulas are the formulas for alcohol and the circuit diagrams are some part of the car he was driving during the crash.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby srredfire on Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:55 am

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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Phott on Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:21 am

srredfire wrote:

CONSOLE - The Game :|
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby dissonance on Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:30 pm

Ark11 wrote:
Highlight to read:
the circuit diagrams are some part of the car he was driving during the crash.
IIRC in the original they were related to
Highlight to read:
the brake system and/or the headlights
i had fun once, and it was awful.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Jangalomph on Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:43 am

Highlight to read:
I wish the game had more interaction than it did.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Plague on Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:28 am

so finished it, It was fun and looked nice.
Although I'm not really that "amazed" by it, none of the features really surprised me.

I did notice this,
Highlight to read:
This gives me the idea Esther was young and the narrator was indeed the father.

Highlight to read:
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Contact. The EU welcomes the pain free. That's emotional impact.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby Corigami on Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:22 am

I don't have a problem with the lack of interactivity and I found exploring the island fun despite the slow walk speed. I think the main flaw in the game is the randomly generated and incomplete narrative. The story may be decent, but poorly told and impossible to piece together from a single play-through.

To tell a story well, information needs to be introduced to the audience in a carefully structured manner. This gives the story teller the power to be manipulative - building anticipation, directing the audience's attention, encouraging the inception of ideas, etc. Throwing random spoken lines at the player is just confusing and frustrating, especially when the player's main goal is to hear that story. Despite being poignant and sometimes moving, these lines aren't enough to give the player a satisfying understanding of what they just spent the last hour and a half doing.

I suppose this was mainly done to make multiple play-throughs fun, but it ends up crippling the main mechanic of the game. The story is poorly told, no matter how many times you play it. If you play through enough times I'm sure you'll get a complete understanding of the story, but at that point the game can't really be given any credit for having told it.
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Re: Dear Esther Released

Postby joe_rogers_11155 on Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:29 pm

Dear Esther really needs to be a CSS map. somebody get to work on this ASAP.
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