Dear Esther Review

“I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom. I will fly to the moon in it. I’ve been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me.” These are the opening words in the first trailer for Dear Esther that I saw, and they perfectly set the mood for what was to come in the finished game. Dear Esther is one-of-a-kind and a joy to play, but is also a very risky indie game because it is so experimental in nature. The game takes place entirely on one remote and desolate island off the coast of England, set relatively close to our modern day. The player takes on the role of an (initially) unnamed observer of the island, who runs an inner monologue as the player tours around the sights and sounds of the lonely locale.

There is only one major complaint that can be brought against Dear Esther, but it is one that defines the game: the gameplay is so utterly subtle that most people may feel it isn’t there at all. The game grants you only two means of interaction: your mouse controls your direction of sight and the WASD keys let you move around. That’s it. There’s no picking up objects, no pushing buttons, no flipping switches, no opening doors... there’s not even an option to crouch or jump. Even your flashlight is entirely out of your control: it turns on automatically in dark areas. The experience that Dear Esther provides is limited only to looking, listening, and moving. There is no point system, no win condition, and no measurement of progress.

So, is Dear Esther even a game? Prepare yourself, eye-rollers, as I answer that question with a classic non-explanation: “That depends on your point of view.” Dear Esther is a game in the sense that you control your own actions, and you decide what to look at and what to consider. It’s also a game in the sense that there is an inherent question to answer, and an understanding to be achieved. But the game will never give you a gold star for solving anything, never wave a flag and congratulate you on finishing. It has no goals, but many challenges. It has no puzzles, but many mysteries. You can’t beat this game, any more than you could ‘beat’ a book or a poem, but this doesn’t mean that there’s no point to it.

The motivation in Dear Esther is simultaneous with the revelation of the story. As the player, you naturally want to make sense of the things you’ll see on the island, from eerie, empty structures to traces of former inhabitants. Much of the interest on the island revolves around carvings, writings, and pictures on the stones that you pass by; these grow in number and complexity as the game progresses. It is not without some careful consideration that I say the world of Dear Esther is the most beautiful and captivating environment ever to appear on the Source engine. I’ve seen plenty of well-done set pieces and natural settings in games, but the effort put into the haunting, secluded island of Dear Esther breaks new ground in its level of detail and concern.

What’s so shocking about the game is that it manages to do this with seemingly subdued subjects: most of the island is simply made of rock, dirt, sand, and weeds. But every rock on the beach seems to be well placed and deliberately textured, every errant weed and leaf seems specifically designed to play a role in evoking the right emotions and images. While most games (even those with excellent environmental artists) contain only patches of truly picturesque vistas and life-like surroundings, Dear Esther holds this high level of quality at literally every spot on the island.

This stunning level of artistic creation extends to the landscaping of the island itself. Traversing the island is mostly restricted to well-worn, intimate paths through the landscape, but as you walk along these paths the dips, turns, and hills seem deliberately crafted, sometimes revealing visual focal points suddenly, with the turn of a corner, or cresting the top of a hill, and sometimes letting you see your destination long before you can actually arrive at it. Progress through the island is mirrored by a progression in the weather, and in the conflict and revelations of the prose. Gamers who are entirely accustomed to brushing past the scenery as they mow down frenzied aliens will either be inspired or challenged to find beauty in the layout of these paths, and it’s the sort of aesthetic experience that can’t be found in any other game I’m aware of.

A second aspect of the game that is particularly worth praise is the writing. As you traverse the island and come upon different landmarks and set pieces, the unnamed main character will occasionally speak aloud excerpts of his ‘letters’ to Esther, addressing her in a personal tone. These quotes range from being commentaries on what the player sees in the game to recounting seemingly unrelated anecdotes. Their tone is sometimes somber, sometimes matter-of-fact, and sometimes confused or angry, but in all cases the excerpts are lovingly crafted with metaphors, descriptions, and emotional associations. An important and brilliant aspect of the game is that the same walkthrough does not always trigger the same excerpts. This, coupled with the fact that each repeated gameplay brings a better understanding of the text, means that Dear Esther has a surprising amount of replay value (especially for a game whose sole actions are ‘walking and looking’).

I’ve played through the game twice, and I’m still eager to play it again so I can try to catch those details I missed the first two times. What makes the writing in Dear Esther so strong is that it takes part in an aspect of writing that is mostly absent from gaming today: thematic development. By similes, symbolism, and allusions, the writing reveals the characters and conflicts associated with the island, making the writing almost a game in itself.

The world blends togehter perfectly with the melancholy of the scenery. Opting for flesh-and-blood performers over the admittedly well-crafted MIDI music of today is a difficult choice for indie developers because of the strong cost difference, but it’s just the sort of move that can bump a game’s music from ‘good’ to ‘beautiful’, and while in my opinion the soundtrack here doesn’t stand well on its own, the calm crescendos work in perfect tandem to the visuals of the game.

What Dear Esther has is a remarkable excellence and vision, but what it doesn’t have will turn away many potential players. With no gameplay and no strict plot to speak of, this game has been described as a glorified tech demo, and that description is not far from the mark. However, Dear Esther still has a clear structure and progression, and more importantly, it provides an experience that could only be explored on the basis of player control: in other words, Dear Esther wouldn’t work as a book or a movie, it can only be described as a game.

Most players probably won’t ‘get’ Dear Esther. If you’re looking for quick entertainment to soak up your time, or like playing games mostly for their clearly-defined challenges and explicit score systems, then you should look elsewhere. Having said that, this title is an important step in experimental gaming, and anybody involved in the creation of virtual worlds should not only play it, but study it. Dear Esther would be worth recommending strictly as an object lesson in what it means to have good writing and environment design in a game (the former of which is especially lacking in the today’s game market). But it’s also more than that; it’s a successful experience which is built to take advantage of its medium, and which joins the best of the genre in raising gaming from mere button-mashing entertainment to legitimate, inspirational art.