Delusion or Reality? Dear Esther Takes us on a Journey

I feel like I've been let in on a great and beautiful secret.

I have been captured by a story.  My mind, so entrenched in this world of dilemmas and working, has been screaming out with T.S.Eliot, 'Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear very much reality.'   It flew free this afternoon. 

My eyes, starved as they are for a sight of the coastline of Gwynedd, felt like they were almost there.  There was always more to find, wherever I looked. Ok, it probably wasn't Wales, but it was a Celtic landscape.  The Hebrides are just as wild.

The graphics here are photo-perfect and immense.  Screenshots don't do them justice.

I discovered this game via a PM from my friend Paul.  I hope he won't mind my quoting him word for word, because he was right.

Go to Steam
(if you don't have it yet install it from steam.com)
Go to the store
Search for "Dear Esther"
Buy the game for a few pounds
Install it
Go make yourself a cup of tea while it's downloading
Start game
Set controls
Click on new game
Select the left episode
Play
Notice that you finished the game in one go and that your tea is cold because you forgot all about it

Paul is a man who knows me only too well.  Though he did under-estimate me.  As if I would let a perfectly good cup of tea go cold...

What met me, after the initial 'Wow!' and in between all of the others, was a story-driven experience. 

It's difficult to fit this into what you generally describe as a game.  A journey, an adventure, a meander, maybe even a quest - in the loosest, most spiritual meaning of the word - would fit it much better.

You wander in real time across a rocky, coastal landscape.  Where you go is ultimately down to you (though you will be delivered to all of the relevant places in due course).  You can do that as directly or aimlessly as your whim takes you.

Along the ways, snippets of narration give clues to a context.  Painted symbols and messages are found on walls and cliff-faces.  You put them all together to work out what is happening here.

Only don't be too precious about that.  Each memory, thought and diary narration is randomly generated. They piece together to imply a different tale every time. It's this facet that has thwarted gamers on forums from giving too much away.

So what is the story of Dear Esther?  In my hours of drifting over (and under) the rocks, I came up with several. 

My imagination was truly allowed to run riot. There were things which made coherent sense, punctuated with contradictions. It didn't matter. The point is to approach it with a child's idea of asking questions, checking things out, just looking to see what's over there.

But the ending does consolidate enough to give you a more definitive conclusion. You are left musing, but not in limbo anymore.

Or did you mean reality, then it's apparently students at the University of Plymouth coming up with a concept.  Ordinary investors made it happen via contributions to The Indie Fund.

Within five and a half hours, they had made their money back.  It has remained one of Steam's most popular games, since its release on February 14th 2012.

Dear Esther was originally a mod for Half Life 2, but it out-grew its conception to fly in its own right.  You don't need to have played (nor even heard of) Half Life 2 to enjoy it.

If you are into fast-paced, action games, blowing things up, definitive conclusions and major achievements, then this is not the game for you.

If you are into aimless wandering, thinking about things, piecing clues together in an atmospheric location, you couldn't do better than Dear Esther.  As another friend told me, "It's like stepping into a movie."