Dear Esther: An interview

[DominusVita]

A recent game is being produced by Dr. Dan Pinchbeck called "Dear Esther". It's apparently an FPS game that has a very high focus on story, and essentially removes combat and puzzle elements altogether.

"It's a very simple game to play. You move around and look around freely, but everything is delivered automatically to you. So as you travel, you trigger voice-overs, music, sound effects, all of which work with this beautiful, desolate and massively atmospheric environment to create this immersive story. There's also a lot of details in the environment, all of which add new depth and meaning to the narrative. So depending on where you are, and what you do, you'll come away with a completely different take on what is going on. The ambiguity of the story is really about that as well, and the fact that the voice-overs and some of the environmental details are all randomised, so no two players are likely to get exactly the same version of events."

You can find the full gameinformer article here:

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/dear_e...ageIndex=1

Valve was impressed enough to give them full access to the source engine, and a distribution deal on Steam for an expanded, professional version. What do you guys think? Doomed to fail, or an interesting take on first-person?

[Tanshaydar]

Did you play the original mod?
Personally, I think the games as a good way to tell stories, specifically between books and movies. Better than movies, lesser than books.

Dear Esther is a mod/game proves my point.

[Sexbad]

Not doomed to fail, but doomed to succeed. Instead of an actual game, this dude is taking away all gameplay in favor of storytelling. And people are beginning to believe that this is how you get better stories in games.

Dear Esther is incredibly well written, beautiful, and atmospheric, but all you do is walk around. All that it attempts to be is a book in a 3D environment, instead of a game that tells its story through the gameplay.

I'll give a basic example of what I mean: Cryostasis. Cryostasis has the best story ever in a video game, hands down, and it doesn't sacrifice any actual gameplay. Now, the gameplay itself isn't great at times, but it's all there. Instead, to tell its story, it uses not just cinematics and voice overs, but neat shit like interactive flashback scenes, representative enemy designs, and incredibly interesting environments. Story and gameplay go hand in hand, rather than story completely burying gameplay. With the former way, you can develop methods of storytelling exclusive to video games. With the latter way, you might as well just be watching the entirety of Star Wars in the form of the text scrolls that appear at the beginning of each movie, and playing a game that consists entirely of cinematics (DE is not far from this, with narration replacing cutscene, making it even less substantial).

DE doesn't have enough (any) gameplay to be a game, and it doesn't have enough substance to be some kind of interactive audiobook or film. It's worth experiencing because of the narrative, but calling it a game makes me sick. That attitude is backwards and ludicrous.

[Tanshaydar]

Dear Esther started as a Half Life 2 mod. It was going to be a remake but turned out as a standalone 'application' , like Counter Strike or Team Fortress. I played it first back then.
There are lots of mods for Half Life, Crysis, etc. which tries different types of story-telling. Since they have the luxury to not be liked and sold, they can try anything they can. The Worry of Newport has a similar attitude to the story-telling that I liked a lot.

I don't know, story & story-telling is everything for me in games. Cryostasis is a masterpiece.

[DominusVita]

Oh, I wasn't aware of the mod's existence. I hope the best for them, but we'll see what happens when it comes out - I really think the idea of having it randomize the triggered sounds and whatnot could be interesting, but it's going to be difficult to keep most people interested without gameplay complimenting the rest of it. Eh, we'll see :p

[Sexbad]

I don't know, story & story-telling is everything for me in games.

I'd like you to consider that what you may want is not really games, then. Stories can be very important, but without gameplay, that ruins the point, making it an entirely different medium. Calling Dear Esther a game is like calling a slideshow of all these awesome photos that I'm taking on my trip to Italy a film.

I think that if DE is successful, it shouldn't be marketed as a game, but rather as interactive fiction, because its popularity only makes people want more of the whole pretentious it-has-no-gameplay-but-is-still-a-great-game idea, and less of an expansion upon certain methods of storytelling that are specific to games.

That may have been hard to follow. It's almost midnight. Have another example of storytelling that can only be found in a video game: http://the-end-of-us.com/

Spoiler below!

The End of Us involves you playing (hint hint) with a companion, a character who only interacts with you through gameplay. It attempts to play with you, and how you play influences its actions. You build a relationship with it without saying a word, only through interacting with it. When you finally choose to either sacrifice blue comet (you) or red comet (it) at the end, you feel loss.

This is a story told in a way that no other medium can achieve because it uses its strength of interactivity to its advantage, rather than being an ironic hipster and completely sacrificing gameplay for story. You actually become friends with (or perhaps you begin to dislike) Comet because of this short game's interactivity.

[hollowleviathan]

Instead of an actual game, this dude is taking away all gameplay in favor of storytelling. And people are beginning to believe that this is how you get better stories in games.

He's not removing all aspects of interactivity from the game; you still have to explore, and find all aspects of the story. Where you go, when, and even luck will determine the content, arc, and order in which the story is told. He's removed all challenge from the game, but challenge isn't what defines games, interactivity is. The way in which you experience the story is actually more varied and dependent on the player than many on-rails so-called RPGs.

[Bek]

Did you play the original mod?
Personally, I think the games as a good way to tell stories, specifically between books and movies. Better than movies, lesser than books.

Dear Esther is a mod/game proves my point.

Every medium has it's strengths and weaknesses. Books allow great detail and descriptions, they really let you get inside a characters head. Movies get to go for maximum impact, condensing everything down into a short experience. Games, their biggest strength is their interactivity, as this is what separates them from other genres. They can always use text to give beautiful descriptions (planescape:torment), they can use flashy graphics to show off pretty polygons (Crysis) and then there are the few special examples that give a perfect mix of interactivity, storytelling, atmosphere (deus ex).

[Sexbad]

Instead of an actual game, this dude is taking away all gameplay in favor of storytelling. And people are beginning to believe that this is how you get better stories in games.

He's not removing all aspects of interactivity from the game; you still have to explore, and find all aspects of the story. Where you go, when, and even luck will determine the content, arc, and order in which the story is told. He's removed all challenge from the game, but challenge isn't what defines games, interactivity is. The way in which you experience the story is actually more varied and dependent on the player than many on-rails so-called RPGs.

I played the original three or four times, and did not recall any changes between these playthroughs. I highly doubt any of it is dynamic, rather than simply triggered monologues.

Anyway, I don't doubt that games can be about things other than not dying. After all, The End of Us, which I just linked to, does not focus on challenge at all. However, in Dear Esther, all you do, throughout the entire environment, is walk around. In the original, there was next to nothing to explore either. With this graphical update that could definitely change for the better, but there's definitely not enough interactivity to call it a game.

It's not some kind of storytelling revolution in games, just an audiobook set to a 3D landscape.

[Tanshaydar]

@Bek
Books has most of the details and leaves everything to your imagination. You can go as far as your imagination lets you go, which is limitless, and which is not in games of movies.
Movies strictly limit you to the visuals they create, and little freedom if they have a well-written story. Like David Lynch movies.

Games are much freer from movies, but much limited from books. There are Visual Novels, if you are familiar, they are between games and books, and takes a lot of patience and time to follow, with many different paths they serve you. One can say they might be even better than books, though I still think books are best. I see every one of them as a way of telling stories. Although Will Wright thinks games are not meant to tell stories, he can shut up and continue on making Sims.

@Lee
New version will be more dynamic, at least what Dan said is so. I played end of us and it was pretty amazing job, and a very different approach to story-telling. However only game-play dynamic it had was to move the asteroid around. I mean you can judge every story based game with its non-existed aspects, and it wouldn't be fair.
Would you prefer a shit with full of game-play mechanics that's a best selling game of all the time: http://www.1up.com/news/black-ops-best-s...e-all-time ?