Dear Esther
Feb. 19th, 2012 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayI just finished playing Dear Esther. It's available on Steam for $9.99 and well worth it. Highly recommended.
I say 'playing', though it isn't a game in any conventional sense. It's an interactive narrative experience that, for me, lasted about two hours (though I am likely to revisit it again). I knew very little about it going in, mostly just what I've said already, plus the fact that it had generated a *lot* of writing by the sorts of writers I respect. Sensing that here was a rare opportunity to experience a unique thing relatively unspoiled, I actively avoided finding out more about it. It would probably have been OK if I had, but I did enjoy going in blank.
If, like many of my colleagues, you *design* interactive narrative experiences (whether attached to more conventional gameplay or not), this is worthy of careful study. Dear Esther contains a lot of masterful design work, on multiple levels. But again, I think you're better off going in without preconceptions about what they are. If you're the sort of person who studies this stuff, you'll recognize them on your own. *Highest* recommendation for students of the form.
I say 'playing', though it isn't a game in any conventional sense. It's an interactive narrative experience that, for me, lasted about two hours (though I am likely to revisit it again). I knew very little about it going in, mostly just what I've said already, plus the fact that it had generated a *lot* of writing by the sorts of writers I respect. Sensing that here was a rare opportunity to experience a unique thing relatively unspoiled, I actively avoided finding out more about it. It would probably have been OK if I had, but I did enjoy going in blank.
If, like many of my colleagues, you *design* interactive narrative experiences (whether attached to more conventional gameplay or not), this is worthy of careful study. Dear Esther contains a lot of masterful design work, on multiple levels. But again, I think you're better off going in without preconceptions about what they are. If you're the sort of person who studies this stuff, you'll recognize them on your own. *Highest* recommendation for students of the form.
