History VideoGame / DearEsther

-->''If the subject matter is obscure, the writer's literary style is even more so, it is not the text of a stable or trustworthy reporter.''

''"If the subject matter is obscure, the writer's literary style is even more so, it is not the text of a stable or trustworthy reporter."''

* StoryToGameplayRatio: On the ''highest'' end of the scale, near the VisualNovel genre. This is not a game, essentially a short film with occasional player control ''from the first person perspective''. Reviewers have actually praised this use of story, but not being able to call it a game.
** There are several important factors that could not be incorporated in a film however, such as semi-randomized dialogue, and the ability for every player to pace themselves at their own rate.

* BeautifulVoid: The island is haunting in its emptyness, juxtaposed against its SceneryPorn.

* StoryToGameplayRatio: On the ''highest'' end of the scale, near the VisualNovel genre. This is not a game, essentially a short film with occassional player control ''from the first person perspective''. Reviewers have actually praised this use of story, but not being able to call it a game.

** [[spoiler: "I will look to my left and see Esther Donnelly, flying beside me. I will look to my right and see Paul Jacobson, flying beside me."]]

'''WARNING:''' Due to the nature of its narrative, it is all but impossible to describe the tropes in ''Dear Esther'' without spoiling the crap out of it. If you have not experienced it yet (and we highly recommend you do,) ''do not read any further.''

* SuperDrowningSkills: Dip your head below the ocean's surface and you instantly drown. [[spoiler: Later [[SuperNotDrowningSkills inverted]] when you can stay underwater in the cave pools for as long as you want.]]

''"If the subject matter is obscure, the writer’s literary style is even more so, it is not the text of a stable or trustworthy reporter."''

''Dear Esther'' is a mod built with the Source engine (the same used for ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', among other games). While designed in FirstPersonShooter format, it is in reality more of a sparse, linear narrative with complete emphasis on the plot. The player is placed on an uninhabited, Hebridean island, and while exploring the picturesque landscape an unidentified narrator regularly intervenes with bits of voiced-over letters addressed to a woman named Esther. This is a story that you quite literally walk through - [[EverythingTryingToKillYou nothing is trying to kill you]], and there are [[PuzzleGame no puzzles that you must solve to progress]]. Unless, of course, you count the [[MindScrew plot]].

* EtherealChoir/OneWomanWail: The music in the caves is this. Interesting to note is that the song being sung is in English rather than Latin or whatever.

* StoryToGameplayRatio: On the ''highest'' end of the scale, near the VisualNovel genre. This game is essentially a short film with occassional player control ''from the first person perspective''. Reviewers have actually praised this use of story, but question whether this is a "game".

''Dear Esther'' is a mod built with the Source engine (the same used for ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', among other games). While designed in FirstPersonShooter format, it is in reality more of a sparse, linear narrative with complete emphasis on the plot. The player is placed on an uninhabited, Hebridean island, and while exploring the picturesque island an unidentified narrator regularly intervenes with bits of voiced-over letters addressed to a woman named Esther. This is a story that you quite literally walk through - [[EverythingTryingToKillYou nothing is trying to kill you]], and there are [[PuzzleGame no puzzles that you must solve to progress]]. Unless, of course, you count the [[MindScrew plot]].

''Dear Esther'' is a mod built with the Source engine (the same used for ''[[HalfLife Half-Life 2]]'', among other games). While designed in FirstPersonShooter format, it is in reality more of a sparse, linear narrative with complete emphasis on the plot. The player is placed on an uninhabited, Hebridean island, and while exploring the picturesque island an unidentified narrator regularly intervenes with bits of voiced-over letters addressed to a woman named Esther. This is a story that you quite literally walk through - [[EverythingTryingToKillYou nothing is trying to kill you]], and there are [[PuzzleGame no puzzles that you must solve to progress]]. Unless, of course, you count the [[MindScrew plot]].

''Dear Esther'' is a mod built with the Source engine (the same used for ''[[HalfLife Half-Life 2]]'', among other games). While designed in FirstPersonShooter format, it is in reality more of a sparse, linear narrative with complete emphasis on the plot. This is a story that you quite literally walk through - [[EverythingTryingToKillYou nothing is trying to kill you]], and there are [[PuzzleGame no puzzles that you must solve to progress]]. Unless, of course, you count the [[MindScrew plot]].

** The biggest change from playthrough to playthrough is how Esther died. [[spoiler: In some tellings, the narrator himself was the drunk, and Paul an innocent bystander, making the narrator filled with self loathing. In others, Paul was not intoxicated, and the narrator bemoans fate and the happenstance that lead to it. In others, Paul was intoxicated, and the narrator comes to terms with Esther's death]].

* GeniusBonus: The images on the walls and bluffs. Some of the chemical formulae are ethyl alcohol and dopamine and at least one of the electical diagrams is for anti-lock brakes. The writing on the walls is a reference to the biblical story of Paul's journey to (and conversion at) Damascus.

** ''"The moon over the Sandford junction, headlights in your retinas. Donnelly drove a grey hatchback without a bottom, all the creatures of the tarmac rose to sing to him."'' [[hottip:*:''"All manner of symbols crudely scrawled across the cliff face of my unrest. My life reduced to an electrical diagram. All my gulls have taken flight; they will no longer roost on these outcrops. The lure of the moon over the Sandford junction is too strong."'']]

* StoryToGameplayRatio: On the ''highest'' end of the scale, only one-upped by the VisualNovel genre. This game is essentially a short film with occassional player control ''from the first person perspective''. Reviewers have actually praised this use of story, but question whether this is a "game".

* VisualNovel: The game is considered a Western example of the Visual Novel genre.

* MindScrew: What makes it even harder to tell what happens is that the basic events of the story change depending on playthrough. Even with such simple matters as how the narrator reached the island; sometimes he is a willing hermit, seeking solace, where in others he is a sailor who has been marooned.

''"Come back."''

* SceneryPorn

* UnreliableNarrator