| Dear Esther is an experimental "ghost story" computer game developed by indie game developer thechineseroom. It was first released in June 2008 as a free Source engine mod, and has since been remade for a commercial release on Steam on February 14, 2012. The player progresses through the plot of Dear Esther via a series of voiced-over letter fragments to a woman named Esther. The game does not directly specify who the narrator is, but there are suggestions he is Esther's husband and that she is dead, killed in an automobile accident.[3] These monologue fragments are triggered as the player reaches certain locations in the game; each one is either random, or specific to the area the player is currently exploring. This random selection of voice-over parts causes a lack of coherency, and forces the player to draw their own conclusions. As the game progresses, other unseen characters are referred to: Jakobson (a eighteenth-century shepherd and hermit) and Donnelly (who charted the island some time in the past). Later in the game, the readings begin to allude to the story of Paul on the road to Damascus, which is also the subject of some of the graffiti found painted on the cliff walls. Dear Esther on Steam official Steam page here: store.steampowered.com Official website: dear-esther.com |
