The
game starts with you standing on the dock of a mysterious island.
The buildings up on shore tell you that man has been here, but there
is no sign of anyone at the moment. A seagull appears out of the mist
and just as quickly vanishes again. A deep, cultured voice begins
to speak, “Dear Esther…”

No, this is not Myst.
This is the research project of Dan Pinchbeck at the University of
Portsmouth, UK. “The aim was to use Source to create something
radically different from normal: an interactive story that dispensed
with traditional gameplay and focused instead on an open-ended, semi-random
narrative.”

What
Dan ended up with was possibly the first successful attempt to tell
a story via the medium of Gaming. (Portal
attempted this years ago, but the “game” was just an excuse
to get the text up on the screen. The story was later published in
book form and it lost nothing.)

The game consists of using
the Half Life
2 3D engine to explore the island. You can walk anywhere,
hop a few inches to get over small steps and even swim around the
rocks to get to that beach down the shore. If you stray too far from
the path, a hollow voice disparately urges you to “Come back!”
There are no puzzles to solve other than find the path to an unexplored
area, which is not always easy. And there are the universal questions
from every adventure game which need to be answered – “Who am
I?” “What am I doing here?” “Where did this
Chinese take-out come from?”

The
island is a grey, moody place. The background music, while not depressing,
sets a maudlin tone. There are old buildings and a modern transmitting
tower still in operation, but no people. The place feels timeless.
You can walk just about anywhere, but you cannot run. Why would you
need to?

There is graffiti all over
the island. Someone has painted prophecies, electrical symbols and…
things on the cliffs and cave walls. They have left a pile of empty
paint cans in testimony to their efforts. What they didn’t leave was
an explanation.

As
you enter an area for the first time, the British gentleman will read
one of his letters to Esther. Each one tells a small story. They name
names, describe places and hint at relationships. They evoke images
and touch emotions. They could almost be considered free verse. But
they do not give definitive answers.

One of the letters tells
of a fatal car crash. Is this a ghost story? If so, who is the ghost?
The disembodied voice reading the letters? The shade which might be
occasionally seen in the distance? Or you?

The
island and the letters are one. Without the letters, the island would
be empty. Without the island, the letters would have no soul. They
feed each other and in the end you will find yourself moved. But you
must decide for yourself just what is is that you have experienced.

I would dare call this
Art.

The good news is that Dear
Esther can be downloaded for free here.

The bad news is that it
is a mod for Half Life 2. This means that you must
purchase and install Half Life 2 before installing
Dear Esther. Which is not entirely a bad thing. Half
Life is arguably one of the best first person shooters ever
written. (I shall always have fond memories of Father Gregori tending
to his unruly flock.)

Is
it worth the expense? Dear Esther can be played in
about an hour, but you will be thinking about it for much longer than
that. You will also want to play it twice. Each area chooses its letter
at random from a list appropriate to that point in the story. Not
all the letters will be used in one game. So the second time through
will likely yield more material as well as offer the opportunity to
check out new directions you may have missed the first time around.
After that, you will likely be satiated.

Is it that good? The voice
acting is brilliant. The concept is novel. The execution, almost flawless.
And it was done by a single independent developer.

Editor’s Note:
The new version, due out in late 2010, has vastly improved graphics.

System Requirements:

• 1.2 GHz processor
• 256 MB RAM
• DirectX 7 level graphics
  card
• Half-Life 2