“Blind with panic, deaf with the roar of the caged traffic, heart stopped on the road to Damascus, Paul sat at the roadside hunched up like a gull, like a bloody gull! As useless and as doomed as a syphilitic cartographer, a dying goat-herd, an infected leg, a kidney stone, blocking the traffic bound for Sandford and Exeter. He was not drunk, Esther, he was not drunk at all! All his roads and his tunnels and his paths led inevitably to this moment of impact! This is not a recorded natural condition. He should not be sat there with his chemicals and his circuit diagrams. He should not be sat there at all!”

Dear Esther — a Half-Life 2 mod which eschews the first-person shooter standards of combat and action in lieu of telling a haunting tale, one which changes each time the game is played. I first mentioned this in Linkdump #1, but I don’t feel as though that gives enough credit to this masterwork, so allow me this further indulgence as I revisit the island and attempt to illustrate what makes this “first-person ghost story” so special.

The game — if one can call it a game; Dear Esther is more an experiment in interactive storytelling — begins on a pier of an enigmatic and seemingly-abandoned island, a place both peaceful and chilling, oozing with atmosphere, coupled with an ever-changing story which differs from one play-through to the next. Indeed, if only one thing could be praised about this game, it would have to be the stunningly exquisite writing, realized fully by equally talented voice acting which easily puts many commercial efforts to shame. The story — presumably told by the protagonist, though the details are intentionally vague — recounts glimpses of details about characters both past and present, living and dead, with an ever-present edge of sorrow and despair, coupled perhaps with a hint of lucid madness. The island is a mystery in itself, strange messages and symbols scratched into the rock, an increasing sense of familiarity by the narrator, who could just as easily be alive or dead — is this real, the product of insanity, or perhaps a cold, desolate afterlife?

Completing the effect is a truly masterful musical score, which can also be downloaded from the website; my personal favourite is track 4, “Jakobson”, though the entire collection is frankly superb and aids supremely in building the powerful atmosphere of the game. If you hadn’t guessed by this point, atmosphere is precisely what Dear Esther is all about — there are no puzzles to overcome, enemies to defeat, or mazes to traverse, only an island rich with story and personality, one which cannot be adequately described and must instead be experienced.

There is little else I can say about the game without revealing elements of the unfolding plot; if a cerebral, moving experience is something that you crave, I strongly recommend a play-through — or three! — of this magnificent offering.

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