Who is she? That's one of the game's deepest mysteries, and you might have to play a few times to work it out.
The ocean laps at the sand behind you while gusts of wind blow leaves across the beach.Ī disembodied voice begins to speak, reading aloud snippets of letters addressed to a woman named Esther. Without so much as a hint as to who your character is supposed to be, Dear Esther drops you onto the murky, misty shore of a deserted Hebridean island. There's clearly an audience for this kind of experimental game design - and that's one of the reasons to be excited about the miraculous overhaul that's heading our way. Still, the original incarnation of Esther picked up several awards and was downloaded more than 60,000 times. It's a game with all the game ripped out, leaving just an environment and a story in place. This is almost certainly the most gorgeous-looking Source Engine game to date. It's only an hour long, and during that time you meet no real characters. There's no shooting, nor are there any puzzles or tactics involved.
DEAR ESTHER HALF LIFE MOD
The results were a world away from the high-powered action of most mods which make the commercial transition.ĭear Esther is at the forefront of gaming research, then - but at first glance, this mod might not sound like the most obvious choice for Valve to pick up as a Steam exclusive. He focused instead on abstract, meandering storytelling. Pinchbeck wanted to see what would happen if he ignored all the standard methods of play.
DEAR ESTHER HALF LIFE FULL
In 2008 the University of Portsmouth's Dan Pinchbeck released this Half-Life 2 mod as a way to test out some design theory, without the financial worry that accompanies the release of a full game. When the title in question is Dear Esther, though, things are a little different. Counter-Strike began as an inordinately successful Half-Life mod, while Killing Floor and The Ball both tagged onto the back of Unreal Tournament installments.įactor in the likes of Team Fortress and Natural Selection, whose sequels have eschewed their amateur beginnings to become commercial titles, and the news of yet another mod making the transition to full game might not sound so impressive.
Plenty of revered games started their lives as mods for existing titles.
0 kommentar(er)
