Dear Esther

I played this walking simulator several years ago using WASD, but now I'm trying to learn how to use my controller. So I thought I'd play it again just for the practice. And yes, I do need practice in navigating. Playing this has helped enormously!

(Sorry about the odd spacing in this post. Somehow the blog just isn't formatting properly.)

This is an impressive game—or was when it came out. I remember being astonished at the (now standard) graphics. The weeks swayed in the breeze and the ocean waves looked wonderful!

        

                                                           The Beach

We start out walking along the beach. All the way through the game we get texts displayed on the screen along with an excellent voiceover of the man who is us, apparently, doing the walking. It's all quite enigmatic, and the man is apparently depressed.

The difficulty in this game isn't moving and there are no puzzles; it's just trying to spot a path to use that will continue the journey. Three times out of four these are staircases and they're all fairly well concealed unless you turn around a lot! The only one that isn't somewhere behind us requires a leap of faith to continue walking along a ledge that looks as though you're going to fall off any second.

The "Bothy"

Getting off the beach we make it to a dilapidated cabin, but find nothing there. In fact, the whole game really is just navigation as the narrator tells us his thoughts.

Out of four chapters, I like the third best. It takes us underground into glowing tunnels. We splash around in standing water and finally figure out how to go forward. Eventually we're left with only one choice, even though it seems most strange.

                 

Candlelit underground area. Quite lovely really.

When we emerge from the caves it's nighttime, making navigation even more challenging. However, the story continues, such as it is.

It's finding the narration that tells us we're on the correct path and moving forward in the game. The scenery continues to be really nice, so it's a pleasant experience overall.

                 

The paper boats are in the story

                 

Dark but still pretty

The game takes over for the very end, and finally ends not in credits, but in a black screen with the sound of waves continuing. So if you get to that screen your game hasn't crashed; that's really the ending. 

I suppose if you tie it in with whatever we can glean from the story it makes some sense. 

This game really takes only about one to two hours to complete, but it's a landmark game of it's time and it certainly did help me to learn how to navigate with the controller! You cannot save games. Finish a chapter and then move on to the next. You can choose from the four chapters on the title page.

So that certainly was worth the time! I enjoyed it!