Dear Esther

CAUTION: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

A lone man. A deserted island. The story of one terrible night, slowly driving you mad. These are the things that make up Dear Esther.

Atmosphere and story are the driving forces of this experience. In fact, I'd say that they are nearly the only things in this game at all. I don't know what I expected when I picked up Dear Esther, but I know that it wasn't what I got.

I went into the game completely blind. In fact, the only reason I'd heard of it was that I was looking up something completely unrelated on the internet, and found a reference to it. I decided that the price tag was low enough to take a gamble, and I wasn't disappointed.

Unlike a lot of games these days, Dear Esther dumps you directly into the gameplay, without an opening movie, or anything to explain who you are, where you are, or what your goal is. This results in a feeling of being adrift in the game's world that I've never seen matched. Personally, when I run into that sort of situation in most games, and begin to feel that I don't know where to go, I get frustrated and lose interest. However, Dear Esther has one thing that many of those games do not. The narration.

The narration is given to you just a bit at a time, but it is enough. In the beginning, it acts as a temptation to move onward. You always know you are headed the right way, because sooner or later you will hear the narrator reading more of his letters to Esther. Toward the end, you are no longer driven by mere curiosity. No, it becomes much more than that. It becomes a need to know what happened. You are driven to hear the narrator's story; of what he did, of what was done to him. To take him to his ultimate destination, and see what awaits him there.

In good conscience it is difficult to proceed past this point of the review. Really, there is no way to tell you more of this game without revealing what the story is about, and if you haven't played it, then saying that there are "spoilers" just isn't strong enough language. But if you want to, read on.

The narrator is a man who is, truly, adrift and without anchor in the world. His only reason for living was taken from him with Esther's death. That's what his letters are about. He is writing to a dead woman about her death in a drunk driving accident. Was the narrator driving? Was it the other men he mentions in his narrative? It is left ambiguous, but that is one of Dear Esther's strengths. By leaving those interpretations to the player, Dear Esther becomes something more than just a straightforward gaming experience. It becomes something that friends can discuss and disagree over in a way that you normally can't with a game.

For me, the real question is: what the hell is going on? Not with the story, but with the surroundings. It is obvious even from the first play-through that the island represents much too closely the madman's story of his torment for it to be a place in the natural world. I have two theories of what it might be.

The first is that the narrator is entirely insane. That becomes obvious the further he goes in his story, but I mean more deeply than that. What I mean is that the island is a construction of his imagination, and reflects the fractured slopes of his deranged mind. I found evidence for this in exploring the hidden crags along the island's shore, which are teeming with debris that was obviously produced by car accidents, if you look closely enough. These wrecks show up long before the narrator reaches the parts of his monologue that hint at the accident.

There are also features of the island that speak to mental illness. In fact, a great part of the history of the island can be interpreted as being about mental illness. For instance, the narrator talks about how the carvings in the cliff sides were made in times of disease to warn off people from the outside to stop them coming to the island. This can be said to show that the narrator has cut himself off from reality, within his own little world of mental disease.

There is also the story of the hermit who sealed himself into the depths of the island's caves. The story of the hermit is actually almost a giveaway for that interpretation of the game's events.

However, as I said, I have another theory. I think that the above is true, but that it doesn't go far enough. I think the narrator is in hell. Whether it is one of his own devising, or it is inflicted on him by outside forces for some wrong-doing, I don't know, and I don't think it matters.

I found some of the narrator's wording curious throughout the story. There were things he said that made it sound as if he had been through all of this before; as if it was a journey that he repeated without end.

There were also details that he got wrong. which were just as telling. For instance, before the descent into the caves of the island, the narrator talks about how he has fallen down a hill and broken his leg. That didn't happen. At least, not this time around.

Then there are also the paper boats, just before the end of the game. The narrator talks about putting the letter to Esther into the sea as a boat, but there are dozens, if not hundreds, of paper boats there. His letter is long, but not long enough to take up that many sheets of paper. This speaks to the repeating actions of a madman stuck in some sort of loop from which he cannot break free. Some of the ambiguity of the story could even be explained by the man repeating himself so often that some of the circumstances have lost the meaning that they once had.

The game's ending also speaks to this repetition. As the narrator jumps from the top of the tower, he doesn't fall straight to the ground. Just before impacting with the earth, he begins to fly, eventually taking him down the path which lead him to the tower. It is as if he is stuck in an unbreakable cycle.

Is my interpretation of the game completely correct? I doubt it. As I said, the story is left intentionally ambiguous in many places. All I know is that I enjoyed trying to figure out the truth of it from the evidence that was given. For anyone who likes non-traditional games, and enjoys trying to puzzle out mysteries, I have one thing to say: PLAY THIS GAME.