Dear Esther. I sometimes feel as if I've given birth to this island. Somewhere, between the longitude and latitude a split opened up and it beached remotely here. No matter how hard I correlate, it remains a singularity, an alpha point in my life that refuses all hypothesis. I return each time leaving fresh markers that I hope, in the full glare of my hopelessness, will have blossomed into fresh insight in the interim.
Spec Ops: The Line is kind of like Undertale which is kind of like Doki Doki Literature Club which is kind of like Eversion which is kind of like Braid which is kind of like Dear Esther which is kind of like Half Life which is kind of like Spec Ops
this is somehow one of the most pretensious reviews ive ever written, which is saying a lot
so ive always been interested in the whole "games as art" argument, mostly because of how easily people seem to get distracted. people who are both in favour and against its classification, in my anecdotal experience, tend to lean into how well video games replicate other forms of art, namely movies. i still see people argue beyond that, but they still keep themselves in the realm of games that are made deliberately to be art. these "art games" are kinda hard to put into a solid bubble, like most genres its mostly vibes-based. if i were to define it, id say it is a game designed primarily to be appreciated as art, including cultural connotations such as looking traditionally visually appealing and having an emotional or 'deep' story.
this is nothing against art games, i think theyre a very enjoyable and worthwhile genre, but i think the politics around them is a bit misguided. what im saying is that, when considering what makes a video game art, you have to consider stuff like gris and firewatch with the same seriousness that you consider pac-man
video games are a distinct medium with a very unique feature: ludology. as all art is a conversation between the artist and the observer, there is the level of interaction inherent to perceiving art, but i dont have to tell you that video games are much more direct. movies and video games can both condition their audience; Cars 2 (im sorry thats the first thing that comes to mind) conditions the audience into laughing at mater's bullshit antics, in order to make the emotional core of him lamenting he cant be taken seriously resonate more with the audience, as they participated in not taking him seriously. video games can condition in the same way, but theres a unique level of micro-level teaching that can help players react to the world to fit the game's design. Psychopomp is a good example of this: you cant see far through the darkness, and enemies are very sudden and very unrelenting once aggravated. this encourages a playstyle where you always have a weapon prepared, you carefully sneak around corners at full alert, and generally adopt the same paranoid approach to the world that our conspiracy theorizing protagonist would be expected to. this is ludonarrative: when the narrative being presented by a video game is enhanced by the interactive aspects of the gameplay, both working congruently to create an experience greater than the sum of its parts.
this is impossible in other mediums. even in the best case of show dont tell, you are not the one struggling to overcome adversity. survival horror games uniquely play on therir genre with dwindling supplies, adding an element of anxiety to literally every interaction that simply isnt possible in even the best horror movies by the virtue that you are the one who wastes the ammo. now keep your aim steady, its getting closer. you cant just trust the character to do it, you need to open your eyes and fight the monster, and you will feel every fuck up
this brings us, finally, to dear esther. i feel like this game wants to be perceived as an art game, and rightfully so. the landscape is like a painting, the voice work is rightfully haunting, and the music is subtle yet perfectly emotional. but as someone who was dismally aware of the zeitgeist when it was first released, and looking through contemporary opinions now, i dont really see people analyzing how the gameplay works to enhance the artistry. like in most art games, its often brushed off as being incidental, as if the medium was an accident. well, id like to take a moment to talk about how dear esther takes deliberate mcluhanist advantage of its medium and uses its ludology to emphasis its artistic intent
first, subversion. usually when i see this word get tossed around its in reference to something defying expectations from within its genre, such as a detective story that deliberately has the person who seems the most guilty from the start indeed be the culprit. i dont often see things that instead subvert their medium. a good point of reference is spec ops the line. its not unique for having an anti-war message, as contrary to popular belief this was mostly incidental to walt williams' main goal of fucking with people who play shooters. he does this by deliberately subverting expectations taken for granted in most military settings, such as the player's faction being justified & heroic. you can perform over-the-top flashy executions as a gameplay reward for taking down an enemy with proficiency, with the added caveat that youre humiliating a man forced into defending his family by your bullheaded hero complex. it plays the medium of a military shooter video game straight as an arrow in order to have the narrative subversions be more harrowing, drawing a deliberate contrast
esther, meanwhile, subverts the expectations of the medium. ive talked before about how the indie scene often fills a void left by the mainstream, such as when many indies became deliberately difficult to counter the perceived "casual-ification" of video games in the mainstream around the 2010s. dear esther came out in 2012, along with the following critically acclaimed titles: mass effect 3, borderlands 2, and call of duty black ops 2. its also the year that thatgamecompany's journey came out, but that game wasnt made in the same engine as half-life. this was a deliberate choice to invoke the feel of a shooter, in order to make the absence of its mechanics feel more like a vacuum. and like all vacuums, it gets filled by what is surrounding it: the narrative. specifically, the closest thing the game has to a game mechanic as theyre traditionally understood: slowly walking around and triggering narration. this highlights this as the thing you do in this game. in shooters you shoot, and in dear esther you listen
lets talk about the walking. it wasnt made slow on accident. ive been playing a lot of yume nikki fangames lately, especially collective unconscious. unlike in most fangames where speeding up requires activating a mutually exclusive form that limits the ways you can explore and interact with your surroundings, you have a togglable sprint button. i respect this decision as a reasonable quality of life feature for an mmo, but i left it off a lot of the time. the crux of yume nikki and its derivatives to me is to analyze the main character through their dreams. if you speed to the next area, you dont have the time to synthesize the implication of your surroundings with your preexisting understanding. this is the same reason youre slow in dear esther, to force you to consider your surroundings longer than otherwise.
this is especially cogent because a main thematic element to the narrative is the passage of time. you play as an old man, your speed also fostering an understanding of how age has wracked his body. youre exploring a beautiful island, but he only dwells on the mistakes of his past, only really talking about his surroundings to clinically recollect facts or spring-board into his own misery. and every second you spend walking that path, you spend stewing in his words, just as he would. you dont get to move on yet, he sure as hell cant. just like psychopomp, the game is using its gameplay to guide/force you into a playstyle that characterizes the protagonist while also fostering a greater sense of situational understanding from the player. combine this with the natural connection players feel by the sheer fact that he only moves when they decide he moves, and i just dont see how you could replicate this feeling in a film
and the backtracking! on my first playthough, i backtracked to the cave, i backtracked to that big hole, and i meandered through the whole beginning before forcing myself to shuffle on. because of your speed, this causes a gnawing familiarity. i was trapped in a small town for most of my young life, and it felt smothering to be surrounded by inescapable familiarity at all times. i had exhausted all my experiences, but i was still stuck in place, unable to move on. this is how dear esther makes me feel. i feel trapped on this island, and while it looks pretty, players will be struck by the lack of interactivity. then, as you slowly wander back to where you started, it starts to settle in exactly how long this man has been here.
there's an element of randomization ive never seen in a narrative-focused game like this before. basic aspects of the events and characters will change from playthrough to playthrough. the circumstances of the man's guilt are notable, especially. how in control was he of the accident? was he a drunk who ignored his responsibility and hurt others in the process? was it an incident of fate despite everything being done right? well, either way, it doesnt matter to the game, it plays out all the same. in other words, this element of gameplay is making a narrative statement: the incident doesnt matter as much as the grief. losing a loved one doesnt really get better or worse. assuming the watsonian explanation that his memories are getting foggy in his age, the finer details dont matter. remember or forget all you want, youre still [ending of the game redacted]
in closing, i believe something becomes art when the observer decides to perceive it as art, and in doing so allows themselves to interact with the art's design and attribute it meaning. what is decided to be held in a museum can be ascribed the same symbolism, skill of portrayal, evocation of emotion, and prerequisite artistic talent as children's cartoons, graffiti, and room decoration. games are art because we as the audience can recognize the skill and passion required to balance the behavior of inky, blinky, pinky and clyde in order to strike a balance between challenging and intuitively conquerable. the thought that went into pacmans character design, the means by which you interface with the cabinet, not just the composition of the music itself but when it plays and how this accounts for sound effects. it evokes meaning from the player, using its medium to convey emotions, in a conversation between artist and audience. just like anyone can make a song but music theory determines what sounds good to the ear, the video games have a grammar that elevates it to unique heights of audience engagement when used well.
dear esther takes that advantage of its medium through subversion, the lack of expected interaction emphasizing the emptiness; the slowness forcing you to mimic the protagonist by dwelling on the island and his past by extension; the shifting details drawing attention to their ultimate irrelevance. all done in a way that cant be done in non-interactive mediums to the same degree of effectiveness, making us feel the narrative stronger than any words could convey
i guess my final thesis statement is that you cant really experience a game secondhand, you have to play it in order to really let its design resonate with you. i dont care how good jacksepticeyes swansea voice is, you havent experienced mouthwashing until youre the one feeding curly.
When someone had died, or was dying or was so ill they gave up what little hope they could sacrifice, they cut parallel lines into the cliff, exposing the white chalk beneath. With the right eyes you could see them from the mainland or the fishing boats and know to send aid or impose a cordon of protection, and wait a generation until whatever pestilence stalked the cliff paths died along with its hosts. My lines are just for this: to keep any would-be rescuers at bay. The infection is not simply of the flesh.
Um.. Dear Chinese Room my beloved. Can I just explore the lovely rusty oil rig in "Still Wakes the Deep" and listen to the wind, the creaking of metal, and the lovely scottish accents and go through everyone's stuff without all this 'terror from the deep that kills everyone'? Promise I will spend at least 12 hours doing that, and go back to it every month. Just like I did with Dear Esther, staying for hours in the caves, just breathing, listening to the amazing soundtrack, getting lost in my thoughts.
k thanks
Speaking of Dear Esther, I still go back every year or so. It made me fall in love with Scotland and I still dream of visiting the Hebrides (too bad that I, much like Jamie Fraser from Outlander, puke my soul out as soon as I set foot on a ship or a boat. or a plane..)
