free Free FREE as air!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/520720/Dear_Esther_Landmark_Edition/
(till the 16th!)

rms

On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 16:28:47 -0700, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

>free Free FREE as air!
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/520720/Dear_Esther_Landmark_Edition/
>(till the 16th!)

Beat me to it (although I actually expected Ant to make the
announcement ;)

Still, I don't think it's really anything you need rush to get. Sure,
this give-away ends in a couple days, but "Dear Esther" has been
offered as a freebie a number of times before, and it likely will be
free again eventually.

Which, honestly, is about the right price. Even when the game was new,
it was barely worth playing. It was an early attempt at what we would
later term a 'walking sim' (and later yet rename a 'narrative game'
because the former sounded too derogatory). Its major claims to fame
were its - at the time - novel gameplay, its use of the Half Life 2
engine, and its visually impressive graphics. Well, walking sims are a
dime a dozen now, the game no longer utilizes the Source engine (it
uses Unity), and its visuals have, understandably, aged over the last
decade. I remember paying about $15 for the original and - while
somewhat intrigued by its artsy feel and unusual gameplay - I still
felt that I had overpaid for what I got. Nowadays, paying any money
for "Dear Esther" - original or slightly enhanced remake - seems
almost criminal.

The game is extremely slow paced, and it's story isn't much to speak
of. Like most narrative games, there aren't any game-ending challenges
(in fact, IIRC, there aren't /any/ puzzles, game-ending or not, in
"Dear Esther"); it's simply a matter of slowly walking from one end of
the map to the other, occasionally picking up a randomly placed letter
or two that fills out the story. Said story isn't very engaging and -
despite its gothic atmosphere - lacks any compelling mystery.

Historically, this game is noteworthy because it helped create a new
genre, but it's just not a very entertaining piece of fiction and -
unless you are a major fan of walking sims, it's hard to recommend
this title, free or not. Then again, the game is free, so you're
welcome to make up your own mind about it.

On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 19:34:50 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>Historically, this game is noteworthy because it helped create a new
>genre, but it's just not a very entertaining piece of fiction and -
>unless you are a major fan of walking sims, it's hard to recommend
>this title, free or not. Then again, the game is free, so you're
>welcome to make up your own mind about it.

Sometimes I prefer just reading a book or watching youtube videos
instead of playing video games.... something a bit more passive. I
wonder if these 'walking sims' are passive enough to take the place of
reading or watching videos. Do these games really and truly have no
interactive gameplay? Are you really just following a story?

Anyway, I did not have this one, so thank you rms.

Am 15.02.22 um 00:28 schrieb rms:
> free Free FREE as air!
>  https://store.steampowered.com/app/520720/Dear_Esther_Landmark_Edition/
> (till the 16th!)
>
> rms
The game which sends me to sleep every time I try to play it...
Better than any sleeping pill!

On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 21:20:49 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 19:34:50 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Historically, this game is noteworthy because it helped create a new
>>genre, but it's just not a very entertaining piece of fiction and -
>>unless you are a major fan of walking sims, it's hard to recommend
>>this title, free or not. Then again, the game is free, so you're
>>welcome to make up your own mind about it.

>Sometimes I prefer just reading a book or watching youtube videos
>instead of playing video games.... something a bit more passive. I
>wonder if these 'walking sims' are passive enough to take the place of
>reading or watching videos. Do these games really and truly have no
>interactive gameplay? Are you really just following a story?

It depends on the game, of course. The walking sim genre has
variations on either end; the key features, I think, are that they
tend to be first-person games, and they usually lack any sort of
game-stopping challenge. The gameplay of the vast majority, I'd say,
require the player to do little more than walk around a level and
occasionally interact with an object or cross various triggers which
allow progression to the next map. Almost none of them incorporate
combat mechanics (or even health mechanics) and, for the few that do
have puzzles, the challenges tend to be very simple (find red cube in
room, place in red slot three rooms further on).

Instead, the games focus heavily on environmental story-telling and
mood. There usually is an underlying narrative but it's rarely told as
straight-forwardly as you'd get in a novel (or even a traditional
video game). It usually requires you to pick up the clues, either
contextually via the level design, or literally in the form of notes
or audio-logs or whatever. Because 'walking sims' tend to be created
by smaller studios, they is usually a minimum of characters; models,
AI and voice-work are expensive, so much of the work of progressing
the story is told by the level designer. Unfortunately, these studios
also usually lack good writers too, and the tales they tell are
usually dull, poorly paced, and have little new to say. Still, there
are exceptions.

"Dear Esther", as one of the earlier "walking sims", falls heavily
into the non-interactive side of the genre; it's gameplay consists of
little more than walking across the moors and reading various
scattered letters that tell you who you are and why you're wandering.
Its most challenging aspect is figuring out where to go, since the
maps aren't well sign-posted, but even then you are fairly limited in
what direction you can travel, so after bumping into enough invisible
walls, you inevitably are herded in the right direction. Its biggest
strengths were its - for the time - impressive visuals and moody level
design. Its biggest weaknesses were its monumentally slow walking
speed, the fact that you could miss out on numerous letters (and thus
make the story incomplete) and its lack of variety.

Similar games include "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter", "Everybody's
Gone to the Rapture", and "Gone Home".

On the other hand, you have games like "Papa & Yo" or "Hellblade:
Senua's Sacrifice", which straddle the demarcation between traditional
games and walking sims; both feature traditional gameplay (simple
puzzles & platforming in the former, Dark Souls-like combat with the
latter) but both have a lot of walking and are more interested in
exploring the world and character of the protagonist than providing a
challenge. Arguably, even "Portal' has walking-sim aspects to it.
Other games in this range include titles like "Aer: Memories of Old"
and "Witness".

In the middle you have games like "The Stanley Parable" and " What
Remains of Edith Finch", and "Firewatch", all of which have fairly
simplistic gameplay mechanics but are, again, put more focus on the
environmental storytelling than offering any challenge.

Related to but distinct from the genre are so-called 'visual novels'.
These usually are told via third-person viewpoints, and are far less
interactive. They are, in many ways, choose-your-own adventure stories
told on a computer, with much of the storytelling told through the
written word or animations as opposed to through the environment.
Interaction often consists of little more than clicking 'next', with
the occasional choice that lets you branch the narrative. A very large
percent of the genre is focused on romance and character interactions,
with much less work on mood and world-building.

I am not sure if any of these games are near equivalents of reading a
book or watching a movie. Visual novels are more literary, but their
prose is shorter and simpler than you'd find in a book (if only
because reading a lot of text on-screen isn't much fun). Walking Sims
require the viewer to walk around and navigate the world, and their
poor pacing and writing often leaves you disappointed with the tale by
its end. That's not to dismiss either genre - they both have their
strengths - but if you want to just veg out in front of a movie or get
an intellectual charge from a book, then stick with those instead.

On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 12:35:55 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

<SNIP>

>iThat's not to dismiss either genre - they both have their
>strengths - but if you want to just veg out in front of a movie or get
>an intellectual charge from a book, then stick with those instead.

Thank you for Spalls for the response.

On 14/02/2022 23:28, rms wrote:
> free Free FREE as air!
>  https://store.steampowered.com/app/520720/Dear_Esther_Landmark_Edition/
> (till the 16th!)
>

Strange, if I go to the Steam website it's listed a free but if I go to
Steam itself then it doesn't list a price from the search but it's £7.99
when you go to the storepage.

Am 17.02.22 um 05:43 schrieb PW:
> Maybe I install it and then uninstall it again. It doesn't look too
> familiar.
Walking simulator... not my genre despite generally loving adventure
games. But dear esther always triggers a getting tired mechanism with me
relatively quickly.

> I guess the Landmark ED is the newest?

Yes, they remade it in the Unity engine for some technical reason, &
added new features.

rms