Dear Esther Gets a Trailer and a Steam Page

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Dear Esther Gets a Trailer and a Steam Page

The first trailer for Dear Esther, and an official Steam Store Page, are finally here.

Something very awesome is going to happen on Valentine's Day, and no, it's not the Mass Effect 3 demo [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115317-Mass-Effect-3-Demo-Set-For-Valentines-Day-Release]. [Let's face it, at this point you've already decided whether or not you're going to buy Mass Effect 3. A demo is about as useful as a vestigial tail.] No, I'm talking about something entirely different, that's really different: the launch of Dear Esther on Steam.

Dear Esther is a commercial remake of the 2008 Source mod by the same name, being done by indie studio Independent Games Festival 2012 awards [http://thechineseroom.co.uk/]: Excellence in Visual Arts, Excellence in Audio, the Nuovo Award ["to honor abstract, shortform and unconventional game development"] and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

If you're expecting the trailer to provide some insight into what this game is actually about, however, you'd best prepare yourself for disappointment. "The focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here," according to a description of the game at dear-esther.com [http://dear-esther.com/]. "Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island, making every each journey a unique experience."

Dear Esther will come out on Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/203810] on February 14 for a very reasonable $9.99. And since you already know you're going to be all over Mass Effect 3 on launch day anyway, why not do something different and give this a try instead?

via: IndieGames [http://indiegames.com/2012/01/trailer_dear_esther_thechinese.html]


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Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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I still have the original mod. Some of the coolest music and narration for any game ever. The story is a bit confusing, but it makes more sense upon its completion.

I can't wait to see what they've added, especially now that they overhauled the graphics.

I still can't believe that that is all done on the Source Engine.
 

Somethingfake

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Oct 22, 2008
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I'm going to buy this for sure. Shame that as an indie game and not a AAA game you can't pre order it, but hey ho, no biggie.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Somethingfake said:
I'm going to buy this for sure. Shame that as an indie game and not a AAA game you can't pre order it, but hey ho, no biggie.
I wouldn't preorder it anyways. The game is only about an hour long, but definitely worth the money.
 

Proverbial Jon

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Nov 10, 2009
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Wow, this is looking utterly mind blowing. The original mod had an amazing atmosphere to it, but with this kind of graphic fidelity I can't even begin to imagine how chilling the experience will be now. Glad to see the original music and wonderful narration has remained intact.

We've waited a long time for this and now it is so close! This is a sure fire buy for me and hopefully for just about everyone else who owns a computer.
 

razor343

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Sep 29, 2010
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Sold.

I'm definitely buying this, wouldn't mind experiencing an 'out of the norm' form of story telling. By the way, does the music not remind you of the Fallout 3 theme just a little bit? At least the beginning of it?
 

teh_Canape

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for some reason, the feel of this game (haven't played it yet, so I'm just going by screenshots and stuff) really makes me think of The Snowfield
might give it a try, people say it's awesome
 

redisforever

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Oct 5, 2009
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Ah CRAP! Why? Because it looks so good, graphically, it'll kill my laptop. Maybe my desktop can run it. Hope so, because it looks like it'll be a fascinating game. And, only $9.99!
 

Seraj

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Nov 27, 2010
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quote from steam page:

"Abandoning traditional gameplay for a pure story-driven experience"

I am so buying this.
 

Somethingfake

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Soviet Heavy said:
Somethingfake said:
I'm going to buy this for sure. Shame that as an indie game and not a AAA game you can't pre order it, but hey ho, no biggie.
I wouldn't preorder it anyways. The game is only about an hour long, but definitely worth the money.
It's not about how long it is, it's about how good it is. I know Dear Esther to bloody good. So I don't really understand what you're saying. Either way I'd be paying for it, why not pre-order?
 

Soviet Heavy

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Somethingfake said:
Soviet Heavy said:
Somethingfake said:
I'm going to buy this for sure. Shame that as an indie game and not a AAA game you can't pre order it, but hey ho, no biggie.
I wouldn't preorder it anyways. The game is only about an hour long, but definitely worth the money.
It's not about how long it is, it's about how good it is. I know Dear Esther to bloody good. So I don't really understand what you're saying. Either way I'd be paying for it, why not pre-order?
I don't really know. I just associate pre-orders with everything bad in the industry. I'm just having visions of frat boy douchebags preordering this, and then bitching about how short it is. I dunno, preorder just doesn't spring to mind when I think of indie titles.
 

Gulleko

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Mar 30, 2011
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Am I the only one here who isn't going to buy it...?
I played the original mod, but couldn't finish it because it gave me a panic attack. =(
I have no problems with horror movies or other games, but Dear Esther got to me, in the worst possible way.
 

Zakarrum

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Oct 20, 2011
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Dexter111 said:
Proverbial Jon said:
Wow, this is looking utterly mind blowing. The original mod had an amazing atmosphere to it, but with this kind of graphic fidelity I can't even begin to imagine how chilling the experience will be now. Glad to see the original music and wonderful narration has remained intact.

We've waited a long time for this and now it is so close! This is a sure fire buy for me and hopefully for just about everyone else who owns a computer.
Just imagine how I always feel whenever people say "graphics don't matter" xD e.g.:


and


That said, I'm really really looking forward to this :p
And to think that I thought source looked good back then... Its amazing how things progress.
 

KefkaCultist

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Jun 8, 2010
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This looks pretty cool and I'll most likely buy it's only $10, but could someone give me a quick synopsis on what it's about? Despite the fan base and such, this is the first I've ever heard about it.
 

Steve the Pocket

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Mar 30, 2009
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Is this still on the Source engine? I find it a bit hard to believe, looking at all that complex landscaping. I guess there's nothing in particular in that trailer that couldn't have been done in Source; it just looks so unlike anything I've seen from it. (Plus, why would they be unsure about being able to make a Mac port? The engine already has a Mac version that I'm sure Valve would be happy to grant them access to.)

The_root_of_all_evil said:
Two words: Play it.

After that...maybe The Stanley Parable?

Fun fact: You know that nonprofit indie developer fund that the Extra Credits guys started up with all that leftover money they had from the pay-for-Allison's-surgery fundraiser? (No? Well, they have one.) There are talks of using some of that to fund the Stanley Parable guy's next project.

Be excited.