“How is narrative woven into the mystery through its mechanics? How does the architecture of the setting control the story? Then, look for loops and arcs. Does this game have one, both or something else?”
Dear Esther, is a walking game that uses narrative and mystery to create an engaging player experience for its audience of any young adult and adult with ages 13+ and the ability to read English. It has an online platform accessible through App Store, Steam, or gaming consoles, such Play Station, allowing a wider range of users to engage in the game, though the only player mode is solo, meaning that the game is not suitable for parties or friend groups. The limited choice of player numbers/modes and the use of an online platform effectively compliment the mysterious and lonely atmosphere the game aims to create, isolating the player from the rest of their support system (friends/family) and the world, just like the main character/hero of the story, who is stranded on an island by herself with no communication but the messages from her ex-lover. The game is debated to be “between an art project and a video game” due to its ability to manipulate the player’s emotions through the well-created setting, conveying the dark and somber atmosphere of the narrative through visuals and the soundtrack. Rather than a loop or an arc, the game has a narrative in the shape of puzzle pieces scattered around the setting, without a required order and glued by the context the detail of the setting provides, such as the items washed up on the shore, images drawn on sand, and cave walls covered in paint. The narrative is, therefore, effectively woven into the mystery through the mechanics of resources (such as the terrain, visual clues, recorded letters, soundtrack), rules and objective.
The themes of isolation and loneliness run throughout the game and across all mechanics, especially conveyed through the resources of the game. The storyline is set on the rocky terrains of an island, cut off from the world, surrounded by water that the players can’t swim through without “drowning” in the game, with no other land in sight. The inability to call for help, or reach out to anyone or anywhere for support, enforced by the island setting is unnerving to the players, and helps create the mysterious atmosphere where the only thing the player can do is to be resigned to their fate and discover the story left behind to them as much as they are allowed to- just like Esther. This way, they are stranded in the same way Esther is, and her ex-lover was before, conveying her and his loneliness and isolation. The wild, desolate state of the island and the contrasting few visual clues seemingly left behind by the previous stranded inhabitants create the very core of where narrative meets mystery. Without any rules or instruction, the player is dropped into the isolated island with no ability but to walk and explore, and therefore starts playing the game with a lot of questions in mind and a big mystery to solve. These visual clues are the initial introduction to the narrative and the puzzle pieces that will soon start fitting together to shed a light to bits and pieces of the mysterious story. On a wild island, anything man-made starkly contrasts with the setting, and has again unnerving effect on the player, indicating that something is wrong, or was wrong at one point. The recorded letters come in next, augmenting the effect left by the visual clues as the player explores the island. The voice notes are always startling because of their contrast with the soundtrack and music. The only sound available to the player are the sounds of nature and a very somber piece of orchestral music that triggers negative emotions, such as sadness, loss, desolation, just as the island itself does. When the voice notes appear, they appear out of the blue and have a jump-scare effect on the player. It is clear to the player that the island is currently inhabited, so the voice reading the notes/letters leaving clues from the past for Esther (and due to the first-person point of view, the player) to solve, is almost like an apparition, a ghost that haunts Esther in her loneliness, integrating the narrative effectively to the setting to enforce the mystery. Therefore, the contrast of the human voice on the wild island, as well as the unpredictability of the occurrence of these audio clues help shape the mysterious nature of the game and give the players the means to solve it, while reinforcing feelings of loss, eeriness, and isolation. The objective of the game seems to be rescue/escape at first, but quickly evolves into a sense of resigned loss and hopelessness that leave Esther and the player to only other objective of exploration, just to solve the mystery left behind by Esther’s husband, and possibly can only be solved by the player.
In short, Dear Esther manages to effectively use formal elements of resources (such as the terrain, visual clues, recorded letters, soundtrack), rules and objective as mechanics to integrate the narrative into the mystery it successfully conveys. The feelings of loss, isolation, hopelessness and hauntedness run amok throughout the game, enforced by these formal elements, to make the mystery more engaging. Especially the visuals and the audio are very purposefully created to put the player in the place of a woman stranded on an island with no means to escape and messages from the past, from her lover, not as an arc or a loop, but pieces of one big mysterious puzzle. The completion of this puzzle is likely Esther’s dying act, and the player is responsible for carrying it out.
