For this critical play, I played part of Dear Esther from The Chinese Room on my phone. I would argue that the target audience is someone who is looking for a simple introduction into the world of video games/walking simulators, as this is the vibe that I got from my own playthrough. This was my first experience with a walking simulator, and although it was pretty easy to understand the basic concept and mechanics, I really never understood the “point”. I felt like it was not immersive enough for it to just be something I enjoy via being an “experience” like some VR games I’ve played (and this partially might have been because of my decision to play on my phone, limiting immersion as I discuss later). As for the plot and the story overall, I think the game has a pretty simple premise of letting the user explore what and where they please and use the mechanic of ‘barriers’/’progress points’ where after the user crosses some location, they then see the next piece of dialogue (or monologue, more accurately) from the narrator. As stated, this was a pretty simple concept to pick up, but there were a few instances I really had no idea where to go next and had to look up a walkthrough, which was a little annoying/disruptive.
I was really confused what I was meant to to here because I didn’t realize that the path continued here… it looked like an edge and when I tried going across the first time, I fell down, so I assumed it was wrong.
Another example of a little unclear navigation. I was really confused why I wasn’t able to go through the end of this cave, and I didn’t realize this cave was actually entirely unnecessary for progression. Of course, the game is meant to have the player explore, but it got a little annoying at times.
I think the thing about the walking that I realized is it is intentionally slow. The mechanic of having a first POV experience where the player has to walk from place to place at a relatively leisurely pace takes TIME. This game is not meant to be speed-run, and there are no tricks. It is meant for the user to sit, play, and get absorbed into this world — a clear form of the abnegation aesthetic. The creators intend to transport the user to a new world/life for the duration of their gameplay. Now again, I can’t say I personally experienced this from my mobile gameplay, and one reason was because I had to move using my fingers, obscuring the view of the screen, which of course makes sense and is how basically all mobile games operate, but it unfortunately took me out of the zone quite often. I was no longer in the game, I was just playing it. I can’t think of a practical solution to this, aside from maybe having the controls be specifically bounds to the corners of the screen (and encourage the user to follow this somehow). Also, there were some lighting issues in darker areas which led to me getting lost in rooms sometimes.
I had my brightness pretty high, but rooms like this were quite a challenge still.
Now, with regards to violence, although I did not play the entire game, I think I can accurately claim that it is not violent at all. There is an overall sombre tone, there are mentions of grief, but as a walking simulator, we really are just walking around. I think though, for this game particularly, they didn’t need violence to tell their story. The narrator’s tone complements the atmosphere created by the visuals and the sound effects/audio, and they don’t need any action let alone violence to get their point across. I feel like this game’s design intentionally leaves a lot of questions unanswered and really is meant for the player to reflect and think for themself. The dynamic has the player drawn along for the story, but ultimately, the player gets placed in this world without a detailed explanation, and it’s up to them to put it all together. I think this different from most games (that I am used to) in that there is usually a clear backstory, a clear objective, and a clear progression to the finish. Although this game wasn’t for me personally, I think I could easily see how someone could throughly get engrossed in its story.
Side note: Not sure if this was unrelated to the game, but I found myself getting dizzy/a headache as I played? Didn’t want to bring it up in my analysis since I was unsure if it was from the game specifically, but the movement was a little disorienting at times.
