Dear Esther

[bboyer66]

 Had my eye on this. Looks beautiful as well as very cerebral.
Comes out tomorrow on Steam for $9.99
http://dear-esther.com/

[Gusington]

I've been curious about this too. Is it a horror game? Supernatural in some way? Or a straight mystery?

[Toonces]

It sounds a lot like Amnesia without all the scary stuff.  I'm curious to see what you think of it...it sounds interesting.

[Steelgrave]

Looks damned interesting. Squad level battles maybe? Eh, probably not...

[Epee1]

That looks really interesting.  Who's going to buy it, and review it.  ;)

[LongBlade]

I've been curious about this too. Is it a horror game? Supernatural in some way? Or a straight mystery?

I think it's an adventure game. From the About page:

Dear Esther is a ghost story, told using first-person gaming technologies. Rather than traditional game-play the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island, making every each journey a unique experience. Dear Esther features a stunning, specially commissioned soundtrack from Jessica Curry.

Forget the normal rules of play; if nothing seems real here, it's because it may just be all a delusion. What is the significance of the aerial – What happened on the motorway – is the island real or imagined – who is Esther and why has she chosen to summon you here? The answers are out there, on the lost beach and the tunnels under the island. Or then again, they may just not be, after all...

[JasonPratt]

Christ, it's Lost but with fewer characters...

(I love that show, but I'm not sure I could take more "is it a delusion or isn't it" mystery plotting.)

[Gusington]

I love me a good ghost story. But I deal with enough delusions in real life. Anyone get it?

[Jarhead0331]

zzz...zzz...zzz...

[LongBlade]

zzz...zzz...zzz...

Don't be fooled! That picture is NOT Jarhead!

He's unarmed.

[bboyer66]

zzz...zzz...zzz...

Ha, I found the one game Jarhead wont buy. (Of course, give him a few weeks)

[bboyer66]

From RPS

Dear Esther, the minimalist first-person explorer, made its costs back in the first five and a half hours on sale. A quite remarkable achievement for an indie game, and a rather impressive vindication of The Indie Fund, the gathering of successful indies who are funding new projects. It has sold 16,000 copies in its first 24 hours, and made back all $55k they'd invested in the game before it was even six hours old. And by the rules of The Indie Fund, that means the developers the chinese room are now making profit.

[Staggerwing]

Has anyone tried it yet? I'd like a good looking open ended First Person adventure that has a slower pace than the Gothic/Elder scrolls type.
I was a big fan of the Myst games and some of them such as URU were full 3d. The puzzles and scenery were a nice change of pace from
the frantic tone of the online shooters I was playing then.

[Gusington]

I saw that RPS post yesterday...good for them! I haven't read any descriptions of actual gameplay though. I am hazarding a guess it is not blood and guts scary but subtle scary, which I enjoy more. BTW I've never seen one episode of Lost so maybe all the delusion conventions and such will be new to me. Any takers yet?

[Tpek]

I've seen its gameplay on a youtube video.

I was very unimpressed.

It looks like a half done map someone made for some silly Half-Life 1 mod and never completed it.

I'm not going to pay 10$ for it either.