I was really impressed by The Path (even though I expected more), but Dear Esther is in no way a development of its tradition but actually a huge step back compared to what The Path offered. And so was ToT's Fatale sadly.

Similarly, I'd say TRAUMA is a very emotional, worthwhile and moody adventure/story of a person's recovery and much better thought out than any of the mention above. But it's still too limited in the player participation it offers to fully satisfy the medium's potential.

Overall, The Dark Eye and Bad Day of the Midway in the 90s have so far reached the top of what puzzle-free interactive experiences have achieved in terms of player involvement in a narrative. And yet those 2 are also still pretty simple - the concepts their authors have come up with could have been pushed much further by now.

So in general, while games are progressing rapidly in the art of 3D location building, we're regressing terribly in terms of designing the player's experiences within those. In DE seems like 3D has become an excuse to not put any interaction at all even.

I've now played Dear Esther twice, and on the second play things 'come together' some more. You take more notice of the words written on the walls in luminous paint (words from the Bible), the symbols (electronic and chemical), the sounds, the music, the titles of the books that you find ......... and the assorted creepy figures that usually scuttle out of view once they know you are looking at them.

This island is most definitely haunted, and knowing that there are ghosts out there makes it even more of a creepy experience.

It's all rather mysterious, and I love that. :)

Those who judge it negatively on one walk-through really need to try it again. :)

Spoiler:

After you fly away as a bird and get lost in the darkness the voice says
come back, but how suppose to be, start from beginning or else?

A good question -

Spoiler:

I guess you can only start from the beginning

It's worth it though - in fact, you appreciate and understand it more on subsequent playthroughs.

Also little things change through Subsequent Playthroughs.

Yep and there's also

Spoiler:

A shadowy figure walking along the left-hand side cliff as you come up on the washed-ashore boats at the beginning of the Buoy chapter.

Also

Spoiler:

the first time I fell down the hole at the end of The Caves chapter, I came across the two cars involved in the accident. I replayed the chapter two more times and instead of the cars, I came across a hospital gurney with a bag of blood attached. I assume this a dream after being knocked out after falling down the hole?

I wouldn't have any problem with someone saying this isn't a game, but there's a lot more replay (re-experience?) value than I thought there would be after finishing it the first time. Doing certain chapters over just to see what I missed or what's different is well worth your time.

Spoiler:

There's certainly a few ghosts in this game - none are 'in your face', but they ARE there. Some can only be seen away from the centre of the screen, ie they vanish when you look straight at them (and re-appear as you look away).

Peb - agreed, excellent replay value. Each playthrough increases your understanding.

How many different scenes are there i wonder anyone finished more than 3 times?

I've only played it twice, but just for fun have been watching a number of walkthroughs on YouTube with commentary tracks. There's a few doing bad commentaries (including one kid who gave up after 2 minutes!) but most are very informative and entertaining, and it's fun to hear other (mostly intelligent) people react as they 'play' it. :)

In case anyone missed it, Adventuregamers.com now has a feature on Dear Esther:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/displ...__PATH=id,1425

Downloaded yesterday from steam,played for an hour last night.

This game (if indeed it is a game) is like a book or a piece of music it has the presence to take you away.....

Nice description there. :)

I hope I can get this for cheap sometime in the near future. Any chance of showing up in a future indie bundle?

Thank you :)

This is the "game" equivalent of a pretentious art film. Suggestive, yes, but no real weight to back it up.
As others have suggested, it's not a game at all, which in itself is not a problem for me, I have, in the past, enjoyed games which were very light in actual game play, but this is not only NOT a game, but boring too! If all you going to have me do is walk around, please make sure there's something there to engage me, yeah it has pretty good ambiance, but after half an hour it wears really thin when that's all you have.

L'année dernière Ã* marienbad, anyone?

i want to check it out.

but i wonder is it a GPU intensive game? but will i get a decent performance out of it on a mid to low level GPU (9800gt green edition to be precise)

It's just the source engine man, this would run on a embed video card:D
Specially because there's not much of anything happening at all

Ahhh... Early sixty's surrealism, good film lasted about five joint's if I remember :D

Well, I just finished it. I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed. While I admired the prose I didn't find it particularly deep but it was mysterious enough. At one point early on I guessed the ending and feel that more could have been made of it. It did drive me along, however and I finished it in about an hour and a half. I kept searching in an area where I thought there must be another path too long because I was loth to double back.

I do like the fact that it is an interesting change from the usual and would like to see more "games" of this type.