Got this in the Steam sale and I'm pretty interested to try it today.

You spelt Esther wrong in thread title. 

I've only ever 'played' an hour or so before it crashed on me. Haven't been back since, but I should.

But it's not a "game", it's a piece of ART.

Like I said above, tons of the narrative and symbolism is randomized. You should be able to play it through at least thrice without it feeling too stale.

I "played" through this for the first time the other day, conveniently as it was getting dark outside which added that little bit to the atmosphere. It was an intriguing experience in any case and an impressively good looking one a lot of the time, given that it is relatively old. I'm glad that I have dredged up this thread and found out about the randomisation otherwise I might not necessarily have been planned to go back to it anytime soon.

I still have no idea what happened in the story.

Feel bad for Jessica Curry though, especially after that piece she wrote about being treated as apart from the creative process when compared to her partner as the were pitching and promoting their games.

Here's the piece if you've not seen it

http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/blog/why-im-sort-of-leaving-the-chinese-room

Tempy wrote:

Here's the piece if you've not seen it http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/blog/why-im-sort-of-leaving-the-chinese-room

Pretty cool she's doing stuff with the Poet Laureate though.

Just for the record, i thought A Beginner's Guide was pretty shit, although the fact it's a game about
 
is something that most 'creatives' can relate to a bit

In terms of pure visual artistry there honestly hasn't been that much that is as good as DE as far as i know, particularly in VR, and I say that as something of a Walking Simulator fan

I do find what you wrote interesting so i'd like to read what you have to say about A Beginner's Guide. The whole Walk 'Em Up genre has a lot of potential for storytelling while still moving with the times (in fact i love that it lets you savour what it delivers to you without shepherding you to the next explosion). It is a pity I found the story of Dear Esther completely ignorable but it's also a pity that I can't think of many games that maintain a visual and narrative synergy in the genre in terms of sheer quality.

I would love to approach making this kind of game but feel i'm not up to my own standards, instead i feel a bit like the final imagery of A Beginner's Guide. In fact I feel that quite a lot.