Posts Tagged ‘Dear Esther’
By Alec Meer on February 21st, 2012.
Breaking news, if you were reading the internet a couple of days ago. Following a brief ARG, a tiny, hopeful squeak of detail has emerged for the next game from Amnesia devs Frictional. Frankly anything is more useful than ‘it might be set in China, possibly‘, but in this case we have a couple of pieces of creepy, bloody concept art and a possible title.
That title? ‘A Machine For Pigs.’ Which sounds ever so slightly like a change of direction for George R.R. Martin’s reader-mocking novels, but also appears to refer directly to the abbatoir-esque scenes in the concept art. But is that the real name, or just a codename? I’ve done some research into animal-slaughtering equipment and come up with some EXCITING ALTERNATIVES.
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A Machine For Pigs, Amnesia, arg, Dear Esther, frictional, thechineseroom.
18 developers, 7 questions
By Alec Meer on February 20th, 2012.
They said it would never end. And then, on Saturday, it did. We’ve been posting our series of chats with the many splendid finalists in this year’s Independent Games Festival over the last couple of months, and, with the exception of English Country Tune (dev was worried about sounding boring), Mirage (dev didn’t reply) and Fez (dev wouldn’t confirm the possibility of a PC version) we managed to get mini-interviews with all the PC/Mac indie developers in the running for a gong.
In case you missed a few, didn’t understand what the hell it was all about or just like looking at neatly-ordered lists, here’s the complete series for your relaxed perusal. It’s a fascinating and diverse bunch of games in the finals this year, and if nothing else, it’s a rare chance to see what 18 different developers would say to the monsters in Doom if only they could talk to them.
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Atom Zombie Smasher, Dear Esther, feature, Frozen Synapse, IGF Factor 2012, rps-ultromegafeature, Spelunky, To The Moon.
By John Walker on February 15th, 2012.
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 thechineseroom are now making profit. You can read all about how it went down here. Alec adored Dear Esther, as he writes about here. I didn’t think it was nearly so good, as I explain here.
Dear Esther, Steam, the indie fund.
The colour purple
By Alec Meer on February 15th, 2012.
John’s already presented his verdict on thechineseroom’s first-person ghost-esque story Dear Esther, but I’ve a thing or two I’d like to say about it myself. And not just because I like to oppress John at any opportunity I get. It’s because Dear Esther really did work its dark, metaphysical magic upon me.
This write-up will contain spoilers unbound; do not read on if you haven’t played (and intend to play) Dear Esther.
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Dear Esther, feature, thechineseroom, wot i think.
Lonely Island
By John Walker on February 13th, 2012.
I come to Dear Esther completely blind. For some reason I’ve chosen to read nothing about it at any point, perhaps instinctively opting to preserve myself against knowing everything about at least one game before I get to play it. I’ve heard the overwhelmingly positive, and grumbles of hype and overrated content, and I have an idea that it’s a game about exploring over anything else. But that’s all I know. So from this position, having never played the 2008 mod, here’s Wot I Think.
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Dear Esther, feature, indie, review, wot i think.
thechineseroom does the chat
By Alec Meer on February 6th, 2012.
Hauntingly beautiful, exploration-based first-person ghost story Dear Esther (a lavish remake of the mod of the same name) is up for the Excellence In Visual Art, Excellence In Audio, Nuovo Award and Seamus McNally Grand Prize at this year’s Independent Games Festival. As part of our series chatting to the creators of (almost) all the PC and Mac-based finalists, today we talk to Robert Briscoe, lead artist on Dear Esther, about Stalker, Mirror’s Edge, making in-game exploration satisfying, why indie development should be taught in universities and his answer to the most important question of all.
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Dear Esther, feature, igf, IGF Factor 2012, Robert Briscoe, thechineseroom.
By Adam Smith on January 19th, 2012.
The fancy-dan version of Source-based island adventure Dear Esther causes ripples of excitement whenever it raises its haunted head, nowhere more so in recent times than at the IGF where it has received four nominations. However, there are important matters to take care of before its Valentine’s Day release. To that end, I have prepared several boxes so that we can put our heads together and decide which one Dear Esther belongs in. Perhaps a trailer will help us to choose?
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Dear Esther, indie, ludotaxonomy, The Chinese Room.
Changing the game
By Jim Rossignol on December 15th, 2011.
With Q.U.B.E. coming out on Friday and Dear Esther coming out in February, we thought it might be timely to talk to the sinister cabal of successful indies behind the Indie Fund. That’s the name of the non-publisher group that are financing these games, as well as the exciting heist game, Monaco. What are they up to? And what is so special about the indie games they are financing? We found out, below.
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Aaron Isaksen, Dear Esther, feature, interview, Q.U.B.E., the indie fund.
By Jim Rossignol on December 8th, 2011.
I’ve been reading some interesting discussions about Dear Esther of late, with some folks maintaining that it’s “not even a game”. With just wandering about and some artful narration going for it, you can see why some people are sceptical about it being in the same category as all those other things, with their hi-score tables and their comprehensible rule sets, that currently sit in the big box of games. Whether or not it’s a game, you’re going to be able to pay $10 on Valentine’s Day next year, and wander lonesomely through its breath-takingly remade landscape. It really is quite an extraordinary thing to see, outdoing most mainstream games’ environment work with its lavish Source-powered rocks and weeds. The Chinese Room also announce that: “In other news, we can also confirm we will be speaking at GDC2012′s Game Design track about Dear Esther, the approach to environmental build, audio, voice-overs and storytelling.”
Dear Esther, The Chinese Room.
By Jim Rossignol on November 24th, 2011.
Earlier in the year I lost my MP3 player with a bunch of untranscribed interviews on it. The most interesting of these recordings was an interview with Dan Pinchbeck, the games researcher who has turned to making games, starting with a remake of his Half-Life 2 mod, Dear Esther. The remake, which is being done with fabulous new art (above) in the Portal 2 engine, is apparently all but finished, and will appear in January or February next year. Hopefully, around that same time, I’ll be able to redo my interview with Dan and see what he’s learned from the process. Take a look through here for some more fantastic images of Pinchbeck’s spooky narrated explore ‘em up.
Dear Esther, The Chinese Room.
By Jim Rossignol on February 11th, 2011.
Dan Pinchbeck of The Chinese Room has sent word that his spooky and emotive Half-Life 2 mod, Dear Esther, which is currently being rebuilt, again in the Source engine, will get a commercial release later this year. Pinchbeck’s transmission tells us that “The re-make features a completely new environment that pushes the Source engine into uncharted territory; a re-orchestrated soundtrack by composer Jessica Curry, new areas to explore and an expanded story.”
More on this soon, I say. And there are apparently details in this month’s PC Gamer UK.
Dear Esther, The Chinese Room.
