Dear Esther

Last night I was visiting my family. I didn't know it but I was to have a truly astonishing experience. My nephew, Dan, showed me a Half Life 2 "mod" called Dear Esther. This is one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen, and I'm certain that in twenty or fifty years people will be using it as a boundary. Works will be defined as being before Dear Esther or after it.

Now, I know it's not the first piece of storytelling that uses a virtual world as its stage, and I know it's not the first time someone has done something compelling with a modification to an existing game engine (game-mod), but Dear Esther is nevertheless a landmark in the extraordinary effort lavished upon it and eerie atmosphere it creates. The lighting, the modelling, the audio, the poetic dialogue, the slightly unhinged spookiness of it -- this is something very, very special... unique.

Here is how good it is: Dear Esther actually makes me seriously consider installing MSWindows on a partition just so that I can interact with this amazing piece of art.

You owe it to yourself to witness this milestone in history. I am so lucky I have a game-playing nephew to bring it to my attention or I would have almost certainly missed it.

Here is the trailer. It almost conveys the desolate beauty of that world.