Dear Esther Free Write

Gone Home and Dear Esther are both video games used as a way to study history. In Gone Home you enter a house as Kaitlin, the eldest sister in her family, and begin to discover different things about her family. Through finding diary entries and various other remainings in the now vacant home, you begin to unpack a lot of information about the family and their past.

Similarly, in Dear Esther, the player is placed on a desolate island instead of a home. The player wonders the island discovering past inhabitants of the island, and also a bit of a personal history of the narrator. Through the game you develope a mini history lesson of the island.

Both of these games teach you something about history quite effectively by placing the player in someone else’s shoes. I’ve learned that video games do a better job than most modes of art or literature at teaching empathy.