Dear Esther

Gone Home and Dear Esther are similar yet different in many ways. Both games force you to draw conclusions of what happened where the player plays as the narrator, hearing or reading stories about others to create some image. Dear Esther seems to be more literature to me. It seemed to be more story telling than even a game actually. Players just explored the island and excerpts of the narrator’s thoughts and letters came up. There did not seem to be an objective really. However, with Gone Home the player had to uncover and discover parts of the narrator’s story. Gone Home was a lot more interactive than Dear Esther. Gone Home would be more historical the literary, since players had to uncover many things, draw conclusions, and several historical references were also made.  I do agree with Richard Bell’s distinction about the two games as literature and history. Honestly though, I do not see Dear Esther even as a game. Both games gave a gloomy and depressing vibe when first playing the game. However, I do not believe Gone Home ended sad, but Dear Esther continued to be haunting even till the end.