Abstract
This paper reflects on the design and production of an multimodal, environmental storytelling experiment constructed in the first-person game engine Source. Rather than being based around the resolution of conflicts and acheiving goals, Dear Esther presents a sparse environment with no embedded agents, relying purely on the player’s engagement with and interpretation of a narrative delivered through semi-randomised audio fragments. Dear Esther was released for free download via a number of modding sites in June and this paper reflects on the experience of building and the response by gamers.
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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Pinchbeck, D. (2008). Dear Esther: An Interactive Ghost Story Built Using the Source Engine. In: Spierling, U., Szilas, N. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5334. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89454-4_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89454-4_9
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