Dear Esther

I've played a few pretentious games in my day, and while 'pretentious' has never been a turn-off for me, let me just get it out of the way right now. Dear Esther is the most pretentious game I've ever played. Like, to the point where it's debatable that it's even a game. There's no conflict, no gameplay, no secrets (that I'm aware of), just a lot of walking and a little bit of exploring. You start on a beach on an abandoned island late one afternoon, and you walk wherever you want. There's a somewhat well-worn path that guides you, and in the distance on the other end of the island you see a lighthouse. That looks interesting! So you walk there. And while you stumble upon a few interesting locales (a shipwreck, a long section of caves, an oxygen-deprived hallucination), there's nothing to interact with. The only signs that you're going the right way are a series of narrated letters that speak vaguely of friends of the main character and possibly a car crash involving them. The order in which the letters are read is random, and not every one will be read on every playthrough. Finally, you reach the lighthouse, and get an ending cinematic. Is the experience 'fun' in any way resembling any video game I've played? No. But did Dear Esther make me think? Well... also no. I've looked around online and a lot of people claim that playing through it had a profound effect on them. And hey, that's cool. But there's not much to be gained here, for me at least, that you couldn't get from watching an hour-long Let's Play on YouTube. At least the scenery is really pretty.