History VideoGame / DearEsther

* MindScrew: What makes it even harder to tell what happens is that the basic events of the story change depending on the playthrough. Even with such simple matters as how the narrator reached the island; sometimes he is a willing hermit, seeking solace, where in others he is a sailor who has been marooned. And at times, the line between the player character and the narrator blurs -- are you someone tracing the footsteps of that hermit, or are you rambling as you go on?

* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: Subtly done. In every new playthrough, some objects and elements will appear in different locations and bits of the narration will change. The biggest change from playthrough to playthrough is how Esther died. [[spoiler:In some tellings, the narrator himself was the drunk, and Paul an innocent bystander, making the narrator filled with self-loathing. In others, Paul was not intoxicated, and the narrator bemoans fate and the happenstance that led to it. In others again, Paul was intoxicated, and the narrator comes to terms with Esther's death. And in yet others, it is implied that Esther was pregnant when she died]].

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dear_esther.jpg]]

[[AC:For the proper reading experience, play [[https://youtu.be/rjMCqjDOvRQ?t=825 the game's soundtrack]] while reading on.]]

** There are twenty-one connections in the circuit diagram of the anti-lock brakes,

--> ''"The moon over the Sandford junction, headlights in your retinas. Donnelly drove a grey hatchback without a bottom, all the creatures of the tarmac rose to sing to him."'' [[note]]''"All manner of symbols crudely scrawled across the cliff face of my unrest. My life reduced to an electrical diagram. All my gulls have taken flight; they will no longer roost on these outcrops. The lure of the moon over the Sandford junction is too strong."''[[/note]]

* EpistolaryNovel: The {{narration}} consists of snippets of letters addressed to someone called Esther, voiced out by a male character as the player wanders around the island.

->''"If the subject matter is obscure, the writer's literary style is even more so, \\
it is not the text of a stable or trustworthy reporter."''

* RoomFullOfCrazy: Just what do the bizarre symbols all over the caves and rock faces mean? One of the tunnels in the caves is particularly dense with luminescent scrawlings, making it somewhat unnerving to walk through.

[[AC:For the proper reading experience, play [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjMCqjDOvRQ the game's soundtrack]] while reading on.]]

* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: Subtly done. In every new playthrough, some objects and elements will appear in different locations and bits of the narration will change. The biggest change from playthrough to playthrough is how Esther died. [[spoiler:In some tellings, the narrator himself was the drunk, and Paul an innocent bystander, making the narrator filled with self-loathing. In others, Paul was not intoxicated, and the narrator bemoans fate and the happenstance that led to it. In others again, Paul was intoxicated, and the narrator comes to terms with Esther's death]].