Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone To The Rapture

[stvnorman]

I'm not even half way through, but have to say I'm with Chopper on this one. Nice setting with nostalgic attention to detail, but the story does nothing to engage me. Which makes the slow walking pace, even with the "gather speed" button pressed, all the more testing. I don't want to run necessarily, just walk a bit faster. Although I did play right through Grim Fandango last year without realising there was a run button, so there is hope for finishing this yet! I was pleased to get a free trophy for leaving the game idle while I finished my lunch the first time I loaded it though!

[Tleprie]

A few days ago I started up Everybody's Gone to the Rapture to do a 2nd play-through to refresh before the podcast. I got about five minutes in and had to stop. Why? I'm not quite sure yet.

The game is virtually nothing but story. A brilliantly told story, with rich characters whom all feel like real, flawed people. I was excited to give the game another go and was in the mood for a good story. Lack of variety, either in gameplay or story, has never stopped me from revisiting my favorites before.

The music is beautiful and haunting. While I've listened to the soundtrack many times outside of the game, it just doesn't have the same power without the visuals and characters. Maybe I wasn't prepared for everything that the music invokes.
The world and music complement each other to a tee. The abandoned village, left exactly as it was at the time of The Event, never feels completely safe. The lack of any physical character models removes a lot of the risk of dipping into the uncanny valley, as well as adds to the unsettling tone.

I had no issues with the traversal speed during my first play-through, but I think that it may be one of the reasons, whether I realized or not at the time, for my hesitancy to return. Moving slowly from beat to beat builds up tension and pushes players to take in the details of the world. On a second play-through I knew what I was in for. The story starts at around an eight on the tension scale, and never dips down much below that. The anticipation, knowing what was ahead of me, made the task of taking those first steps that much more daunting than blindly falling into it.

I'm still not sure I know exactly why I couldn't do it. There were no negative emotions, mostly an overwhelming excitement. Whatever the reason, Rapture is a game that I'd love to watch someone else play, but I don't know if I'll be able to go back to anytime soon.

[GoodShrewsbury]

TL;DR, Not sure what it was, but I'll be thinking about a number of moments, and deeper meanings, for years.

I was delighted when I saw this game on the upcoming podcast schedule as it had been in the top tier of my games-to-play/backlog ever since its announcement. As life does to many a game, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture kept getting pushed further into the periphery until one day it came to PS Plus for free. And still I hadn’t found the time to play it until last week. Now, when this game was announced, and that it would be the developer behind Dear Esther, I was quite intrigued. I finally got my first PC in March of 2013 and, being a giant graphics whore, quickly moved to play all the prettiest triple-A titles that I could that year. After months of hoovering up the latest and greatest, I grew a bit tired of big releases and began to explore the seedy underbelly of PC curios and indie titles. Contrary to what some of the crew thought, I was smitten with Dear Esther from the outset. I felt moving through that game world with its subtly unfolding, ambiguous narrative was quite an emotional and thought-provoking experience. So when screenshots and plot conjecture for EGTTR were first being released, I instantly shut out the deluge of information about the game. I tried my best to keep my palette clean of disseminating information that might lessen the experience in some way. I wanted the experience to be as close as possible to the one I’d had with Dear Esther, which was practically no prior knowledge at all.

After what’s been many months now, the podcast has given me the impetus to have a go with this one. Last week, I boot up my PS4 to, finally, see if the game was worth the personal restrictions I had imposed upon myself. First minutes with the game and I am properly captivated. Being introduced to Yaughton by “All the Earth” is lovely, and the game world that I have been transported to, and have started to make my way through, is viscerally grabbing with its lush visuals and ambient sound. However, the pace is feeling a bit labored and I’m reminded that the game was free. So, if it starts to drag and I happen to bounce off of it, it’s alright I didn’t pay for it. While I’m still near the start of the journey I come upon a residence, #3 Shepard’s Walk, with the door ajar. Naturally, my curiosity pushes me through the front door and as I pass over the threshold a voice behind me announces their arrival as well. I step aside and the silhouette of Father Jeremy Wheeler makes his way into the home and is calling out to Amanda, who he finds quietly weeping on the couch in the living room. As Father Jeremy sits on the couch beside Amanda to comfort her, I stand on the opposite side of the coffee table watching the exchange between the two distinct spirals of humanoid light. Through tear-soaked sobs and failing speech she explains to Jeremy that her children were feeling ill and then began having nose bleeds. Shortly thereafter she and her husband, Neil, also became afflicted, so the children and Neil went upstairs to rest hours ago but have yet to come back down. Amanda tells the Father that she is afraid of what she might find if she goes to wake them, so Father Jeremy offers to hold her hand while they both go and see what has become of Amanda’s family upstairs. As the two spirals of light start to ascend the staircase they begin to dissipate, and just before they are gone Father Jeremy reticently calls up to Neil. There is no response. Now, I’m standing by the threshold alone. With a lump in my throat I said, “Fuck it, I’m buying this on PC”. It was $10 in a Steam sale, and so worth it. I’ve played that conversation three times and it is so well done, it gets me each time.

These types of experiences, I believe, are wonderful additions to the video game medium. Whether you like them or not, or even consider them video games, they offer a unique brand of narrative that should have a place alongside any other vehicle of storytelling. My game time in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture was 9-10 hours, which was a playthrough and a half. I went back because I completely missed Lizzie’s portion on my first playthrough, which is, ironically, my favorite chapter. While there is very little in the way of gameplay, or mechanics, this game tells a haunting story that is well worth your 6-7 hours. I think I could sit down and discuss the experience I had in Yaughton with another player and we’d likely take away different aspects of the interwoven stories littered throughout this game. I admit, after one and a half playthroughs the ending wasn’t a “WOW” moment for me. But my mind still keeps coming back to the journey, trying to sort through the different situations and questions I was presented with.

Technically, the PC version is graphically stunning (the PS4 ain't shabby either). Environmental/level design was clever and grounded in a real sense of place. The OST, obviously, is special. The sound design rivals anything in a game world that I’ve heard through headphones. And the voice acting, for the most part, is top tier. But it’s the subtleties that kept me awed. I said there was no big “wow” moment for me, but there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of little “wow” moments. The town looks genuinely lived in; a frisbee on top of a shed, a half-smoked cigarette on a stack of pallets, blankets swaying in the breeze, or the way a passing cloud will momentarily block the sun. The world is barren but there is evidence of life everywhere, and The Chinese Room has meticulously crafted a place that I am both floored by its beauty and put in a ever-present state of unease. I’m bloviating and I haven’t even started on the story elements. I’ll just say that I really appreciate this type of narrative, and I personally think this game is a masterpiece of interpretive storytelling. Sure there is a somewhat finite end to this story, but even after finishing it I find myself with many questions. My mind runs through so many moments in the game; a seemingly inconsequential conversation, or the passing mention of someone disappearing, or something Kate said on the radio, or the butterfly symbolism, or why there are live birds flying around and chirping, or what the true nature of “the light” is, or what “the pattern” means, is the Laplace on the cement bags a reference to the French astronomer (of course it is), how long was it before the light took Kate, or Stephen. Man, so many questions, or maybe just interconnected minutiae, that at times are woven into the overarching narrative by a single strand. I think I’ll go back and play this game every year or two just to dredge up these questions again, or connect a couple of dots I didn’t before, because this game is nothing else if not thought-provoking. Since I’ve kept myself away from all information regarding this game, after this I’ll go see what others think in preparation for the podcast. I’ll just say that this isn’t the most fun you will have with a game but it will stay with you if you let it.

[AndrewBrown]

I was typing up my response yesterday and my browser crashed (never type long responses in the forum). I'm working on a new one now, hope to get it up before it's too late.

[AndrewBrown]

I went into Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture not knowing anything about it, which was the best approach I could have made. I knew it was a so-called “walking simulator,” so I knew what to expect, but it still managed to surprise me through thoughtful design and stellar production values.

My discovery of Rapture’s design was something of an accident. A the outset of Jeremy’s chapter, I saw his “echo” moving to the left. I’ve played enough videogames to know I was supposed to follow him, so naturally that’s exactly what I didn’t do. This resulted in Jeremy’s chapter taking me longer to finish than any other, but also an appreciation for the environment I may have missed if I had followed my guide.

Yaughton’s pub, “The Stars At Night,” is a good example. A sign hangs by the door: “Closed until further notice, we’ve got the flu, George & Helen Gables.” I’ll never meet these characters, but already I feel like I know something about them, as they direct their customers to a friendly competitor. But the door to the pub is unlocked, and letting myself inside, the pub doesn’t appear to be closed. Beer bottles are strewn over every tabletop, cigarettes still burn in the ashtrays, and a half-finished game of darts hangs on one wall. It’s as though everyone present suddenly vanished during their patronage of a pub that should have been closed. The setting is chronologically confused, as though the player character is viewing one setting from multiple points of time at once. As I am a linear creature, I am forced to experience and comprehend this alinearity in a linear fashion, lending a sense of the uncanny to the setting that spreads across Shropshire.

Rapture’s fantastic sound design also lends to this sense of chronological confusion. As I wander through Shropshire, I encounter strange, apparently sourceless sounds mixing with the ambient noise and choral soundtrack. As I follow the echos and learn more about the people they represent, the sources of these sounds present themselves. The best example that stands out to me is Frank, who lost his wife to a slow death and couldn’t face her final moment, choosing to spend it drowning his sorrows at “The Stars At Night.” When I wander too close to Frank’s echo, I can hear the beeping of his wife’s heart monitor, the memory of it still haunting whatever fragment of Frank is left wandering this world.

While I appreciate the clear, episodic nature of Rapture in spite of its apparent sandbox nature, I am unconvinced that each character is essential to the overall story. If Rapture is about The Pattern arriving on Earth and the character’s subsequent efforts to understand and deal with it, then every chapter but the last two is irrelevant. If it’s about the citizen’s of Shropshire final moments on Earth before being consumed by The Pattern, then Kate’s chapter is irrelevant to an aggressively disconcerting level, seemingly desperate to put a last-minute positive spin on what should have left alone as a terribly depressing and mysterious climax.

I am forced to resort to Isaac Asimov, who published an article titled “Social Science Fiction” in Modern Science Fiction that describes three types of Science Fiction stories: The Gadget Story, which is about an invention; The Adventure Story, where an invention is used as part of the resolution to some other problem; and The Social Story, which is about how the invention changes the world. For the purposes of Rapture, the “invention” is clearly The Pattern, so the story must be about the way it affects what we see of the world. Most meet their end—whatever that may mean—in ignorance, some seeking refuge in their faith, others in their loved ones, others desperate until the last minute to stop it, still others embracing the change and believing in the best. The disjointed, unfocused story is a necessary casualty of the achronological storytelling.

In the end, I think the main thrust of Rapture comes down to identifying what The Pattern is, a question which I feel is also intertwined into what the Player Character is. The Pattern is alien, investigating and exploring the world, spreading across it and consuming whatever it can. The characters do not understand it, and the player does not understand it; not enough information is provided in the story to give a definitive answer unless we take everything said in Kate’s chapter at face value. It is my belief that the Player Character itself is The Pattern, which exists outside of our understanding of time and tries to comprehend the world through a cacophony of light and sound, observing but unable to change, a childlike witness to a holocaust it instigates but cannot comprehend.

This videogame is the best sort of literature: Interpretable, but not definitive, each theory open to discussion and debate. Though I feel the early chapters could be better tied into the drama of Stephen and Kate’s fraught relationship and how that eventually leads to The Pattern’s arrival on Earth, in terms of world and sound design alone Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture definitely gets a big “recommended” from me.

[Stanshall]

I've followed the path to the train station which I thought would be the end of the game, but nothing has happened. Can someone please tell me how to end this game. I don't care about good endings, bad endings or following up on individual arcs. I just want an ending so I can put this game behind me. Cheers.

There are six chapters, if that helps you know how close you are to the end. I can't remember which chapter the train station is, though I remember it. It's a dead end, frankly, so turn around and look for the light.

[James]

I'll take that over the leisurely stroll I just spent two hours experiencing playing through Jeremy and Wendy. Gosh, and after I spent time formulating how the leisurely pace adds to the experience and everything. *grumble grumble*

The run speed is walking speed for any other game. For what it's worth, I think the leisurely pace is entirely intended to add to the experience (whether it does or not is, of course, in the eye of the beholder).

[James]

I've followed the path to the train station which I thought would be the end of the game, but nothing has happened. Can someone please tell me how to end this game. I don't care about good endings, bad endings or following up on individual arcs. I just want an ending so I can put this game behind me. Cheers.

The train station is a bit of a dead end. In the same area there's a little bunker, I don't really know how to describe it but it's in one of the industrial bits. You'll see the light leading you there, if I remember correctly.

Edit:
Haha, I was a bit late with that. Sorry!

[Stanshall]

This was my first walking simulator and I have very fond memories of its affectionate, detailed portrayal of an England I've only glimpsed while passing through. To that end, I loved soaking up the details and the atmosphere much more than I enjoyed stitching together its narrative. From the most prosaic details such as the petrol station font and the dreary living room furniture to the pastoral elegance of rustling trees and radiant blooms, I loved the world they built here.

I also enjoyed uncovering the fate of several characters, and I was moved by Kate's spiritually striking final monologue, but overall, the narrative presentation was too disjointed to fully appreciate on the first playthrough, and the gameplay is too dull to merit a replay. While it took me several playthroughs of Bloodborne (for example) to decipher its story, this was delivered through a mechanically exceptional game which was rewarding simply on those merits. Having attempted to return to 'Rapture' several times before giving up, including last night and this morning, I simply can't say the same. It is too boring to play more than once and therefore its approach works against its strengths. In my opinion, a more linear presentation of the events and characters would have resulted in a more emotionally engaging game.

I look forward to whatever The Chinese Room does next, but even after a very evocative first trip to Yaughton, I won't be going back.

[GoodShrewsbury]

Not sure if the podcast is done and dusted, but I'd like to submit a 3 word review here because I don't know how Twitter works.

The Event 6:07

I'll figure Twitter out one day, I promise.

[James]

Recording tonight, as luck would have it.

Thanks for the TWR, and don't hesitate to put them on the forum in the future - we usually check here too!

[GoodShrewsbury]

Recording tonight, as luck would have it.

Thanks for the TWR, and don't hesitate to put them on the forum in the future - we usually check here too!

Awesome. Thanks James.

[hazeredmist]

This wasn't as bad as I first thought on my first go, I think your mood is a huge factor in how much you get out of games like this. Basically I was in a good mood and feeling far too positive the first time, the second time I was feeling more melancholic and it helped a lot.

These 'walking simulators' are an interesting bunch, I don't think it was a patch on Gone Home - I found the pacing poor and the mechanics too slow and at times lacking direction. I get the whole go explore things yourself and see what happened angle, but there were times when I was following the light, times I was backtracking and getting bored, and other times where I felt hearing things in a weird order hurt the storytelling. I found the voice acting and characters in general quite jarring, which I guess was intended, but again it meant the game didn't endear itself to me as much as it could have. The conclusion didn't leave me enthralled and while the music direction in the latter stages certainly helped and gave the game a temporary glow for me, I have no desire to revisit it. Graphically it was fairly nice but the shocking framerate is unforgivable on a console as powerful as the PS4 with so little going on.

6 out of 10 for me.

[Alex79]

That's interesting, I didn't notice any issues with the frame rate at all. I played it mostly on remote play to Vita though, and I'm not sure if that's locks the frame rate to something lower than the PS4?

EDIT: If you're talking about Rapture, that is, and not Dear Esther. I might grab that as it's still in the Jan sale for about three quid. Would people say Dear Esther is worth playing, given I loved Gone Home and Rapture (although really didn't like Firewatch).

[hazeredmist]

That's interesting, I didn't notice any issues with the frame rate at all. I played it mostly on remote play to Vita though, and I'm not sure if that's locks the frame rate to something lower than the PS4?

EDIT: If you're talking about Rapture, that is, and not Dear Esther. I might grab that as it's still in the Jan sale for about three quid. Would people say Dear Esther is worth playing, given I loved Gone Home and Rapture (although really didn't like Firewatch).

Yeah I'm on about Rapture, it was really quite poor a lot of the time with drops and stutters, it's been mentioned by others too (not sure about here though). I don't give the game a pass because I didn't think it was that great, whereas something like The Wolf Among Us - which has far far worse framerate and other graphical/engine issues - I'm gonna let it slide.

Dear Esther I tried to play on PC but didn't get on with it particularly well, but I did really enjoy Gone Home and finished that one in a single sitting. I've got Virginia to play next after picking that one up, the key thing I'm going to ensure is making sure I' in the mood. If I ain't, Steep is going on

[Alex79]

Ha as soon as I'd posted that I went and bought Dear Esther. £3.29 and only two hours long tops, seemed a bit stupid to sit about wondering if it was any good when I could find out for peanuts.

[hazeredmist]

Was this on PS4? I might actually give it another go... I own it on Steam but PC gaming is just not where I'm at right now.

[Alex79]

Yeah, PS4.

[ratsoalbion]

Ha ha, Sunday!

[hazeredmist]

Aye. If C&R are Radio 4, that 'certain podcast' are Dingo & The Baby





I'm pretty excited about the Rapture show now I've played it!