Indie developer The Chinese Room’s first major hit, Dear Esther, is swapping walking simulator for treading the boards as a stage play adaptation is in the works at a London theatre.
For more incredible indie games, look no further.
The game, which features unreliable narration in a randomised order over scenes of natural beauty in the Scottish islands of the Outer Hebrides, will somehow become a stage production on October 14 at the Milton Court Concert Hall.
Helping this transformation will be a live performance featuring the game’s BAFTA-winning composer Jessica Curry, and BAFTA-nominated narrator Oliver Dimsdale. The play’s description on the Barbican website suggests the game will be played and projected onto a screen while the live components add to the experience.
The play is coinciding with a console remaster of Dear Esther, the Landmark Edition, which will be free for PC owners of the 2012 original standalone version (of the 2009 Half-Life 2 mod) when it arrives in the coming months.
Far be it from me, a lowly newsman, to question art but I feel the medium through which Dear Esther was delivered provided much of its impact on my original playthrough four years ago. And just because something has flowing soliloquies, a moving story and beautiful musical accompaniments doesn’t automatically qualify it as stage fodder.
If you think otherwise I implore you to head down to the Milton on October 14 at 7:30pm and kick me in the shins until I learn my place.