So in my last update I asked for your questions regarding the Dear Esther Remake, and today I have been sifting through them and have answered some of the most common questions asked below:
Q: Can you make some tutorials to give us some insight into how you built your levels ?
A: Yes most certainly, just as soon as development on DE starts winding down, and I have a bit more free time, I plan on doing a number of tutorials detailing the various steps and techniques I followed to create the visuals for Dear Esther. Keep your eyes peeled for those in the coming months! In the meantime, I have a couple of posts on my blog which should give you an initial idea of how I have approached displacements in Source here and here
Q: Are you going to use the same narration/soundtrack as the original Dear Esther, or is it all going to be redone?
A: We’re working on a complete overhaul of Dear Esther’s soundtrack for the remake. Fans of the soundtrack will get treated to new versions of all the music (re-recorded with real instruments/orchestra) which we’ll also look at packaging up in high quality versions for iTunes download. In addition to this, we’re looking at breaking some of themes up into different variations to drop into the environment at different places and maybe even adding in some randomization here as well, so like the voice-overs, you get a slightly different take on events depending on your run-through. We’ll also be looking at enhancing the environment audio and SFX to compliment the new build.
Q: Where can I find the soundtrack playing in the trailers?
A: You can find the original soundtrack over here on ModDB!
Q: Will you be supporting different languages with this release?
A: Yes that is certainly the plan, I have already implemented subtitles into the game, and now it’s just a case of translating the text. Right now we have French, Italian and Spanish covered, but are still looking for volunteers to help us with other translations, if you wish to see DE subtitled into your language and think you can help, please let me know!
Q: Are you doing anything new in terms of the story, such as extending the story from the original or adding new voice work?
A: We’re hoping to get Nigel, our original voice actor, back in to supplement the existing voice-overs with some new audio cues (which means Dan is working on new bits of script), and also re-master the existing voice-overs. The plan is to reward more exploration of the island and offer some real incentives for wandering off the linear path. There are a couple of voice-overs which didn’t make it into the original that will hopefully be going back in which throw a different light on some of the events of the story (so think of it like a Director’s Cut!) On top of that there will be an extra visual layer of detail added, with each play through revealing unique details in the environment which expand upon the storyline.
Q: What kind of system do I need to run it?
A: A very modest one! My aim is to allow everyone to have to same experience on as broad a range of hardware as possible. Right now my benchmark is to run it at 30fps on my aging Dual core laptop with a Nvidia 9600M GPU at 1900×1080 at maximum settings. Right now it’s actually running at more like 40fps which is good, and on my Radeon 4800 I’m aiming to keep the fps above 100! Basically if you can run TF2 or Episode 2 you will have no problems running this!
Q: Release dates?!
A: difficult to put at date on it at the moment, but by the way things are going I’m estimating sometime early in 2011.
Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who’s been voting for Dear Esther in Moddb’s Mod of The Year Awards, it’s now in the top 100! Phase 2 is still ongoing so if you haven’t voted yet, and think it’s worthy…
Click here to vote for us for best upcoming MOTY!
Oh and as a thank you for your support, here are a few more early screenshots from the final level:
Congrats on going indie, I’ll be buying several copies. Also please update your blog!
Hello, Robert – you wrote in your post, where you announced that you were going to redo the Dear Esther mod, that you “[..] from this point onwards will be updating [your] blog weekly with [your] progress on the (re) development of Dear Esther.”
What happened to that? I know it is time consuming to post a whole post each week (I’ve tried to myself), but couldn’t you at least keep it monthly – so that we don’t have to die each time you wait just that little bit longer?
On behalf of both my older brother, our mutual friends, some of my friends and me, thanks.
From Mikkel.
How the hell haven’t you gotten hired by Valve yet? Damn This Looks Like the Cry Engine 2.
You mentioned that you’ll be releasing tutorials for how you went about doing the levels.
Whilst I’m eagerly anticipating what you will say/show regarding how you did the caves, I’m also curious if the various tweaks you and Jack have made to the source engine will also be explained or made available for others.
Things such as increasing the number of bounces allowed during vrad, the new grass swaying algorithms and the rest really have me intrigued.
um, not sure how to edit my post, but also wanted to add to the list the variable density in your fog in the above images as another thing that’s got my interest.
Hey, absulotly stunnig work. Also, I would be overjoyed to do a french translation, im perfectly fluent in both french and english.
Beautiful work, as always. I have a question though:
In the original, it was rather vague that the main character jumps from the radio tower. If you knew already, the hints were there, but the camera animations at the end of the game were far from clear on that point. Are you going to keep it the same? Or make it more clear by showing hands climbing, or more subtly, a more “jump”-like camera animation that then turns into the slow move out to sea?
I also second the question below: Will the strange signs and paintings on the walls be back after you finish the terrain work?
Yes I plan to have a much better tower climbing sequence, along with the fall. The symbols will be in, i just want to polish up the terrain and lock it down before doing so – Rob
I wish i would have your skills :O I can get those smooth hills, but when i make them a little more complex before the subdivision, some faces get deleted
But i think i could do a deccent dutch translation, altough i have dyslexia, i can still translate text 
So contact me if you’re interested 
@drakenation allready offered himself for the brazilian-portuguese translation, but if you want more than one person working on it, i’m in!
if you need a Dansih translations, i’m right here.
Wow. Absolutely wow and incredible. The screens look fantastic and are supposed to look like that on a rig which can run TF2 well? Dude, you’re way smarter than the guys @ Crytek.
I’m sure I can rumage up some swede or two for the text,
What about audio narration? I got some ties to some companies who have access to actors, and recording studios.[possible cost implied]
forgot to mention
STUNNING AND BEAUTIFUL
Hi there. If you would like a brazilian portuguese translation for the Dear Esther Remake, I’d love to work on it.
Beautiful! <3
(You've tagged it under The Willows, though.)
Beautiful, and incredibly impressive as always.
Are all the murals and graffiti yet to be added, or are they not going to be there (or not as prominent as before?) Seeing the entire cliff face covered with insane daubings was one of the “great “…what the hell?” moments of the original.
FAQ cover’s pretty much everything I was curious about. But I have one quick question if that’s okay. Did you ever decide on whether you’ll license the source engine and promote it as an indie title, or is it going to remain a MOD? If still a MOD, will I be able to donate?
Thanks,
Lewk
Hey, I would be able to make a german translation. If you’re interested, please contact me.