Esoteric Ebb

The game is presented in an isometric view with the player moving the cleric between points of interest, including non-player characters (NPCs) to initiate dialog. The cleric also engages with inner dialog by the voices of six attributes, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, and Charisma. These dialog trees can lead to skill checks, where the player rolls a 20-sided die to resolve, boosted by attributes and bonuses granted by equipment they have gained. Other factors of the games, such as spells and recovery, are derived from the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) rules.

The game takes place within a disc-shaped pocket dimension known as the Esoteric Coast, created approximately 5,000 years in the past by Jor, a powerful wizard who sought to create a perfect artificial universe. Jor ushered various creatures from different dimensions through portals into the Coast to populate it, but was eventually forced to close them when gods of other universes attempted to gain control over the Coast. The disc is separated into equally-sized slices known as the Eight Bands, with Jor's Ocean in its center. The Coast is marked by constant magical phenomena, or "esoteric events", that change the nature of reality in unpredictable ways, though these become more intense in unpopulated areas and closer to the center of the world.

Closer to the time the story takes place, the world is recovering from the Coast War, an immense magical conflict that claimed millions of lives. "Magocracy" (rule by magicians), once the dominant form of government, fell to ruin and became only a fringe faction.

Esoteric Ebb was developed by Swedish developer Christoffer Bodegård in Unity, with the dialogues being written in the open source scripting language Ink. He had been inspired by D&D campaigns he and his friends had played, putting together first a design document for his ideal RPG, and then setting out to actually develop it even though he knew the scope was large. After about four years he had completed enough to know his approach to exploration and social interactions were in place, but was struggling with combat, and decided to put the project down. About three months later, in 2019, Disco Elysium was released, which was an RPG that lacked combat but instead resolved conflicts through skill checks. Bodegård recognized this approach would fit with his concept, and spent about a month and a half playing Disco Elysium to research for his game, inspired by the approach to writing and its non-linear structure.

By 2022, Bodegård had prototypes that he felt had come together, and teased the game within Disco Elysium forums to get feedback, where while generally positive, cautioned him that it looked too similar to Disco Elysium. He crafted a demo, released in early 2024, to seek interest. A review of the demo by PC Gamer led to the game being picked up by Raw Fury, helping Bodegård to cover his living expenses and outsource freelance artists from a local incubator to help create the game's assets. That allowed Bodegård to focus on the writing and dialog, trying to make a humorous game that still focused on serious themes, such as the moral and legal implication of a "Charm Person" spell. Bodegård estimated that by the end of development, he had written over 1.25 million words for the game, 300,000 words by an early prototype, and the remaining in creating the full game.

Esoteric Ebb received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received "mighty" approval, being recommended by 100% of critics.