Ether One is a 2014 first-person adventure game developed and self-published by White Paper Games, a Manchester-based studio. The gameplay is set within a virtual world, where players assume the role of a "Restorer", tasked with reconstructing the memories of a dementia patient. As the studio's debut title, Ether One focuses on exploration, puzzle-solving, and narrative, featuring themes centered around mental illness and memory retrieval.
The game features a non-linear exploration style, allowing players to explore the harbour town of Pinwheel and its surroundings at their own pace. The primary goal is to collect red ribbons tied to objects to unlock "core memories". Players solve puzzles scattered throughout the game, which become increasingly complex and are designed to reflect the symptoms of dementia. These challenges are optional, enabling players to focus on the narrative if they prefer. The plot of Ether One revolves around the Restorer's mission to delve into the mind of Jean Thompson, a 69-year-old woman diagnosed with dementia. As the Restorer explores Jean's memories, they gradually uncover the history of the town of Pinwheel, Jean's personal life, and a tragic mining accident. As the story progresses, it is revealed that the Restorer is actually Thomas, Jean's husband, who is attempting to cure his own dementia. The game took approximately three years to complete and was influenced by games such as Dear Esther and Myst. The team went through numerous gameplay and narrative iterations before settling on the final version. They incorporated their own personal experiences with family members into the game's depiction of mental illness.
Ether One was originally released for Microsoft Windows on 25 March 2014. It received generally favourable reviews, with critics praising its atmospheric and immersive experience. However, the narrative and puzzle mechanics received mixed feedback, with some reviewers finding the story fragmented and the puzzles cumbersome. The game's depiction of dementia was noted for its realism. A PlayStation 4 version was released on 5 May 2015, which rebuilt the entire game in Unreal Engine 4, allowing for graphical enhancements and additional language support. These improvements were later brought to the Windows version in a free Redux update on 28 October 2015.
Gameplay
Ether One is a first-person adventure game, with a focus on exploration. The player controls a "Restorer", an individual with the ability to project himself into the mind of someone suffering from mental illness, in the hopes of restoring their memories. Gradually, the player makes sense of the patient's chronology and reassembles the timeline of events, aided by mysterious artifacts that appear in the various memory simulations. After the game's premise is introduced, access to the harbour-side town of Pinwheel, the game's central location, is allowed to the player. The town features many buildings that the player is encouraged to explore in order to retrieve memories. Other explorable locations throughout the game include industrial mines and factories. The player's primary objective is to collect red bows tied to objects. Players can explore at their own pace, although to actually progress through the game, ten red ribbons must be located in each location. Accomplishing this unlocks a "core memory", which is then entered to take photographs of important objects from the client's past.
Movie projectors can also be found in various locations. A broken projector on the floor indicates a puzzle; once a puzzle has been solved, the memory it represents can be played back. Puzzles may involve physical tasks, such as completing a shipment of cider, while others are more mentally labouring in nature. One puzzle for example involves the lighting of a furnace, which requires the player to correctly adjust the switches, add a particular chemical, and time nearby clock rotations correctly to control its connected object. The puzzles become more difficult and obtuse throughout the game, simulating the chaos and difficulty of a person suffering from dementia. These puzzles are optional, and the player can therefore choose to ignore puzzles and focus on the story and locations if they desire. Previous areas can also be returned to at a later point, to fill in gaps in puzzles. The game can take up to around 20 hours to fully complete at a leisurely pace, although it can also be completed in less than five hours if the player chooses to ignore puzzles. The game is largely story-driven, and aside from some mild profanity, contains no questionable content, such as violence or sexual content. A tutorial narration feature can be optionally enabled.
Depiction of dementia Ether One prominently addresses the subject of dementia, with gameplay mechanics intentionally designed to reflect symptoms of the condition. Players have the ability to teleport to a hub area called "The Case", a virtual room where objects collected from memories can be stored. Many of these items are of little relevance to the game's plot, encouraging players to collect a diverse array of objects and underscoring the uncertainty of what may be significant. Some items are deliberately well-hidden, adding a layer of difficulty to their discovery. As players dictate the pace of their exploration, the narrative gradually becomes clearer with the uncovering of memories, notes, and phone recordings in each location. This narrative approach further immerses the player in the experience and fosters empathy for those affected by the condition.
Plot Ether One begins with an introduction to the Restorer, an employee at a futuristic memory-retrieval company known as the Ether Institute of Telepathic Medicine. The Restorer’s mission is to delve into the mind of Jean Thompson, a 69-year-old woman diagnosed with dementia, to recover her lost memories. The Institute has the capability to generate 3D simulations of damaged memories, and the Restorer must reconstruct them using the fragments that remain. The project is led by Dr. Phyllis Edmunds, who guides the Restorer through the memories. She warns that the project is on the verge of losing its funding and that Jean’s case will either secure or endanger the future of the Institute.
Once inside Jean’s mind, the Restorer navigates her childhood memories of Pinwheel, a seaside village in England that heavily relies on tin and iron mining. Throughout the journey, the Restorer learns about the village’s residents, a tragic mining accident that claimed the lives of many citizens, and Jean’s growing relationship with a boy named Thomas, whom she eventually marries. While rebuilding the memories, the Restorer encounters gem-like stones that represent the dementia they are trying to eliminate. They must destroy these stones using the “Artifact,” a lamp capable of erasing dementia from the mind.
As the process continues, the patient’s mind becomes increasingly unstable. It is revealed through a series of flashbacks and revelations that the Restorer is actually Thomas. It is also made known that he is not inside Jean’s mind but his own, attempting to cure himself of his dementia. Thomas had worked with Jean’s father in the mines, and although Thomas managed to escape the deadly collapse, the father did not, leaving Thomas filled with guilt. Thomas’s worsening condition and Jean’s subsequent passing led him to create a fantasy world. Their son, Jim, admitted him to a memory therapy clinic, where Dr. Edmunds worked to restore his memories and halt the progression of dementia. With her help, and with memories of Jean encouraging him, Thomas navigates through his traumatic childhood, where his mother left his alcoholic father (who later died in a home accident). He is able to free himself from his fantasy world, curing his dementia and making the project a success. Afterward, Thomas is released to Jim’s care and expresses gratitude to Dr. Edmunds for all her help.
Development Ether One was developed by a core team of six at White Paper Games, a studio based in Manchester. This was the studio's debut game. Several team members met at university and began collaborating on ideas that led to Ether One's conception in 2011; the studio was officially formed in 2012. The game was influenced by the studio's desire to create "rich, narrative experiences" and game designer Pete Bottomley's goal to craft a story in which he could personally invest. In the planning stages, the team prototyped "50 or 60" puzzles, discarding those that could not be integrated engagingly into the level design. The game also underwent numerous conceptual changes, starting as an action platformer before the team shifted focus to exploration. The narrative also evolved through several iterations, including a more science fiction-themed version.
The development process for Ether One was considered "quite long" for a first game. The team began development with a loan, which was used to hire a programmer experienced with Unreal Engine 3 and to prepare for a commercial release. A virtual reality version was initially planned using an early Oculus Rift development kit, but later scrapped. Each team member specialized in a unique discipline, which helped streamline development. Aware of their small size, the team decided not to pursue high fidelity in graphics, instead focusing on pragmatic visual choices for what appeared on-screen. During development, the prominence of a particular lighthouse location in the narrative increased, leading the team to enhance its visual presence in the game so that players could almost always see it in the distance. Nathaniel-Jorden Apostol composed the game's soundtrack, later made available for purchase on Bandcamp. His prior experience with experimental music informed a freeform approach to the game's composition, with each level featuring its own unique melody and instrumentation. Some voiceover audio was recorded on iPhones, requiring other audio in the same scene to be downgraded in quality to match.
Bottomley found it challenging to simultaneously establish the studio and develop Ether One. The team lacked experience with development best practices, such as source control, and relied on a pen drive to store the latest version of the game. They encountered limitations with Unreal Engine 3 tools, which necessitated creative problem-solving. To optimize performance for the original PlayStation 4 version, the team removed large sections of levels to address unoptimized assets. Additionally, the team initially lacked their own internet connection, relying on an Ethernet cable from an upstairs neighbor and uploading Steam builds from a corridor. Some of the development work was conducted remotely using services like Skype.
The game's ending was refined just several weeks before release, particularly its treatment of dementia. The game released for Windows on March 25, 2014. Following the game's release, the team took a break, later commenting that their "brains were fried" from years of continuous development. In a retrospective documentary for the game's tenth anniversary, Bottomley revealed that the title (originally Ether) was initially chosen for a planned three-part trilogy, a plan later abandoned when the team decided to combine the trilogy's content into one game. During the promotion of their next game, The Occupation, the company stated they "learnt a lot" from producing Ether One. The two games are set in the same universe.
Gameplay direction