It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussion (archive)Pre-order: Ether One(103 posts)(103 posts)
(103 posts)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
This is my favourite topic
Posted March 17, 2014
Human mind: the greatest puzzle of them all.

Ether One, a stylish and myst-ifying first-person perspective puzzle adventure in which you explore the mysterious realm existing in the depths of a human mind, is available 15% off for pre-orders on GOG.com. That's only $16.99 until Tuesday, March 25 when the game is scheduled for launch. Pre-order now, and you'll receive the upgrade to the Deluxe Edition (worth $14.99) for FREE.

[url=http://www.gog.com/game/ether_one][/url]Ether One is a first person adventure that deals with the fragility of the human mind. There are two paths in the world you can choose from. At it’s core is a story exploration path free from puzzles where you can unfold the story at your own pace. There is also a deeper, more adventurous path in which you can complete complex puzzles to restore life changing events of the patients history in order to help the validation of their life. As the developers put it: The aim of the parallel paths was to make Ether One accessible to a range of skilled players. The hope was that people would be able to enjoy playing the game and solving puzzles with parents or friends, as well as immersed in the game on your own with the lights off. From a young age we enjoyed the first person puzzle games that required you to write cryptic notes on spare pieces of paper to unravel mysteries. Ether One aims to bring back pen and paper puzzle solving, whilst still being accessible and optional for people not wanting to get stuck and frustrated on the harder puzzles."

Pre-order Ether One for only $16.99 for the best value for your money! You'll get instant access to all of the game's bonus content--including all of the Deluxes Edition goodness like the full high-quality soundtrack (MP3 and FLAC) or the comics. This fantastic offer lasts until Tuesday, March 25, at 10:59AM GMT, so don't miss out!
Posted March 18, 2014
So, no review or preview anywhere ?
Posted March 18, 2014
avatar
Telika: So, no review or preview anywhere ?
Not a preview, per se, but it sheds a bit more light on it:

http://indiegames.com/2012/11/trailer_ether_one_white_paper_.html
Posted March 18, 2014
avatar
adamhm: No matter what GOG does people will complain:

-Refuse the game. People ask the dev about releasing it here/complain about GOG rejecting it.
-Release the game with normal & deluxe editions. People complain about the extra content costing extra.
-Release the game, regular edition only. People complain about being unable to buy the deluxe edition here.
-Release the game, deluxe edition only. People complain about the cost and being unable to buy the regular edition here.
avatar
fronzelneekburm: I'll go against the flow here and say that I'm fine with them releasing the game with normal & deluxe editions.

Sure it sucks you have to pay extra for bonus content, but most of the more recent game soundtracks are sold seperately for around $10, so I don't see any possibility for gog to just give them away for free.
Indeed. Though I would prefer an option to buy the soundtrack alone if possible, but in the end I´m alright with GOG going the deluxe options.
Posted March 18, 2014
"Buy our product with absolutely no way to judge its quality!"

No.

As for the price, either it will go on sale for something reasonable, or I'll just have to live my life without playing Ether One. Hard, no doubt, but I've managed to do it for twenty-nine years already, and I think I can hang on a little longer.
Posted March 19, 2014
avatar
BadDecissions: "Buy our product with absolutely no way to judge its quality!"

No.

As for the price, either it will go on sale for something reasonable, or I'll just have to live my life without playing Ether One. Hard, no doubt, but I've managed to do it for twenty-nine years already, and I think I can hang on a little longer.
Exactly. Why would I buy a pig in a poke. The pictures look great, but that can easily deceive, as we know from so many games that looked great in the preview pictures that developers distributed to gaming journalists, but then turned out shite.

The only games I ever preordered were Legend of Grimrock and Broken Sword 5. In the first case, because the developers made sure that even before release a lot of info was publicly available, and that review copies were given to gaming journalists before release. And in the second case because I knew I HAD to play it, no matter what, and because it was cheap.

Neither case applies here. I have set a reminder in my calendar for the day before release. I will google for reviews on that day. If they exist by that time, and are good, I will use that last day to make a preorder. If not, I will wait for half a year until the game is sold at 50% off.
Posted March 19, 2014
high rated
So, due to a lucky set of circumstances, I was able to get my hands on the pre-order version of Ether One. In case you're still wondering if the bonus content is worth the extra $$$, allow Uncle Fronzel to help you make The Informed Choice™

Let's start off with the OST.

The sample soundtrack is literally that: a sample. Only two songs are included and they're not even full length.

Song#1 runs 1:33 on standard as opposed to 4:51 in the Deluxe version, song#2 has been shortened by 36 seconds to a runtime of 1:10 on the standard edition. A pretty cheap move, you might as well stick to 0:30 second previews on amazon.

The full length soundtrack clocks in at 45:57. This leads me to believe that someone plans to release the OST natively on vinyl. I mean, after all, we have these things called CDs now. You can store more than 70 minutes worth of music on one of those bad boys. And since there's now this "digital distribution"-thing going on, these kind of constricts are pretty much a thing of the past. So, unless those 45 minutes of music is all that was ever composed for the game (or they plan to release a Deluxe Deluxe OST some time down the road), why not include a more complete soundtrack?

Now, I don't know much about music, other than my taste in music is impeccably awesome and everyone who disagrees can go suck it. That being said, I thought that the Joe Hisaishi-like soundtrack sounds absolutely marvellous. This is definitely one of the better video game soundtracks out there and I would not at all be surprised if this wins a fuckton of awards.

Artworks:
2 png files
Deluxe edition: 3 png files
A friendly word of warning: 2 of the 3 files from the Deluxe are identical to the ones from the standard. If you buy Deluxe, you get ONE piece of bonus artwork, not 3!

Wallpapers:
Same game with the wallpapers: two are included in the standard, a third one (which looks like a pretty half-assed affair) is added in the deluxe. The two from the SE are screenshots from the game (they can be seen in the gog game card, actually, if only I could provide links to the exact images), the third one is the same motive that gog uses in this very announcement.

Concept art:
You'll recieve 11 files with the Deluxe, most of them extremely lo-res (We're talkin' 45 kb jpegs here, folks!)

Screenplays:
One 133kb Zip-folder. Don't let the file size deter you, this seems to be quite a solid offering. Included are six screenplays and a short readme file, warning you of spoilers. The screenplays consist of 12, 8, 53, 7, 26 and 16 pages respectively.

Comics:
Comic #1 (Nominal Dysphasia, 6 pages, 8 MBs) isn't so much a comic as it is a collage of weird imagery. Looks more like the inside sleeve of an industrial album than what you'd expect from your average graphic novel, but it's still interesting enough
Comic #2 is entitled "The Strange Tale Of Byron Spencer" (15 pages, 419 MBs). The cover is identical to the one single additional piece of artwork included in the Deluxe edition! I'm not much into comics, so I don't really want to pass my biased judgement on "The Strange Tale Of Byron Spencer".

In conclusion:
Are the $10 for getting the Deluxe Edition straight away justified? That pretty much depends on how much the OST sells for seperate from the game, as that's the only piece of bonus content that's of any real relevance. Let's see: £7 for the soundtrack on bandcamp = US$11,63. Yup, that means basically that buying the Deluxe Edition right away will be cheaper than buying the regular version and the OST seperately (plus you'll get some not-too-impressive bonus content thrown into the mix).
Is the bonus content worth the $15 upgrade? I was going to say no, considering the, frankly, quite shabby quality and quantity of bonus content). You could buy the soundtrack seperately on the composer's bandcamp site for US$11,63. You'll have to decide whether one wallpaper, one piece of artwork, 11 pieces of lo res concept art, 2 decent if short comics and a collection of screenplays are worth the extra $3,37.
Post edited March 19, 2014 by fronzelneekburm
Posted March 19, 2014
avatar
fronzelneekburm:
But... what about the game itself ?
Post edited March 19, 2014 by Telika
Posted March 19, 2014
avatar
fronzelneekburm:
avatar
Telika: But... what about the game itself ?
I'll let you know when it's out! The game itself will be released on March 25th, until then, you can only access the extra content.
Posted March 20, 2014
Well that's waiting for me on my account shelf now :) Great stuff.
Posted March 23, 2014
high rated
Hi guys,


I asked the developer for a build of the game to play over the weekend because I was genuinely curious for my own sake just what exactly Ether One is all about and I figured I'd share my impressions of the game. Please feel free to ask me any spoilerish questions in PM as I am not planning on giving too much away here in this post because this game truly DESERVES an unsullied playthrough as far as spoilers and other things of that nature go.

For those of you who played Myst and the like, I think you will find a lot to like here. If I were to describe Ether One in a single sentence it would be "Ether One is a small town version of Myst". Now, for some of us who are somewhat intimidated by Myst's more obtuse puzzles (I am including myself in this category :P ) have no fear as a majority of the puzzles are very logical and sometimes the answer is hidden in plain sight. There are one or two puzzles that I am having trouble with but I am going to take a whack at them one way or the other. Also, this part "still being accessible and optional for people not wanting to get stuck and frustrated on the harder puzzles." does NOT mean that the game will offer to autosolve the puzzle for you or show you with a bright neon arrow "HERE IS THE SECRET TO THIS PUZZLE!". From my own playthrough of the game, it means that you don't HAVE to solve every puzzle in order to get the gist of the game's story but, oh my God, you'll miss SO MUCH if you don't. This game begs to be explored.

(Here's Pete Bottomley's words on the accessibility portion of the game, shared by me with his express permission)

" The whole design is based around my mum for example being able to play the game. There shouldn't be any complex controlling, if people take the time to explore, they will get all the rules of the game, and there shouldn't be any barriers in terms of "oh I can't jump up there"..."

(end dev quote)

Another thing, the game's description states "Ether One aims to bring back pen and paper puzzle solving". Please, please take this part seriously. I went through most of the game not writing a single thing down (it is possible to go through the game and succeed this way) and I really wish I kept a notebook on hand as there are hidden story treasures throughout Pinwheel. If you like exploring and putting together a story via journals or logs or anything similar, then this is the game for you. Of course, logs, journals, and the like are not the only vehicles that drive the story as you will get to hear some excellent, in my most humble opinion, voice acting, some of it directed towards you, some of it a wisp of memory some of it...well, I don't want to reveal much. Suffice to say, there is a lot more than meets the eye in this game.

Another note regarding puzzles, again, from Pete:

"I've tried my best not to put red herrings in the game as I don't believe in them as a gameplay choice - there's always the chance that someone may interpret things different that someone else though which turns it into a red herring."

(end dev quote)

The above quote basically describes what I was doing the entire game as I was taking everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, not nailed down and going off to store in what's known in the game as The Case, a room where you can store various items from Pinwheel and notes, amongst other things. No, I don't want to say what those other things are but please trust me once you see it, it's AWESOME! So there you have it, folks, no red herrings in the game :D

Technically speaking, the game ran as smooth as butter for me. Loading times were not very long. I think I had 1 or 2 second loading times but this may vary from system to system. I also did not have a single crash, hiccup, scripting error or God knows what else. Every puzzle that I attempted and solved worked perfecty out of the box.

The game is as it stands fully playable and I finished it but I am not finished with it, if you get my drift.

If there's anything I missed or if you'd like to know more, please, please ask and I'll do what I can to best answer your questions without giving too many details about the game away :D
Posted March 24, 2014
Thanks for sharing your opinion about the game :)
I, for myself, preordered the game two days ago after watching a gameplay video / interview (with the developer) from last summer (just look for it on YT - and have in mind that the game was in development for over half a year since then).
Posted March 24, 2014
When does this game unlock for dld?
Posted March 30, 2014
I had pre-ordered this and so receieved the Deluxe edition. The game appears on my shelf, however the game-card says that I don't own it. Is this happening to everyone that pre-ordered?
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Pre-order: Ether One(103 posts)(103 posts)
(103 posts)