Hello, my name is Carles, and I am the Lead Programmer at Altered Matter — the studio behind the game Etherborn. Today is a big moment for us, as we are finally releasing Etherborn to the world. Nearly four years of work has boiled down to this very moment. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time. In this post, I want to give you a bit of advice and some tips for our game. I hope that they will come in handy. But first, watch our launch trailer, which should give you some context about what Etherborn is about.
Etherborn is an exploration puzzle platformer set in a world where gravity behaves in a different way than ours. So my first bit of advice for you is to relax, unwind, and let yourself loose in this world. There is no timer chasing you to finish the level before it runs out, or enemies making your life difficult and trying to kill you. It’s only you and the level that’s in front of you. As you will notice, any area with a curve changes the direction of gravity’s pull. Explore those surfaces, as a simple gravity shift can make places that were once inaccessible become wide open. The world is a Rubik’s cube — play around with it and see where it will take you.
The next tip I have for you is so simple that it hurts. To access some parts of the levels, you will need to find orbs scattered around the environment and place them on specific switches. Once you do that, bridges, paths, and new structures will emerge, letting you move forward and discover what’s ahead. There might be times when you could feel a bit stuck trying to find that “one more orb” to progress. But remember — you can pick up orbs from switches you’ve already used and don’t need access to anymore. Sometimes, it’s the obvious things that we miss out on the most.
My last piece of advice is to not worry about being wrong and enjoy experimentation. What we wanted people to experience are those beautiful “Eureka!” moments when they play — that “OMG, I can’t believe it was this simple/now I got it!” feeling. If you are feeling stuck, don’t be afraid to veer off the path you already took, and try to bite the problem from a different angle so to speak. Etherborn is all about exploring the environments to understand how gravity will affect you and the path that you need to take. That eureka moment that you are looking for could be just a step, jump, or gravity change away!
I hope that you enjoyed this little write-up and that Etherborn has piqued your interest. Etherborn is now available at PlayStation Store, and we are absolutely over the moon just thinking about it. We hope that you might feel a little bit of that too. And if you want to ask me any questions about our game, don’t hesitate to do so in the comments below!
