Okay, maybe its this way. No, I’ve tried that door. Is that what I’m looking for, a cup? Is it a cup? Is it that cup? Do I do something with the cup? But that doesn’t make any sense, why would a cup open a door?! Wait, what does that say again? Something open closing one door and opening another. Wait, is that literal notification rather than a proverb? No, no! Don’t tell me I’ve spent half an hour looking for a key when all I needed to do was close the other door to trigger some kind mechanised lock? *Click *Ugh! That is the culmination of “Ether One”. A journey into the very subconscious of psychological malady and dementia. Imagine if someone savaged Portal into a coma, internalized a projection of itself directly into a Joan G Robinson novel, then you get a very abstract interpretation of this game. You play in first-person perspective as an unspecified individual with ethereal physicality, as you saunter and shift like an apparition through consciousness without limbs or extremities to hinder you, even in assumed reality. Your tasked with entering the mind of a patient suffering with dementia to extract memories via a machine called the Ether. Once inside there is familiar imagery that possess some rehabilitating recognition for the instituted subject, which is achieved by restoring projectors that discharge cached symbolism, objects of some significance to the patient like an engagement ring or watch and unfurling the fragmented psychosis of the individual.

“Still a lot of work to do it seems.”

Of course infiltrating the splintered cerebral gland of introspective suggestion is conceivably eccentric, detracting the confirmations of tangible existence we know for significant moments that are personifications of mental fragility that is highly vulnerable. Clattering through the vacant vestiges of memories that have lapsed into figment is like strolling through a landscape painting. Your navigating through deserted lodgings, deprived of activity that is at first distracting to your jaunting proclivities. There’s an eerie glimmer of comprehension that lingers forlornly as you inspect residences for indications of clarity and exploring the flitted recesses of repressed human subconscious. The environments projected by the individuals reduced equilibrium are somewhat of an imitation of parochial communities and all the pageantry of communal society. You observe the residual livings of omitted residents, the blacksmiths hearth extinguished, post office retaining an absent queue, placards and billboards that profess all celebratory whimsy of upcoming May Day event, and it kind of feels like a distorted recollection of past events. The brain is a very succinct organ, collating relevant data, proficient in the way it stores these records and because of that there is an abstraction to human memory. It could be auditory, taste or more visual, stimulating long suppressed memories. You yourself only recant the integral snippets with auxiliary surroundings being largely indistinct, perhaps even vacuous. And you get that sense from exploration in Ether One.

“You will need to access 20 of these to restore the patients memory…..I think?”

This is a mind that facilitates the most abstract retentions into surprisingly cogent formulations. You’d expect things to be a little less concise, even though there are moments of erratic instability. There’s a fluidity to your movement that I didn’t anticipate too, reminding you that this generation of consoles are readily capable of such stable frame-rates. Of course you characters mobility is anything but fluid. Turning switches and valves is an exercise in patience, as you boldly attempt to coerce the inert navigational dot to participate in said interactions. But for a game of such restrained combative dexterity competency is negligible. Nothing has to be achieved with pace, just resolved as any obstacles are passive. Which is beneficial really, as your extrude much of your time cantering from room to room pondering the correct course, with suggestive environments consisting of tenuous exploration and repeated cushion flings, as you exhaust all possible time searching for a stupid, surreptitious stamp! Ether is incredibly frustrating. You’ll canvass areas with methodical precision, discovering notes and excerpts that denote cogent information for unlocking doors and general progression. But it can be an exercise in futility as you apply logical assertions to issues that require simplistic utilities. Your ultimate goal is to restore toppled projectors which of course means solving these fastidiously myopic puzzles. There are no subtle prompts that allude to a projectors reparation, just a series of riddles and subversive clues that require expansive deduction to determine an accurate solution, many of which are so vague and vestigial that you’ll inevitably become frustrated by appropriating the correct answer to conclude a rather simple exercise.

“There is a beautiful looking scenery, just as long as you don’t look too closely.”

Once the solutions have been extrapolated or your on the cusp of concluding a rapacious puzzle, your look back on it in either one of two ways; lament at just how simple it should have been or exclaim with chortled derogation at how you were supposed to know the answer?! With the exhumation of every cupboard, the inspection of every item, the surveying of newspapers that denote some horrible fate of the people in this anecdotal world, you can get confused as to where or what your supposed to be doing. You’ll be discovering differing items for various tasks, but due to the rigidity of your economised inventory–as you can only hold one item at any one time–your be replacing things back, forgetting where you placed them. You can whisk off them to the core which acts as a hub where items you’ve found can be stored for later on, but it isn’t really worth it. The are memory fragments that manifest as ribbons, that transmit a peculiar symphonic sound that indicates its proximity, which need to be discovered if you want to advance the story too.

“Ribbons will be scattered throughout areas that will give off an ambient sound when you get close.”

Ether really isn’t a casual game. You can’t be mentally lethargic when playing it as you need to be fully competent and have full awareness when deciphering the litany of cryptic puzzles. It contains an immersive ambiance that will spook you on occasions; you can hear whispered sounds of the past, the chiming of a bell or the bark of the dog despite the vacuous activity in the town, mines or industrial complex. The levels are recursive, but only if you haven’t discovered all the projectors so there really isn’t a lot of exploration to be done. Its resplendent definition is effusive and as a game it functions, but levity is seldom. It’s like playing an interactive crossword, just for more hours than you would with a standard vocabulary grid. If your smart and capable you’ll be emerged for hours. If, like myself, your lack the necessary “powers of deduction” then you may want to purchase a replacement controller, because you will need it after you’ve tossed your controller at the wall because of a stupid mechanised door!

Ether One is available for free for PlayStation Plus members right now.