Saving Ethera

Introduction
Saving Ethera is a project from the developer Carl Marajay. This game was developed for a game jam event and Carl only had four days’ time to create and complete Saving Ethera. I have kept this in consideration in writing this game review. It seems almost impossible for me to create a working game in four days! In Saving Ethera you play as a droid that needs to deactivate a crystal named the Poseidon, this Poseidon is destroying a planet.

You are the only one that can stop the Poseidon, this game features no battle system so how would you need to achieve this? The world is really small but packed with non-playable characters that fill the void. Your goal is to find twelve hidden notes and decode the message, this will be further explained in the gameplay section.

What did I think of Saving Ethera before playing?
This game was recommended to me by a friend of mine and I decided to check it out and contact the developer, Carl. He was very interested in me reviewing his game. I saw some pictures and learned you needed to decode the notes using Morse code. This seemed like a very cool concept and I prepared myself for decoding a lot of words in Morse code.

Luckily Carl mentioned you will get a sheet that lets you decode the notes and you won’t have to search for the decoding system online. I had no clue if I could still decode using the Morse code but I was eager to try it. The pictures I saw looked okay and not too bad. Eager to try out some gameplay I jumped into Saving Ethera.

Story
In Saving Ethera you are the only robot that can stop the war by deactivating the crystal called the Poseidon. After you have found all the notes and decoded them into one word you will be able to deactivate the crystal and stop the war.

Instead of leaving the planet in peace, you decide to find Rasmov and figure out why the Poseidon was activated and why the robots waged war against humans. After the robot finds the underground base he also finds Rasmov and asks him why he decided to wage war against the humans. He tells you that his creator has left him because he got self-aware and was able to dream. After the robot you control lets Rasmov listen to a message from his creator that passed away, Rasmov decides he was wrong. He initiates the self destruct mechanism and you will need to escape the base before the base blows up. After you have managed to escape the base you find all the people and animals that you have saved waiting for you to wish you a safe trip back to your home planet.

Gameplay
As I have mentioned before there is no battle system in this game so you are free to explore and walk around the world without interruption. I have asked Carl why he did not create any battles and he mentioned that it was impossible in four days to balance a good battle system. You will need to find twelve notes hidden in the world, there are many non-playable characters to interact with. I found out that a lot of the notes are usually in the proximity of some of the non-playable characters.

Your goal is to gather the twelve notes, once you have done this you will need to go outside the game into the game folder. Here you will find the twelve notes you found. You will also find a Morse code decoding file. There is also a file where you can insert your answers. You will need to decode the twelve notes to gather one word. When you have decoded the Morse code you will have found the word to deactivate the Poseidon. After you have deactivated the Poseidon you will need to find the evil robot called Rasmov to watch the ending cut scene. 

Sound and graphics
The graphics were fine for me but there were a few glitches here and there. I did think some of the sprites were used to much for the robots, maybe it would have been better to have different robot sprites. I barely heard any sound but I did hear the sound effects of your robot walking through the water pools. This got pretty annoying as you continued looking for the notes.
Carl created this game in four days, all in all, it is pretty amazing what he achieved in such a short time. If Carl would work a long time on one project I am sure that he can create a great game. You can see that Carl has a talent for creating a game by what he achieved in four days’ time.

What did I think of Saving Ethera after playing?
I did enjoy this game very much but in my opinion, it is very short. This is of course because Carl created in four days’ time. I did like the concept of the game very much. The only problem was that I was expecting to decode multiple lines of Morse code but sadly there was only one word. This disappointed me greatly but decoding this single word was very fun to do. I think Carl did a really good job of creating this game in the limited time he had for this challenge.

There were a few errors here and there and one game-breaking bug that wiped my save file which resulted in me having to restart the whole game. Luckily the game is very short and I got caught up to where I was pretty quick. If Carl ever decides to turn this into a big project or creates another game I am all in to play his new game!

 My personal rating of this game is 6.5

 Pros and cons

 Pros
– A game concept I have not encountered before.
– There are many non-playable characters to interact with.
– The developer, Carl, created this game in four days for the game jam event.
– The game is really fun even though it is short.

 Cons
– There is no battle system in Saving Ethera.
– The game is short and can be completed under an hour.
– There was only one word to decode.
– The final cutscene was a lot of reading and there were grammatical errors.

I liked this game and I think it is amazing what Carl achieved to do in only four days, I would not have been able to do this myself. It is really impressive. I recommend Saving Ethera for people who are looking for a unique puzzle game.

 I give this game a …drumroll…

 6.5

Saving Ethera was a very fresh take on a puzzle game.
Leave your thoughts about this game in the comment section.
You can buy the game here: https://theworldofcm.itch.io/saving-ethera
Thank you for reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!