The manicured lawns in Etherborn are minimally sculptured. Their soil is thinly layered with patches of grass contained within grey slabs of concrete, and they stand in stark contrast to a backdrop of crumbling pillars and decrepit buildings. And like examining the self-contained scenes of a diorama, you`ll find yourself ruminating over these landscapes as you unravel the puzzle of how to traverse them. But while Etherborn`s minimalist beauty carries suggestions of loftier and more ambitious storytelling it`s instead hampered a dissonant narrative, and a brevity that makes it feel lacking.Like many platformers, Etherborn seems deceptively simple initially: just leapfrog your way towards the level`s finale while collecting crystalline orbs that unlock previously inaccessible areas. In fact, some of Etherborn`s geometric planes and architectural complexity very much harken back to Monument Valley, a title that famously plays on optical illusions and the mathematically-inspired art of MC Escher. What makes this puzzle game different is that its laws of gravity aren`t like our world`s. You can simply walk across any surface--even those perpendicular to your character--as long as there`s a curved edge that connects them. However, you`re still vulnerable to injuries and death; accidentally sliding off these landscapes and into the endless void below is a possibility.Scaling these lopsided grounds introduces another dimension and new, unforeseen challenges. Etherborn often manipulates your perspectives, challenging you to find the abstract solutions to its puzzles. There are occasions where I was left baffled, unable to move on, only to realize much later that I didn`t notice a few platforms I could jump on because they were turned onto their sides. At other times, you may even spend the bulk of a level on a horizontal wall and leaping over chasms within the same plane--a perspective that`s tough to get the hang of. It`s highly likely that you`ll slip through the crack ...
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