Games these days are trying to mirror life to make them more exciting and relatable. But while many prefer to stick with the most common themes such as racing, violence, sci-fi, and war, one game tries to tackle something health related: dementia.
Dementia affects more than 4 million Americans today, and a person develops the disease every 67 seconds. It is also one of the leading causes of death in the country with 1 in every 3 seniors dying from it.
As for the game, Ether One is making a buzz all around the gaming community not only for its strong visuals and sound effects but also for its story. It's a first-person game where a narrator leads you to the different parts of her memories while you're tasked to collect certain items and retell the story, the memories she may have lost, using these mementos.
Unlike other games with gaps to allow the characters to speak, you let the details you see on the screen, from the pictures on the walls to the documents you see inside the drawers, to come up with your own interpretation of what the patient's life was.
Players take on a role of an employee for a company known as Ether Institute of Telepathic Medicine, and the job is to recover memories that may have been lost due to dementia. The patient is Jean Thompson, 69. To guide you through her different memories, the institute then tries to recreate memories using the patient's brain scans.
Players can also select their preferred adventure. One, they can simply explore the story without solving certain puzzles. Two, they can go into adventure mode, where puzzles are involved, and they need to solve them to help the patient figure out his or her history.
The game also incorporates elements that are consistent throughout the different stages of the narrative such as pinwheels, which should be replayed or repaired to project memories, or red ribbons that allow you to move on.