With hints of Captain Toad and Journey, Etherborn is the perfect family-friendly hangout game for all puzzle lovers.

Etherborn is the type of game you play if you’re with friends and want to have a casual puzzle-solving experience together. It has a simple concept, but a wicked learning curve and plenty of vertigo triggering moments.

Gravity is neither your friend nor your enemy as the world spins around you in this unique platformer. There’s room to grow, but what the brief Etherborn presents is a very pretty picture.

‘Etherborn’ review

Etherborn is a metaphysical-focused game that says a lot, but explains little. You play a nameless and faceless clear humanoid blob with the goal of finding the source of The Voice. The Voice sprinkles in some backstory elements about the dawn of humankind, with most of the story of this mysterious title remaining vague and ethereal.

Where Etherborn shines is in its level design. There aren’t many, but the levels are deceivingly difficult. Seeking the end of each labyrinth of sorts requires you to do a lot of backtracking, and even more dying. With unique gravity-bending puzzles that need to be seen to be believed, Etherborn proves its prowess in puzzle solving gaming setpieces.

The respawns are forgiving, but are bound to be frequent. Thankfully, the jumping physics feel natural, making the puzzle platforming just that much more appealing.

Starting off, you’re thrown into the world of Etherborn without much of a tutorial. It’s up to you to figure out how the world’s mechanics work, but thankfully, the basic controls and inventive level design lend themselves to player exploration and self-education.

Clever notes pop in every now again, such as tiny clusters of pillars that rise to block your path ala Harry Potter‘s Hedge Maze. I experienced a bit of frustration when I was left to trial-and-error my way through spawning different segments of a dungeon in the correct order. It felt like a cheapened way to extend gameplay, and was a rare sour moment in an otherwise flawless presentation.

The crystals that activate platform spawns are cleverly strewn about, and always leave you on your toes. If you see a crystal far off in the distance, chances are, you’re going to have to sing for your supper. It’s no easy feat to collect all of the crystals required to advance, making the meat of the game both enjoyable and incredibly satisfying.

Navigating the four gravitational planes of a map’s cube may leave you scratching your head, but if you remain diligent, you will find that one bend at an edge of the cube that allows you to traverse safely over to the other side of the map’s shape (hard edge lines maintain your current gravitational pull, sending you flying off into the ethos).

Searching for not only the crystals but also the rounded sides of the map is a fun task, and is one that often leaves you mindlessly wandering around the soft-colored alien landscape. It’s easy to get lost in Etherborn‘s short game time, with the lulling acupuncture office soundtrack sending you into a sense of security and peace.

Peace is quickly broken every time you misjudge an important jump, forcing you to slowly trot through all of the map once more to attempt the leap with renewed vigor. Etherborn reminds you to take a breath here, and to not worry about the time you’re spending during your short stay in this strange land of supernatural gravitational laws.

While it’s no Super Mario Galaxy, Etherborn does take a leaf from Captain Toad‘s book. Moving the camera around the 3D plane to puzzle solve feels great in Etherborn, with the game feeling more relaxing than Captain Toad for its lack of time limits and roaming enemies.

As platforming puzzle king Portal seems as though it has breathed its final breaths, it’s up to games like Etherborn to take the reigns on the sci-fi video game subgenre. There is still so much potential for Etherborn to grow into, as the maingame took me only three hours to complete.

I wasn’t disappointed by the stunted game time of Etherborn; rather, I was left impressed and proud. I was proud of myself for being able to make it through the game’s brain teaser levels, and I was proud of the game’s developers for delivering on an indie title worthy of the inevitable praise it will receive.

More Etherborn would be a treat, but if this small digital-only indie title is all that we see of the series, I’d consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to experience such a simple delight.

Etherborn is priced below $20, and is available to play on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Pick up this title to show your support for quality indie-made video games, and I promise you won’t regret it.