Four Ether

As a nascent ethereal being ✨, you hear prayers echoing through the void, coming from worlds abandoned by their original deities. Taken with affection, you choose to incarnate in order to answer their calls and solve each of their problems. But moving a mortal body is far more difficult than simple things like turning back time, and you'll likely need to learn certain physical abilities to progress. The skills learned in one world might even be the key to saving another...

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About the game

• Made in 96h for the GMTK Game Jam 2025, on the theme "Loop" ↺
• Idea, integration and design by Exylas
  • Hi! I love game design, and even though I am, let's say, not excellent at programming, I love creating small concepts and trying to make the core idea work ^^
  • I am not a developer at all and only code for fun very occasionally, so this was a huge challenge and learning experience for me ; nonetheless it does mean the game isn't very balanced nor polished, and can be a bit confusing, sorry about that!
  • However! Even though one of the four worlds couldn't have its events included in time (the Oceanic one), the three others can be completed with each its own ending cutscene! I had a lot of fun creating a map generator, implemeting some unique skill and imagining a small story for each world, so I hope you'll have fun exploring them! =D

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Controls

• Mouse only

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In-game clarifications (if needed)

• The end goal is to find the winning condition hidden in each world, and its prerequisites, using the different currencies and skills to progress.
  • Warning notice: the Oceanic world cannot be finished (see Known bugs and issues below)
• Letters on the map are Curiosities. They trigger an event depending on the letter:
  • V → Village (main Food source)
  • T → Treasure (main Gold source)
  • C → Camp (main Influence source)
  • R → Ruins (main Relics source)
  • Other → Unique Curiosities
    • Some unique Curiosities share a letter with a common one
• [Small spoilers!] Here is a table listing what the different skills actually do, since their effects are not stated in-game:

  Event	Skill	Effect
  [The Path of the Brave]	Movement 1	-1 Endurance cost to cross ⛰️ terrain
  [Fools' Peak]	Movement 2	-1 Endurance cost to cross ⛰️ terrain
  The herborist	Gather (Food)	+1 Food when earning Food
  The lonely cottage	[Action] Cook	-2 Food → +1 Endurance
  The frozen temple	Perseverance	Once per incarnation: if you were to collapse, revive with 1/4 Endurance
  The navigator	Waymaker	Impassable tiles can now be crossed
  Refugee camp	Movement 1	-1 Endurance cost to cross 👻 terrain
  Silent graveyard	Movement 2	-1 Endurance cost to cross 👻 terrain
  The lost young girl	Gather (Influence)	+1 Influence when earning Influence
  The contact	[Action] Intel	-2 Influence → Reveal a random close tile ⚠️ Not working
  The general	Charisma	Reduces a random cost by 1 in events choices
  Curious hunter	Movement 1	-1 Endurance cost to cross 🌴 terrain
  The strange creature	Movement 2	-1 Endurance cost to cross 🌴 terrain
  The monolith	Gather (Relics)	+1 Relic when earning Relics
  The archaeologist's cabin	[Action] Study	-2 Relics → Reveal a random close Curiosity
  The explorer	Sharp eye	Hidden Curiosities are now seen

• Maps are generated randomly each time you launch the game. If a particular instance feels impossible to finish, you could reload the page to try with a different set of maps.

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Cheatcode

• If you really want to see all the different endings, but the game makes it too hard to progress, you can use the godMode() command in the console (right-click → Inspect → Console) to help you progress:
  • Reveals the current map
  • Gives you 30 of each resource
  • Raises Endurance cap to 100
• It used to unlock every skill too, but I nerfed that before submitting the game in order to still encourage players to explore the worlds, just without the boring resource/Endurance grind. ^^
• (Notice: will do nothing if used on the Ether hub, you must be in a world to activate it)

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Known bugs and issues

• Oceanic world is incomplete
  • Only one skill event has been implemented in the Oceanic world. However, this skill is necessary to unlock the winning condition in another one!
  • Although, after you found it, you can skip Oceanic in the rebirth cycle without missing anything new, sorry I couldn't finish it in time!

• Some unique Curiosities share the same letter as common ones
  • The first events created were the four common ones (village, treasure, camp, ruins), and the subsequent unique Curiosities were cloned from them. While changing the texts of the clones, I sometimes forgot to change the letter displayed on the map, meaning some unique events are indicated by a common event letter.

• [Transcendent Memory] skill locks events in their explored state
  • While remembering maps is useful, it might softlock the game as events already explored during past incarnations will no longer offer anything aside from their default explored state reward (+2 Endurance / +1 Currency depending on the event), starting when the Transcendent Memory skill is first acquired.
  • Only unlock this skill if you already have most of the in-world skills unlocked (see table above)

• Unattainable Navigator event
  • Although unlikely, there is a small chance that the Navigator unique event, that unlocks the skill allowing you to cross Impassable tiles, is locked behind Impassable tiles.
  • If that event is nowhere to be seen on the Oceanic world, you will have to restart the game to get a new map generation.

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Tools & tech

• Game made with vanilla JavaScript
• Visuals assets made with Adobe Illustrator