Explore and conquer distant islands to expand your colony in this vast open world. Collect resources to craft weapons and buildings for your base.

Etherium is a turn-based game, so time only passes when your player moves. To move, use the WASD keys or the ARROW keys, but note that your movements will be at an angle.
Resources are scattered throughout the world and can be picked up using the PICK UP button on the screen. Once picked up, it will appear at the bottom in your inventory. To drop a resource on the ground, click on its icon in the inventory.
You can also place resources in certain patterns to craft special items. These patterns can be viewed at any time from the recipe book on the right side of the screen. If the player is crafting a building, you must click and hold on the completed pattern to finish construction.
Players can also leave their home island to explore enemy territory. To attack an enemy, simply move in the direction the enemy is in (once the enemy is in range). Once all the enemies on the island have been killed, the island will move in and connect to the player's home island.
The player dies once the health bar at the top depletes completely. This bar can be refilled using any green resource, but note that green resource is consumed each turn as food. Once the player's green resource reserves run out, each turn will take a small amount of health.

After getting frustrated with multiplayer altogether, Jack switched projects to Etherium in mid-September, which was originally designed to be the complete opposite of Sawyer's project Imperium. Progress was fast in its early stages, although homework and various other delays quickly slowed the pace. By the end of winter break, the game was basically dead, and Jack had moved on to a remake of Asteroid Escape. The art was also never finished, which explains the lackluster UI.

• The idea that Etherium was the opposite of Imperium was arguably one of its biggest early selling points. Imperium was multiplayer, while Etherium was singleplayer. Imperium was real-time (originally), while Etherium was turn-based. Imperium had several artists and a detailed art style, while Etherium had one artist and a simplistic art style. Even the name was intended to be a parody of Imperium.
• An alternate possible name for Etherium was 'Intheorium' (In-theory-um).
• Originally, civilized islands would also flatten out and turn brown. This was changed to make the home base island look more interesting
• For some reason, the player's form of transportation is called a bus.
• The game was going to have particles so that the player would have a frame of reference when things moved, but this was never added.
• One of the most interesting (and arguably most frustrating) features of Etherium is its saving system. The game saves buildings states, player stats, and island data every time a significant update occurs. The system was largely based off of level saving system from Game Creator.
• Just like Project 17 before it, the entire game world is procedurally generated.
• There are actually several completed features that were not included in the final build. One was teleporter buildings, which allowed the player to travel from one tile to another instantly. The other was rifts, which would slowly form and eventually break off any civilized islands if the player was not careful.
• Most of the game's art was added in an event late in production known as 'The Great Equalizer' - so named because it was intended to finally balance the gameplay.
• A surprising amount of the gameplay paralleled topics from US History. The idea of exploring and claiming enemy territory somewhat resembled the Dual-E policy of colonial America, and the fact that extracting resources eventually ruins the soil and forces the player to expand reflects the dilemma tobacco farmers faced in the Old South.

Date

• Change

Date

• Change

Creators: Jack Southard, Nathan Jew

Format: Unity WebGL (New)

Dimensions: 1136x640

Completion: Demo