When comparing Ether One vs The Magic Circle, the Slant community recommends The Magic Circle for most people. In the question“What are the best Exploration games on Steam?” The Magic Circle is ranked 8th while Ether One is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose The Magic Circle is:
There are many ways to play the game, whether that's finding the location of secrets while you're a ghost, or using your resources to scam your way into them while you're alive. Good example? There's a cave across a lava river. You could either make a flat rock fireproof, give it the ability to walk and take orders, jump on it and command it to take you to the other side. OR You can just kill yourself, walk over the river while you're dead, and find a hidden spawn point while in the cave. You find these keys that look important but there's nothing to do with them, along with an old recording log from a former beta tester. You can either be perceptive and find where you need to put the blocks after looking everywhere worth looking, OR You can just read the logs, listening to this tester complain that players don't look up and the puzzle is freakin' stupid and it needs to be erased. After taking the hint, you'll find where you put the keys: Directly above your head.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Fragmented story the player must figure out
The way the story is told matches it's overarching plot of dementia, so that the story is giving in pieces and not in order requiring the user to make the investment to piece it all together and come to their conclusion.
Pro Deeply layered
While there is little in the way of interaction, what is presented to the player is a deeply layered town with many areas to explore. It gives a sense of "realness" that makes for an experience much in the way art or music does, sometimes visceral sometimes eliciting past memories.
Pro Solid gameplay and puzzles with multiple solutions, and not just an interactive piece of art
There are many ways to play the game, whether that's finding the location of secrets while you're a ghost, or using your resources to scam your way into them while you're alive.
Good example? There's a cave across a lava river. You could either make a flat rock fireproof, give it the ability to walk and take orders, jump on it and command it to take you to the other side.
OR
You can just kill yourself, walk over the river while you're dead, and find a hidden spawn point while in the cave.
You find these keys that look important but there's nothing to do with them, along with an old recording log from a former beta tester.
You can either be perceptive and find where you need to put the blocks after looking everywhere worth looking,
OR
You can just read the logs, listening to this tester complain that players don't look up and the puzzle is freakin' stupid and it needs to be erased. After taking the hint, you'll find where you put the keys: Directly above your head.
Cons
Con Side quests are relatively hidden from the player
For those that go into the game blind there is little in the way of explanation that there are side quests hidden in the game that relate to certain objs=ects as one explores. This means that many players will miss a large portion of the title.