![]() In Before Your Eyes, you take on the role of Benjamin Brynn as he boards a boat to the afterlife, captained by The Ferryman. But above all else it is about what is important during the short window of time that we have here on Earth. It is a story about life, about love, about failure, and acceptance. Some of these stories are heartbreaking, some are hopeful, and some are tense – yet Before Your Eyes happens to be all those and so much more. I do believe the lines between those two definitions are getting blurred more frequently lately, especially with the advent of VR and so-called “walking sims.” So, I don’t mean that statement as a complaint in fact, one of my favorite aspects of gaming now compared to when I was a child is the creative uses of the medium to tell stories. Being able to notice the patterns, themes and Easter eggs on your own feels a lot more rewarding in a short-form game like this that is entirely centered around its unique mechanic rather than a slow burn that might tire you out sooner than later.Before Your Eyes is a hard game to review as it is more of an interactive experience than a video game, at least when judged by the standards normally attributed to video games. It honestly is the perfect length for a story of this nature, and I can easily encourage anyone to pick it up to play instead of watching a walkthrough or anything similar. While the mechanics might have been cool for a longer game of a similar nature, Before Your Eyes uses the eye tracking mechanic in a way where it’s not gimmicky, and the game tends to be over before you’re even tired of blinking to progress the story. That aside, don’t allow that to deter you. Before Your Eyes is short, maybe about two hours long give or take if you’re going for 100% completion. I wasn’t expecting to take such a deep dive into this story, but I absolutely felt compelled to keep playing it after every major story beat. While some interactable objects don’t really have a point, they feed into the immersion nicely, offering a small break between more intense story beats.īefore Your Eyes is a game I can say very pleasantly surprised me. Through my playthrough I found many repeating themes and fun ways to interact with my environment. Realizing you have limited time to look at an environment, there stems an urgency to look around and make sure you’re not missing any interactable objects and really observe what’s going on in the background. The use of the blinking mechanic really makes you want to keep your eyes open, as weird as that sounds. Everything in the game builds onto itself and brings life to this story in a way that surprises me even to this very moment. While the characters might not be hyper-realistic and the environments might not be entirely modeled, this is all done for a thematic reason. ![]() That true, raw emotion is what makes a piece of art. Portions that take that away or force you to witness something far from the norm of where the story seemed like it was taking you feel unsettling to the core. This dichotomy is where Before Your Eyes truly shines, the interactivity and color versus the absence of color and movement. This makes it so that nothing is ever boring, but also allows less colorful parts of the game to feel much more impactful. ![]() While there might not be fishing minigames or any side quests, the story and exposition are enough to warrant at least a second playthrough to see what else there is.īefore Your Eyes reminds me a lot of Tilt Brush art, with everything looking very stylized in 3D with proper, deep shading and lots of vibrant color. A lot of the interactions not only build on the characters but have impacts that are felt later in the game. When there is an opportunity to interact with something, by all means make the effort. The best way to play this game is almost like watching a movie, mostly observing as much as possible. It felt like the entire story was tailored for it, even down to the run-on dialogue that happens when you keep your eyes open for too long. ![]() Even though it sounds strange, the eye tracking mechanic makes this a game you should play without spoiling yourself first. Even with just my webcam, going through the calibration a few times was more than enough, and I was able to play through the entire game without issue, blinking only when I wanted to. This alarmed me at first, seeing how I don’t have a dedicated eye-tracker and only a basic webcam. Through blinking and mouse movement, you navigate through the entire game. The game uses a webcam to track the player’s eye motion to tell when they blink, and that blink is what progresses the player through levels and allows them to interact with certain objects. The entire game is controlled by blinking. Before Your Eyes has a very strange playstyle that is, frankly, perfectly fitting for the game.
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