Before Your Eyes | PC Review
Immersive. Innovative. Game-changing. These are all words that are thrown around the release of pretty much every game release nowadays, but how many games can truly use all of these claims? Not many, but GoodbyeWorld Games’ title Before Your Eyes definitely can. This is a wholly original title that utilizes the unique mechanic of using your webcam to track the amount of times you blink to progress the story forward. Does it nail it in execution, though? I can safely say it does, to an astonishing degree.
In the Blink of an Eye
You are placed in the shoes of a young man named Benny who has recently passed away. You’re on a ferry heading towards the afterlife that is being captained by the appropriately named Ferryman who sends you back in time to relive all of your memories from childhood to the point you died. The catch? Each memory only lasts as long as you’re able to keep yourself from blinking. Once you blink, the narrative moves forward and will cut off any previous dialogue or scenes that you were watching. This might sound easily exploitable, but I was tremendously pleased to find that the game gives you small reprieves to glean important information before throwing a metronome onto the screen that alerts you to the fact your blinks are now being tracked.
Movement of Benny’s head is simple. Merely move your mouse to see the rest of the environment and to find certain elements and choices that you can influence with your blinking. You can draw doodles, select a narrative path, or interact with objects simply by blinking at them.
I also have to touch on how excellent the eye-tracking is. After a simple calibration at the start, the game easily picked up each of my eye movements. I only had a couple of instances where I had to blink twice to trigger an action, but each of these times I received a notification that alerted me that by pressing the spacebar I could recalibrate if needed. This is a handy feature, and I appreciated how quickly it noticed that it had failed to capture a movement. If you’d prefer to not use your eyes, you can play this game with just your mouse, but I highly recommend playing with your webcam turned on to fully immerse yourself in the story.
Life is Beautiful
Before Your Eyes is a meditative, moving story that really made me think about my mortality and the impact of my actions on my life long after the credits rolled. The simple yet charming visuals drew me in to Benny’s experience, and the voice acting and sound design is excellent. This isn’t a lengthy title at all, coming in at just seventy five minutes long. Your time may be shorter or longer depending on how often you blink, but I actually think this benefits from the short runtime. It really hammers home that life is short and passes in the blink of an eye (literally in this case) and that each moment matters.
My only small complaint, which wasn’t a major issue in the first place, was the fact that for a very brief period of time, my audio cut out. After it came back, the subtitles didn’t match up to the voice acting for several seconds. This was a one-time occurrence that I don’t believe will be a problem for most players.
The Last Memory
I fell head over heels for Before Your Eyes. I love the fact that you control the majority of the game through the blinking of your eyes, and it makes each second feel precious and fleeting. Only the hardest of hearts could fail to be moved by the emotional impact that this narrative packs, and the soothing, calm visuals and sounds only add to this experience. If you’re looking to go soul-searching, play this incredibly innovative game as soon as possible.
To hear me talk more about Before Your Eyes, be sure to listen to Episode 340 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 32:10 time stamp.
This review is based on a PC copy of Before Your Eyes provided by Heaven Media for coverage purposes. It is exclusive to that platform.
Before Your Eyes
$9.99
Pros
- Fantastic Story
- Unique Mechanics
- Great Voice Acting/Sound Design
- Charming Visuals
- An Appropriate Length
Cons
- A Small Audio Issue
