Thankfully, the developers of Before Your Eyes took pity on us completionists, and included an option to substitute blinks with mouse clicks. The internal struggle of trying to keep my eyes open sometimes made it difficult to concentrate on what was happening, and though I did my best to calibrate the game, in order to detect only the most exaggerated blinks, it would still recognise the occasional strained wince as I tried to ignore how much my eyes burned.Īs someone who routinely exhausts every possible dialogue option when given the chance, it pained me to accidentally cut off scenes still in progress. By the fourth or fifth time an ill-timed blink accidentally skipped me ahead while characters were still speaking, I quickly started getting annoyed, though I couldn’t tell whether it was with the game or myself. This underlying sense of volatility melds gameplay with the themes of its plot-coming to terms with our own mortality, being haunted by the fear that you somehow wasted your potential-in a truly unique way that, at times, is also frustrating as heck. By design, Before Your Eyes hinges upon the subconscious nature of blinking, using these largely involuntary movements to craft an atmosphere where you rarely ever feel entirely in control of what’s happening.
In practice, this blinking mechanic proves both frustrating and brilliant in turn.
And, as I quickly learned, that’s not very long at all. I can stay in the moment only for as long as I can keep my eyes open. Each time I finish navigating these interactive bits, a ticking metronome appears at the bottom of the screen, letting me know that the next time I blink, I’ll be kicked out of this memory and move on to the next one, regardless of whether the scene has finished playing out. I can also influence Ben’s life in limited ways by placing my cursor over an eye icon and blinking to select my decision. As I watch each flashback play out, interspersed within them are segments where I can interact with the environment using my cursor. Through his retelling, Benjamin’s life story literally becomes a series of “blink and you miss it” moments. Or else it’s a one-way ticket to seagull squalor. Fail to impress her, and you’re doomed to live out the rest of eternity as a seagull, endlessly squawking along with other rejects.Īs if these aren’t already enough pressure, the gatekeeper can see through lies in an instant, the ferryman warns, so the tale of your life must be a truthful one. The gatekeeper’s judgement determines Benjamin’s fate: entertain her with a grand tale about your life and how you crossed over to the other side, and you’re rewarded with a spot in her heavenly city. You play as Benjamin Brynn, a lost soul being ferried to the afterlife by a world-weary bipedal dog who fishes up other lost souls to present their stories before the gatekeeper.
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