Beyond Eyes
Release Date: August 4, 2015
Adventure, TPP, indie games, experimental/artistic, exploration games, singleplayer
OpenCritic
Steam
An unusual adventure game by tiger & squid, and independent Dutch studio. The protagonist of Beyond Eyes is a ten-year-old girl named Rae who lost her sight in an accident while firing up fireworks. Ever since that day, she spends most of the time in the garden next to her house, accompanied by a cat named Nani. One day, the animal disappears, and Rae decides to leave the house for the first time in a long time to find her lost pet.
Beyond Eyes is an incredibly original adventure game for PC, PS4 and XONE in which we assume the role of a blind girl who uses her working senses to visualize the surrounding world. The title is the debut project of tiger & squid, a one-person Dutch studio. Despite the unsuccessful fundraises at Indiegogo, the developers managed to catch the interest of Team 17 Software, which has released several interesting productions such as Penarium or Sheltered as a part of their program of supporting independent game designers.
Plot
The protagonist is a ten-year-old girl named Rae who lost sight in an accident while firing up fireworks. Since then, the girl stays away from crowded and lively public places, spending most of her time in the garden next to her house where he feels safe in the company of her cat, Nani. One day, the animal disappears, and the worried and lonely Rae decides to leave the house for the first time in a long time to find her lost pet.
Mechanics
The gameplay consists in traversing a hostile and alien environment in search of traces of the lost cat. Since we control the blind girl, as you might guess, the mechanics quite significantly deviates from the established solutions of adventure games. The heroine has to skillfully use the incoming stimuli – mainly auditory ones – for the purposes of visualization of and orientation in the surrounding world. The gameplay premise harmonizes brilliantly with the production’s original visual layer that is full of outlined shapes, presented with blurry colors reminiscent of a watercolor painting, gradually emerging from an endless white.
Last updated on December 12, 2016
Videos and Screens
[1:15] Beyond Eyes E3 2015 - trailer
VideoGamer: 5 / 10 by Tom Orry
Beyond Eyes' story and experience come nowhere near to making up for the boredom delivered by the gameplay.
PC Gamer: 75 / 100 by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Over quickly and hardly exhilarating, but illuminating in a way games rarely bother to be.
God is a Geek: 5 / 10 by Nicola Ardron
Beyond Eyes most certainly is not a game for everyone. It's a noble attempt to show life with a disability through a clever mechanic, but sadly at times it forgets it is also a video game.
Beyond Eyes Summary
Platforms:
PC / Windows August 11, 2015
PlayStation 4 September 8, 2015
Xbox One August 4, 2015
Developer: tiger & squid
Publisher: Team17
Beyond Eyes System Requirements
PlayStation 4
Supports: PlayStation Network
Xbox One
Supports: Xbox Live