But an hour into Before Your Eyes, I'd had trouble connecting with it. The trailer had all the hallmarks of Making Patrick Feel Things: parents, children, funerals, searing violins, weird talking animals piloting a boat in the afterlife. When I first saw a trailer for Before Your Eyes, I was already convinced this game was gonna gut me on an emotional level. How badly do you want to hear what your mom is saying? Is it important enough to pry your eyes open with your fingers? I never actually resorted to forcing my eyelids open, but early on, I was definitely avoiding blinking to keep a scene going and it was detracting from my enjoyment. Which is all to say that when that frickin' metronome appears, your eyes widen, and you become painfully aware how easy it is to blink when not actively resisting. At times, it's possible to sense a scene is coming to a conclusion and the metronome is approaching, but usually it quietly fades in, taking the player by surprise when they accidently let a blink slip. But the moment a metronome appears at the bottom of the screen, slowly ticking and tocking back and forth, the next blink will immediately prompt a snap transition to the next scene. Maybe it'll reveal a new line of dialogue, or part of the scene that was otherwise covered in darkness. When a scene opens, you can blink freely, and there are, occasionally, objects you can interact with that're triggered by actively blinking at them. And the game is serious about the snippet part, because scenes rarely last more than a minute, and come and go-often right in the middle of dialogue-literally in the blink of (your) eye. You've probably surmised, then, the game's title riffs on the phrase "life flashing before your eyes," because Before Your Eyes is about experiencing snippets of life from the perspective of this family's child, from birth to.well, whatever situation you seem to be stuck in now. Your life, he hopes, is interesting, but to find out, you need to show him what your life was like. Your soul has been plucked from obscurity by a strange boat captain, who claims that if he brings someone with an interesting life to a mysterious entity, he'll be rewarded. But everything starts off in a weirder place. When you select this option in the game, it notes you'll "miss out on some of what makes the game special" but "is still a completely viable way to experience the game." I'd echo that.īefore Your Eyes is a short story-no more than two hours-about the life of a family and the relationship between a mother, father, and a child. It should be noted it's possible to play where the blinks are replaced with mouse clicks. In these and other scenarios, the gimmick in question could, in theory, be removed and the game would be playable-but would it be lesser? Is the experience not just shaped but defined by the new form of interactivity?
It's exciting to see potential new ways of telling stories, and helps explain my early enthusiasm for motion controls on the Wii or early experiments with virtual reality. I adore games with gimmicks, and it's a term I use with affection.
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