Esports Healthcare disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information. This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your doctor. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. The game was reviewed using a download code provided by Skybound Games. I closed my eyes, and got ready for whatever came next as the credits rolled.īefore Your Eyes will be released on April 8 on Windows PC. Once my story was over, once I understood how I really got there and got a better sense of the people who loved me into existence, I felt satisfied. If they deserve forgiveness, then so do I. I was put in a lot of hard situations, after all, but I did my best. I had regrets about some of my in-game decisions, but not many. The final version of my story felt human, and fair, even if Brynn’s father wasn’t fleshed out nearly as well as his mother. Here was where I came from, and who I was, described in a way that didn’t paper over anyone’s mistakes, while also not letting them off the hook for their decisions. So when Behind Your Eyes’ finale began, and I blinked the tears out of my real-world eyes as my version of Brynn’s story was told, the view also changed. One person’s redemption may be seen as their damnation, if you spin the details the right or wrong way when telling the story to someone else. Our stories, and how we frame them, decide what our lives are and how we feel about our own path through life. We can decide if that night alone by the lake with the neighbor made you best friends or romantic partners. But freeing because we can decide if our in-game mother pushed us into music with such fervor because she was still trying to please her father, or because she loved us and became our biggest cheerleader. Although some aspects of the story felt a little mawkish or emotionally manipulative, the thematic power of showing players how we’re nothing but the collection of stories we create is both crushing and freeing.Ĭrushing because it means the world is more powerful than us, and we are often at the whims of fate. The story I created was the story that felt right for me exploring what might have been feels like it would go against the spirit of the game’s final act. They have something to say here, and part of that message is delivered through the mechanics themselves.Īfter playing through the entire experience, I doubt I’ll play it again, even though there are choices to be made in the narrative that I suspect could lead to different outcomes. I suppose you could avert your eyes or try to mask a blink if you want to cheat, but my laptop’s camera did a good job of detecting when my eyes were open or closed, and it’s a lot more enjoyable to take the ride as designed by Before Your Eyes’ developers. No matter how much you want to stay in the memory of that one night you snuck out to look at the stars, at some point you are going to have to blink, and that memory will be taken away. Using the player’s own eyes for control is a clever way to add meaning to an action that amounts to a mouse click. There are a few other, smaller surprises in how the eye-tracking mechanic is used, but I don’t want to ruin them here. Later in the game, this mechanic gets flipped on its head when you have to keep your eyes closed and focus on someone’s voice to learn more about yourself. The blinking mechanic never let me forget that fact. We like to think we have some control over our lives, but we don’t get to choose how much time we have. I often wished I could go back to get the rest of the story, to spend a little more time in the good memories - which is exactly the point. Learning about another aspect of Brynn’s past, only to be forcibly removed from the memory because I lost myself and blinked, was always a shock. I often found myself struggling to keep my eyes open, despite how much they burned, just to spend a few extra seconds with someone or to listen in on more of a conversation. Losing track of your eyes, even due to getting wrapped up in the story, is always a bittersweet experience. Blink, and you’re removed from the memory and sent someplace else. as long you can keep yourself from blinking. You can stay in that moment as long as you’d like. Once the interactive portion of a moment is over, a metronome begins to tick back and forth at the bottom of the screen, even if characters are still talking. Here was where I came from, and who I wasīrynn’s tale is told mostly in flashback, for obvious reasons, and as I watched it play out, I could make some limited decisions by putting the cursor on one of the eyeball icons on the screen and blinking to make my selection.
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