Beyond Eyes
Help a blind girl find her cat in the prettiest game at GDC.
The first thing I felt when I saw this was actually a pang of worry, because Beyond Eyes is precisely the sort of game that will inevitably have a certain type of below-theline blowhard querying whether it’s actually a game at all. I’ll get back to that.
You are Rae, a young girl traumatized by the accident that left her blind. Your best friend, a stray cat, is missing, and you have to venture into the world to look for it.
“The game is more about overcoming fears and facing problems head on,” says Sherida Halatoe, who began prototyping Beyond Eyes while studying game design at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, in the Netherlands. “It’s kind of a coming of age story.”
The idea began with its art style, which is absolutely arresting. Rae is a forlorn smudge in an unfinished watercolor. As you guide her through the world, foliage sprouts, flowers bloom, and objects are painted in once they’re close enough to touch or be heard. Because not everything arrives at the same speed, it’s a bit like watching stop motion footage from a nature documentary.
“I wanted to make the game so every screen could come from a story book,” Halatoe explains. “Because she’s been blind from a young age ...her memories of the world are influenced by how children perceive the world.” The world looks like a picture book because that’s how Rae remembers it.
There are implications to the art style beyond prettiness. When Rae hears the tinkle of water she initially assumes it to be a fountain, but as she gets closer the colors desaturate and it morphs into a sewer grate. What at first seems to be sheets drying on a clothesline turns out to be a more sinister scarecrow. These disappointments, and more immediate threats like a barking dog and a busy road to cross, have an instantly detrimental effect on Rae’s mood. Her head hangs and her shoulders hunch. Bright pastels are replaced with bleak smears.
Overcoming these obstacles is less about solving puzzles, though Rae can perform rudimentary interactions, than it is about overcoming her fear and pressing on. Encouragement is offered by the occasional sounds she intuits might be the cat, which appears for a few seconds, glimmering golden, before she loses it again.
Halatoe expects the game to last between two and four hours, depending on how thoroughly you plan to explore.
“When she starts out, [Rae] kind of feels that being blind is all that she is. And by progressing she learns about herself. I wanted to make a story about someone who might initially be thought of as a victim, but actually learns to manage herself and grows in the process a little bit.”
And why is it definitely a game? Because Beyond Eyes already seems worth playing.
What at first seems to be sheets drying on a clothesline turns out to be more sinister