QCF: Beyond Eyes

here’s an intriguing sense of irony that comes with a video game attempting to recreate the hindrances of blindness, with mechanics built around simulating the hardships and frustrations that come such an affliction—that shit is rough, and just thought of such a thing sends shivers down my spine.

Which leads us to the an indie title from the studio Tiger & Squid, called Beyond Eyes; a bold look at the routines and adversities of a blind ten year old girl named Rae, and the journey she makes to find her place in the world under the status quo of being forever blind.

The concept is as intriguing as it is committed, and it’s bound to shed some light (or lack of so to speak) on perspective that most would never think to empathize on—but that only carries something like this so far, and unfortunately, the endearment of Beyond Eyes doesn’t last long enough to warrant the trouble.

Ironically, one of the better, if not best quality, that Beyond Eyes has to offer is the graphic design of its visuals. The color scheme sports one of the most vibrant color schemes I’ve seen for a game of its fidelity, emanating a distinctive tone and shade to every little detail that’s portrayed—every motion edifies a sense of life into the graphic that’re just vivid, and stimulating to the eyes in the most pleasant of ways.

The charm from the animation and its appealing art style quickly dissipates after the first hour in though, and it’s a total bummer.

From the start, a majority of the screen will be empty, negative space of white, with only a small radius of what’s actually visible to see around Rae. Directing Rae is largely determined by what the player can see within the limited radius of vision that surrounds her, as it shifts, and moves in tandem with Rae and where she goes—sounds simple right.

In a sense it is; the dynamic that the mechanic is engineered in the right direction—It’s the execution of the whole thing that just feels a bit wrong, because it works too well.

While the intent of the limitations on what’s viewable on-screen is evidently clear, the mechanic’s delivery is more infuriatingly tedious than it is thought-provoking—you’ll spend every 5-10 seconds colliding into something that wasn’t previously visible, as it suddenly materializes within your path.

The criticism with the obstacle itself mind you; it’s with the fact that these sort of hindrances constantly happen throughout the play-through of Beyond Eyes—there’s no breathing room, or system of gradual progression around the challenges, just pure, utter, annoyance.

If that doesn’t get to you, the initial bouts of clumsy navigation through the cluttered stages as you struggle to find the path leading to the next exit will.

Players will need to be on the lookout for Rae’s cat Nani through the instances of audio clues or vague visual cues that point out the location of her intrepid little feline friend—while the process sounds like it’s straightforward, a lot of the time it isn’t—it’s just an exercise of frustration. Playing through the motions of Beyond Eyes gradually devolves into an endurance of irritating patience as becomes a trial to fumble onward in search for the four-legged checkpoint; and when it is straightforward, there’s no real sense of reward, it’s actually kind of boring.

So what if the interactive elements of Beyond Eyes are incredibly flawed, what about the story, the plight of this brave little girl and her determination to live on, in spite of all the new adversities that lay ahead of her? Well, it’s engrossing, and engaging to tell you the truth, especially near the end when things get really emotional.

However, the dynamics and gameplay in Beyond Eyes didn’t really do anything to expand upon the connection that the plot had with me—it honestly did the exact opposite, and got in the way of me being able to enjoy the narrative more than anything else.

The prospect of this endearing title, and its beautiful presentation held a great deal of potential, but the follow-through in Beyond Eyes is unfortunately awkward at its best, and insufferable at worst.

Who knows, maybe if the core mechanics were retooled to work through a VR scape with the use of one of the up and coming VR headsets then this intriguing concept could be salvaged into something that’s more enjoyable, until then, it’s nothing more than an interesting experiment that failed to live up to it’s potential.