Beyond Eyes
| Beyond Eyes | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Tiger & Squid | ||
| Publisher | Team17 | ||
| Senior Developer | Sherida Halatoe | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
  August 4, 2015 Xbox One August 11, 2015 Microsoft Windows, OS X, SteamOS, Linux September 8, 2015 PlayStation 4 |
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| platform | Xbox One , Windows , OS X , Linux , PlayStation 4 | ||
| Game engine | Unity | ||
| genre | Adventure | ||
| Subject |
Fairy tale child with visual impairment |
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| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Gamepad , mouse & keyboard | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | Download | ||
| Age rating |
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Beyond Eyes is an adventure game by Tiger & Squid published by the British computer game manufacturer Team17 for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game consoles as well as for the Microsoft Windows , OS X and Linux operating systems .
action
The ten-year-old girl Rae goes blind after an accident with fireworks , which changes her life from then on. Sitting alone on a bench in the garden, she meets a cat with whom she befriends and whom she immediately names Nani. But when the animal's visits fail, Rae sets off alone to explore the area and look for the cat. In doing so, she feels her way step by step and tries to immerse the world around her in images of her imagination with her limited possibilities of perception.
Gameplay
The player controls the main character Rae from the third person perspective and can only move at a slow pace to search the surroundings. Due to the blindness of the child, only one picture is available in the player's field of vision in the form of a white screen . Only through the step-by-step exploration through touches and sounds as well as smells do the images emerge in the protagonist's head, which the player can visualize on the screen as a kind of painting like watercolor painting . However, the entire environment has to be felt to create a complete picture. It can happen that Rae can be deceived by her ideas and memories of noises and smells in the environment and misinterprets them through her impressions. Only at the last moment does she recognize reality and the threat that it poses and shrinks back in fear. The structure of Beyond Eyes is reminiscent of the download game The Unfinished Swan , published by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2012 , through the gradual visualization .
production
The Dutch game designer Sherida Halatoe worked on the six-chapter game for more than four years. During this time she met with visually impaired people to find out about their experiences with their blindness. She herself lived for several days with closed eyes to get an idea of it herself. Still, it wasn't their goal to create a blindness simulator. For the design of the game, she was inspired by video games such as Ico . She was particularly interested in the feeling of being responsible for the main character.
criticism
Mathias Oertel from the computer and video game magazine 4Players says that Beyond Eyes is an unusually narrated game in a beautiful watercolor style and praises the fact that the game world changes dynamically according to the perceptions of the main character. He also compares the way the perception of the player is dealt with and is of the opinion that Beyond Eyes literally becomes "almost the contemplative, beautiful counterpart to the terror of an Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem ". He draws the conclusion with a rating of 76% and wrote:
“A creative storytelling experiment with an interesting idea and a wonderful art design. Unfortunately, emotions and situational tension are neglected. "
Web links
- Beyond Eyes in Team 17 (English)
- Beyond Eyes Official Website
- Official website of Tiger & Squid
- Game test of Beyond Eyes at 4Players
- Beyond Eyes on Steam
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oliver Klatt: In “Beyond Eyes” you explore the world as a blind girl. In: wired.de. August 27, 2015, accessed September 14, 2015 .
- ↑ Mathias Oertel: Test: Beyond Eyes Conclusion. In: 4players.de. March 13, 2015, accessed September 1, 2015 .