Beyond Eyes E3 2015

Here we have another lovely ID@Xbox title, this is Beyond Eyes which is created with a beautifully soft water color graphics style. It's seriously a gorgeous game that gets created as you traverse a world while being blind in order to discover what exactly is out there. Playing as Rae, which is an eight year old girl that went blind during an accident you're going to have to re-discover a world lost to you. Once a child that liked to explore and play, she quickly became a shut-in after becoming blind. This all changes when she comes across a cat, this cat is an outlet for her explore once more and when the cat disappears she goes on a mission to find it. This is where the world opens up and you can explore out into it by just walking around. There's no real enemies in the sense, but really gameplay revolves around going towards things. Bad sounds make Rae uncomfortable though not everything is what it seems. While she does relate sounds with things that she remembers while having vision it doesn't hurt to go up to bad things as they may be good. This creates a neat sort of gameplay where new areas can open up or things can quickly become something else. In the demo there were scary crow sounds from one direction and the developer walked towards them to discover they were actually harmless chickens. Though this does work both ways and the little girl will remember bad things compared to good things which does affect later parts of the game. There are some puzzles though most involve coming up with new ways to interact with the world despite not having site in order to continue. Like moving past a cloudy haze of loud noises by clicking a crosswalk switch to create a path. That means the darkness was a street with cars on it, she just doesn't have that mental connection to visually create it.




The developer of course was walking us through the game and showing various aspects of play. Remember that exploration can yield both rewards and negative experiences. I did also noticed while switching menus that the game currently has seven levels and one prologue (might have been epilogue, it was a brief notice) level. Sounds are also dynamic in the world so if you have a headset that plays gameplay it'll be a much better experience than normally listening to it. The way it filters sound creates a 3D space which is fantastic. That's all I really got from the behind closed meeting with ID@Xbox, will also mention the title is to be published by Team17 and is set to come in the near future.

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