Imagine a game where you see almost nothing around you except a third person view of yourself holding an umbrella. Beyond eyes is just that a story of a young girl named Rae who is blind. This story heavy walking similar has a sad background for Rae how she lost her eyesight in a childhood accident according to IGN.
Game play is simple you start walking around and the world behind you disappears and the world in front of you is painted in hues of vibrant pink and purple. This can be aesthetically pleasing with the glowing white always surrounding you. The game forces you to map out and explore things that are simply a few feet in front of you.
According to IGN the background of how she lost her eyesight is quite important. Because you wouldn’t expect a blind person to see anything. But if you’ve seen it already you can imagine and visualize it in your head. This creates the unique handicap of knowing and remembering but not actually seeing. Something that took me a while to swallow while playing this game.
The point of the game is pretty much find the cat Nani. The story line information is listed in text on the screen to keep you going. It explains the situation which you are in and how you are feeling at the time. However this text is rare and you get most of the story through exploration. It is important to think of the game as an anime visual novels but with 3D graphics and without text.
You can almost watch her expressiveness and feel the things around her like a warm fuzzy cat, in the way someone who can see probably can never hope to. The fact that the game makers were able to capture this aspect is just breathtakingly beautiful. It really gives you a perspective of how it can be like to be blind, much like how Never Alone gives you some true aspects of what it’s like being an Inuit and their culture.
The game is available on Steam for PC or available on Xbox. While the pace of the game is slow the beauty and the realization about having a handicap makes it a captivating experience. Check out the trailer from Xbox below.