Beyond eyes, but within reach
03 October 2014 | By Joe Donnelly
The past few years have been pretty good to the indie spectrum. Not that it’s gotten any easier making a living from pouring your heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears into what is ultimately a pet project or a wild idea. Crafted in whatever spare time you can muster under the dimly lit concrete walls of your mates’ dad’s garage. Maintaining a stringent diet of super noodles and caffeine. But the term ‘indie’ has at least cemented itself in the mainstream lexicon of late. This has meant in turn that the overall attitude towards indies has shifted, thus widening the scope as to how we actually define a ‘videogame’. Games like Tiger Squid’s Beyond Eyes push those boundaries further still. And I for one am glad of it.
Taking charge of Rae, a blind child in search of her runaway cat, the player must navigate a white space (of which there are set to be seven in total) whereby sound creates splashes of vibrant watercolour, thus guiding Rae in her pursuit. It sounds beautifully simple, mostly because it is.
“The first time I started making the game I wanted to do something with watercolour visuals, but it looks a little bit different now as it did to back then,” explains the game’s creator and developer Sherida Halatoe. “At one point I was trying to translate the input into something a little more direct as to what you see on screen and as a result, it became this sort of unpleasant horror game with lots of scratches and weird textures. I really couldn’t find anything that resembled a painting in such a way, so that kind of became the base of the game.”
Exploration games, or walking sims, or whichever synonym you prefer, have been at the epicentre of the aforementioned indie renaissance with games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, and Ether One, to name but a few, flying the flag for change against the backdrop of the at times obnoxious war-based first person shooters. In these games, uncovering beautifully rendered surroundings, teasing narrative from each and every nook and cranny makes up the gaming experience. Beyond Eyes is no different, however it could be argued that what it does, and consequently what it achieves, is an even greater feat considering the protagonist is void of sight in her expedition.
Instead of having players wander around following their own intuition, it’s up to the player to instill theirs upon Rae, guiding her towards a safe path. By pausing and holding down the RMB, Rae can focus her hearing, painting her immediate surrounds clearer still in a mash of beautiful reds and blues and greens. The most interesting part of your leadership comes from how you dictate Rae’s path, as she will object to being forced. Should you guide her tentatively, she’ll reciprocate with trust. Should you march her into the unknown, she’ll sometimes outright refuse to follow orders.
"This is a very crucial part to the way the game plays because the player’s actions can unlock certain areas,” says Halatoe. "The game responds by altering how the world is visualised because this is the pleasant version of the world, where everything is kind of nice, but if you were a very bad person to her - forcing Rae in directions where she doesn’t want to go, for example - then the colours become more threatening as she perceives the sounds around her. It’s a forgiving game, though. A lot of this game, especially because Rae is blind, is about trial and error. If the player doesn’t get it right the first time, then of course it is possible for them to redeem themself; helping Rae, getting her moving forward."
This becomes most important when Rae finds herself in compromising scenarios. When she senses danger - whislt crossing through a storm during my playthrough, for example - she visualises danger as clouds of swirling blackness, a harsh juxtaposition against the standard watercolour palette. Halatoe suggests that everyday environmental occurrences become more of a danger to Rae, but by listening to her surrounds she is able to cross such perilous landscapes with the guiding hand of the player.
What this mechanic also provides is a very interesting take on player choice and player agency, whereby a conscience relationship between the protagonist and the player must not only be observed, but also maintained. Although it’s not clear at this stage whether choosing to force Rae in certain directions will alter the overall story outcome, the player is still suddenly forced to consider their actions and the consequences these decisions may have, and is thus forced to engage with the hero and the environment in a truly unique way.
“I feel that people are so used to being stimulated in such a fast pace that they lose the connection around them and don’t take the time to discover things,” adds Halatoe. “Because this is such a slow paced game it kind of forces and encourages the player to take time to stare at things and explore things that are normally easily overlooked.”
After my brief time with Beyond Eyes, I was left with one outstanding thought: the gaming world needs more games like this.
Beyond Eyes is set for release in the first half of 2015.
Most Anticipated Feature: Seeing Rae and her navigator’s relationship unfold.
Taking charge of Rae, a blind child in search of her runaway cat, the player must navigate a white space (of which there are set to be seven in total) whereby sound creates splashes of vibrant watercolour, thus guiding Rae in her pursuit. It sounds beautifully simple, mostly because it is.
 |
| Watercolour was Sherida Halatoe’s colour palette from day one |
“The first time I started making the game I wanted to do something with watercolour visuals, but it looks a little bit different now as it did to back then,” explains the game’s creator and developer Sherida Halatoe. “At one point I was trying to translate the input into something a little more direct as to what you see on screen and as a result, it became this sort of unpleasant horror game with lots of scratches and weird textures. I really couldn’t find anything that resembled a painting in such a way, so that kind of became the base of the game.”
Exploration games, or walking sims, or whichever synonym you prefer, have been at the epicentre of the aforementioned indie renaissance with games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, and Ether One, to name but a few, flying the flag for change against the backdrop of the at times obnoxious war-based first person shooters. In these games, uncovering beautifully rendered surroundings, teasing narrative from each and every nook and cranny makes up the gaming experience. Beyond Eyes is no different, however it could be argued that what it does, and consequently what it achieves, is an even greater feat considering the protagonist is void of sight in her expedition.
Instead of having players wander around following their own intuition, it’s up to the player to instill theirs upon Rae, guiding her towards a safe path. By pausing and holding down the RMB, Rae can focus her hearing, painting her immediate surrounds clearer still in a mash of beautiful reds and blues and greens. The most interesting part of your leadership comes from how you dictate Rae’s path, as she will object to being forced. Should you guide her tentatively, she’ll reciprocate with trust. Should you march her into the unknown, she’ll sometimes outright refuse to follow orders.
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| ...Just take in the beauty |
"This is a very crucial part to the way the game plays because the player’s actions can unlock certain areas,” says Halatoe. "The game responds by altering how the world is visualised because this is the pleasant version of the world, where everything is kind of nice, but if you were a very bad person to her - forcing Rae in directions where she doesn’t want to go, for example - then the colours become more threatening as she perceives the sounds around her. It’s a forgiving game, though. A lot of this game, especially because Rae is blind, is about trial and error. If the player doesn’t get it right the first time, then of course it is possible for them to redeem themself; helping Rae, getting her moving forward."
This becomes most important when Rae finds herself in compromising scenarios. When she senses danger - whislt crossing through a storm during my playthrough, for example - she visualises danger as clouds of swirling blackness, a harsh juxtaposition against the standard watercolour palette. Halatoe suggests that everyday environmental occurrences become more of a danger to Rae, but by listening to her surrounds she is able to cross such perilous landscapes with the guiding hand of the player.
What this mechanic also provides is a very interesting take on player choice and player agency, whereby a conscience relationship between the protagonist and the player must not only be observed, but also maintained. Although it’s not clear at this stage whether choosing to force Rae in certain directions will alter the overall story outcome, the player is still suddenly forced to consider their actions and the consequences these decisions may have, and is thus forced to engage with the hero and the environment in a truly unique way.
 |
| Rae can interact with certain objects to uncover their position |
“I feel that people are so used to being stimulated in such a fast pace that they lose the connection around them and don’t take the time to discover things,” adds Halatoe. “Because this is such a slow paced game it kind of forces and encourages the player to take time to stare at things and explore things that are normally easily overlooked.”
After my brief time with Beyond Eyes, I was left with one outstanding thought: the gaming world needs more games like this.
Beyond Eyes is set for release in the first half of 2015.
Most Anticipated Feature: Seeing Rae and her navigator’s relationship unfold.
