Score: 8 out of 10

Beyond Eyes is a game by Tiger & Squid and published by Team 17. It seems half the smaller games coming out now are published by Team 17. I digress.  Tiger & Squid is an one girl game studio founded by Sherida Halatoe, and according to the website, creates short, beautiful games to make people happy, sometimes a little sad and then happy again.

Beyond Eyes is about a little girl names Rae who goes blind from a fireworks accident.  After the accident she befriends a wondering cat whom she names Nani. When Winter came around Nani stopped by less and less. By the time Spring came, Nani didn’t come back. Rae decided to try to find her lost friend.

The gameplay is very simple. You only need to move and look around and occasionally press the “A” button to interact with things. There’s not much to interact, though. Since Rae is blind she feels and hears the things that are around to paint her surroundings in her mind. Because of this not much of the world is really shown. What Rae hears and thinks something is may not really be what it actually is. One instance early on Rae thinks she’s walking up to a fountain but it turn out it’s a drainage pipe. Yeah gross.

Like I said as you move around the world is painted into under your feet. The art is very beautiful and bright and colorful. When you run into things that scares Rae the world’s colors fade and the music becomes foreboding. The game is not a long game but any means. I finished the game in about 2 hours but I only earned 1 out of the 10 achievements so there was some things that I missed but I don’t think I miss very much. It was most likely I could have pressed A on something and didn’t.

Halatoe’s statement on the website, creates short, beautiful games to make people happy, sometimes a little sad and then happy again, could not have been more wrong. That’s what she set out to do and she did just that. The game is $14.99 on Xbox and Steam and I think that’s a bit much for a game at this length and what you actually do. If the game was $5 it would be perfect. If you need a break from those controller gripping, rage-inducing, river of blood games then this is a nice sweet change of pace.

*Game code supplied by publisher*

Written by: Stuart Pitchford Writer