Not all autumn fright adventure needs to scare players. Including well-known tales for example Scooby-Doo to charming series including Over the Garden Wall, plenty of spooky-season titles offer entertainment without requiring raising your heart rate. There’s also, a growing library of ghostly-adorable games with autumn atmosphere, yet without the sleep-with-the-lights-on intensity of fear. Gloomy Eyes was released in recent months, and serves as an excellent cozy option to the truly terrifying games of this year.
A Unique Single-Player Cooperative Journey
Labeled as a single-player cooperative puzzle game, Gloomy Eyes unites a living-impaired child known as Gloomy and a human girl known as Nena as they start an quest to restore sunlight to their shadowy realm. They look resembles stylized dolls blended with the characters from a animated feature. Their fair-toned and heavy-lidded appearance draws inspiration from the visual style of Tim Burton’s films, and the story is a archetypal all-ages tale. The duo builds an unbreakable connection over the duration of the game’s numerous levels as Nena tries to prove to her clerical relative that, look, perhaps living-impaired beings aren’t half bad.
Innovative Puzzle Mechanics
This unique label comes about from the game’s world-based challenges. When Gloomy and Nena meet, players alternate amidst the recent allies to solve puzzles and move forward through the areas. Since he's not alive, Gloomy cannot pass through the brightness of a lamppost, while Nena will get snatched up by loitering creatures without a light is directed on them.
They must collaborate effectively — actually, you’ll use them together — to finish levels. Nena might relocate or temporarily shut off lamps to create passages for Gloomy, while the open-brained youth will utilize his supernatural ability to rearrange obstacles in the surroundings, opening up routes for Nena.
Immersive World Building
The brain-teasers remind me a bit of The Gardens Between, in the manner the areas are suspended, diorama-like designs that the camera pans around in conjunction with your heroes. Gloomy Eyes’ settings are highly entertaining, guiding the friends around a carnival and through a ghostly building, including other locales. Players can use a “diorama view” option that permits you to zoom out and turn the stages, both for appreciate the designs and search for paths that may not have been apparent.
Minor Hiccups and Complete Experience
Here lies one of the only problems with Gloomy Eyes. Similar to other titles with a static view, occasionally it's confusing where the characters can and cannot go. You may need to just bump into a few random objects to determine which ones are usable, as clues aren't consistently provided.
Nonetheless, those small speedbumps don’t get in the way of a ghostly-charming fun adventure. Gloomy Eyes has a compact length, with roughly a few sessions worth of challenges. Later levels blend together subtle stealth and action elements with the puzzle solving, as Gloomy Eyes marches toward a rewarding — and somewhat unforeseen — ending.
Availability and Final Thoughts
Those avoiding the terror of fear-inducing games should definitely try Gloomy Eyes. It’s available on Switch console, Sony system, Windows PC, and Microsoft console, and is available at a reduced price for a quarter off on digital platforms.
Gloomy Eyes is available on various systems and provides a pleasurable option for fans in search of spooky entertainment without fear factor.
