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Before Your Eyes is a VR game where the player blinks to progress through the game. The gameplay itself is extremely simple, but the story is striking. While some games rely on high quality graphics or intense gameplay for entertainment, Before Your Eyes is an immersive, bittersweet story that lets players experience the life of the protagonist through their own eyes. The game not only made me emotional, but left me with a lasting gratefulness for the undefined time I’ve been given to live.
The idea for the game started in 2014 with Will Hellwarth, a student assistant for an intro-level game development course at the University of Southern California. The initial project was presented at a game fair by Hellwarth and assisting developers and was later picked up and developed by GoodbyeWorld Games. The final game was published by Skybound Games in 2021.
Though VR gaming had existed for a while, Hellwarth invented a new approach by toggling with a previous game to respond to the player’s eye movements using the VR headset’s built-in camera. This inspired the idea for his game, which was initially called Close Your.
The story was influenced by the play Death of a Salesman, which has a similar theme of progressing the story through the protagonist’s earlier memories after his death.
Below is a link to the Steam site where the game can be purchased.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1082430/Before_Your_Eyes/