Have you ever had something happen to you that caused you to learn something about yourself that you had previously not known or chosen to ignore? Well Before Your Eyes was my something. Let me first tell you about the game and then tell you what secret aspect of myself it helped bring to the light.
Before Your Eyes is a 90-minute experience that revolves entirely around blinking. We all know the usual spiel when setting up a game for the first time, adjusting the aspect ratio, playing with the brightness etc. In Before Your Eyes, you do none of those things; instead, you set up a webcam (use the built-in camera if playing on your phone) and calibrate your blinks.
And, if you’re wondering why you need to calibrate your blinks, it’s because, for the next 90-minutes, you will play the game entirely with your eyes. You’ll use your blinks to interact with things, skip forward in time, and fully immerse yourself in the story.
Now let me take a moment to tell you what I learned about myself through playing this game. I realised that I have the attention span of a freaking toddler, and I never look at my screen while playing a game. Places I learned I do look: The floor and the walls. At myself in the mirror and at my phone. At my hands, my nails and at my pet. Places I learned I don’t look: anywhere I’m supposed to.
Honestly, 90 minutes is nothing. It’s barely a single episode of anything good on Netflix, yet trying to remain focused on the task at hand was a fight I lost multiple times over, and I think that’s the point.
I’m not going to talk about the story of the game here, it’s something everyone should experience for themselves, but I will talk about the message:
Life passes in the blink of an eye. And it’s essential to remain present; otherwise, it will pass you by. Maybe you’ll miss out on just a few minutes, or perhaps you’ll look around and realise years have passed.
I mean, this isn’t a groundbreaking new philosophy; it’s something that most, if not all of us, already understand. But then, why was it so tough for me to tune in and not let myself become distracted? I don’t know. But I know that since playing through Before Your Eyes and realising that my blink is the most ineffective interact button I’ve ever used, I’ve started to note how easily my mind starts to wonder and since then, I’ve been making an active effort to keep the focus on the task at hand, whatever it may be.
As in life, most of your advancement through Before Your Eyes is entirely involuntary, and as in life, you’ll often find yourself missing out on conversations or moments just because you were too eager to do something else. Before Your Eyes is less of a game and more of a mirror into life itself, there is a constant paradox you have to deal with, blink too much, and you’ll find yourself missing out as time just jumps forward. But try to cling to a moment by not blinking, and you’ll find yourself no longer enjoying the good times and instead physically uncomfortable with the strain of not blinking.
It’s all about knowing when to stay and when just to move on.
I’d be hard-pressed to call Before Your Eyes a game. Instead, it’s better referred to as a gamified experience, and that’s what it shines as. Yes, the art isn’t the best, and if you’re anything like me, you will probably be annoyed for most of the time spent in it – but not at the game, at yourself. Before Your Eyes is a simple story, told in a simple yet intuitive way that managed to create a system that forces its participants to remain engaged in it from beginning to end, and that level of focus and commitment is sorely missing from my life.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve played through Before Your Eyes twice. Once sitting in front of my PC and once using my phone via Netflix gaming and both times I’ve been shocked at how well the eye tracking works as well as identified things in my life that needed to change. It’s not healthy or productive to be unable to focus on a task for 90-minutes because of constant notifications for spam emails, messages from apps I don’t even use, and my roaming thoughts.
