![i don i don](https://lyric.tkaraoke.com/48322/i_dont_want_to_miss_a_thing.gif)
I could practically feel the ferryman’s hand on my shoulder as he told me he didn’t need to see anymore. Desperately holding onto a moment that I couldn’t salvage.
![i don i don](http://cdn-webimages.wimages.net/0528217fe2f3942cca6ac368d7a2516784ea8a-v5.jpg)
In one of the final moments of Before Your Eyes, I was explicitly told I could close my eyes. And a hope that maybe, if I kept my eyes open for a second longer, things might be different. The resistance came not from refusing to be bested by a video game, but from a desperation to see things through. Those skipped scenes were more than a collection of seconds that would pass me by while my eyes were closed. But being forced to reckon with the sanitized version of things you tell an acquaintance and the truths I first omitted was the moment where Before Your Eyes ’ blinking controls became more than a gimmick. Telling a stranger, even someone as otherworldly as a ferryman guiding me to the afterlife, the bullet-pointed recap of your life is one thing. 8 of the Best Visual Novels You Should Play in 2021.
![i don i don](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/T-doQhcwDS8/maxresdefault.jpg)
Cold Cases: On Framing, Freedom, and Failure in Mystery Games.The Uncomfortable Honesty of We Should Talk’s Power Dynamics.Leading to moments like standing at a funeral, being expected to tell a room of relative strangers about the life someone else led. With each blink of an eye, I saw new stages of someone’s life and the eventual pitfalls that come with time. Then eventually, things became very different. Just how different would things be by the time my eyes were open again? Adding a weight of anxiety as I tried to see and hear everything I could before my eyes predictably betrayed me. What are you going to do with your life? What are the people in your life to you? And with time, do you look back on those relationships differently? When confronted with these questions and quite literally forced to look upon them, even the act of blinking and skipping over them seemed like a split-second too many spent with eyes closed. You know those questions you suddenly have to ask yourself. Even if it means keeping your eyes wide open as you scour every inch of a childhood memory.Īs one’s life does, eventually things go from precious grade school reflections to the big stuff. Things you thought insignificant suddenly warrant deep introspection. Before Your Eyes never set most of these for longer than I could physically tolerate, but even as trivial as these snapshots of someone’s life seemed at the time, looking back on anyone’s life makes you more diligent about the details. Even as my eyes were definitely ready for me to close them for a split second and get back to business. At a certain point, it became an issue of pride and refusing to be overcome by the rules set forth before me. I realized I could go a lot longer without blinking than I thought, only to reflexively blink and move past memories of my character’s childhood without the game giving it a second thought. That meant reliving all the important moments of a life once lived, with the catch being that, if I blinked, they would disappear right…well, before my eyes.Īt first, Before Your Eyes lulled me into a sense of security as its webcam-utilizing blinking-based progression seemed a gimmick to be overcome. The narrative adventure game sat me in a boat with a ferryman tasked with guiding souls to the afterlife. Nearly every moment I spent in GoodbyeWorld Games’ Before Your Eyes was an act of resistance.