izigame.me

A short (~2h) but intriguing (and bittersweet) story, mainly told by the fleeting memory of a person's life. What sets this game apart from other narrative-driven games is its unique mechanics: the story moves forward whenever you blink your eyes, no matter you are ready or not.
According to the devs , this mechanics is inspired by the idea that life flashes before one's eyes before death. Inevitably, you will skip dialogues/interactions by involuntarily blinking. However, such an intentional design poetically captures our inability to take hold of our vicissitudinous life and how memory slips from one's mind like sand slipping through fingers; it also teaches us to accept and cherish what we have. In addition, the simple fact that your eye movement controls the pace makes you bond deeper with the protagonist and the story more immersive.
The whole concept is executed rather successfully. Firstly, the eye detection works flawlessly. The story, with coming-of-age elements and portraits of life and death , is nothing grand but riveting. The storytelling is by no means hindered by the mechanics, since what part of the memory can be blinked through is carefully designed: essential memory fragments are shown early, whilst missable scenes only serve to enrich the characters and as a motivation for a second playthrough.
The devs are also wise enough to add the accessibility option to allow disabling eye detection; mouse clicks then replace blinking as controller. However, I strongly suggest you not enable this option during the first playthrough, lest the game lose most of its magic. This option will then be handy during a second playthrough for those who are determined to hear all dialogues and to explore the few branching choices leading to slightly different ensuing cutscenes/dialogues.
All in all, Before your eyes is a refreshing attempt to the type of storytelling reserved to the medium of video games. If you are into narrative-driven games, you ought not to miss this one.