What if you couldn’t stop time from moving forward, no matter how hard you tried to keep your eyes open? That’s the haunting premise behind Before Your Eyes, the BAFTA-winning narrative adventure from GoodbyeWorld Games that uses actual eye-tracking technology to control its story. Released in April 2021 for PC and later adapted for Netflix mobile in 2022 and PlayStation VR2 in 2023, the game asks one simple question: can you experience an entire life without blinking? The answer is no, and that’s exactly the point. By making progression tied to something involuntary and uncontrollable, Before Your Eyes creates an emotional experience that traditional button-based gameplay could never achieve.
- How the Blinking Mechanic Actually Works
- Why Involuntary Control Makes Perfect Sense
- The Story Behind the Story
- What Makes It Emotionally Devastating
- The Technical Challenges
- Critical Reception and Awards
- Why More Games Don’t Do This
- The Netflix Partnership Changed Everything
- What the Developers Learned
- FAQs
- Conclusion
How the Blinking Mechanic Actually Works
Before Your Eyes uses your device’s camera to track eye movement, specifically detecting when you blink or deliberately close your eyes. The game presents the life of Benjamin Brynn, a recently deceased soul being ferried to the afterlife, and you experience his memories from birth to death through his own eyes. When a metronome icon appears at the bottom of the screen, your next blink immediately transitions you to the next memory, cutting forward through time whether you’re ready or not.
The developers didn’t just replace a button press with blinking and call it innovative. The mechanic serves multiple purposes depending on context. Sometimes hovering your view over specific objects lets you interact with them by deliberately blinking, revealing hidden details or additional dialogue. Other times, keeping your eyes open during important moments lets you linger in that memory, though eventually you must blink and move forward. The game was designed knowing players would miss things, and that missing moments is fundamental to the experience rather than a failure state.
Why Involuntary Control Makes Perfect Sense
Games typically operate on empowerment fantasies where players have complete control over their actions and the world responds accordingly. Before Your Eyes deliberately subverts that by making progression partially involuntary. No matter how much you want to stay in a happy memory, eventually your eyes dry out and you blink, snapping forward to the next moment. Designer Oliver Lewin explained the philosophy in an IGN interview: You don’t have control over games, games are so often about this empowerment fantasy, but our game becomes this sort of disempowerment thing where no matter what you try to do, you have to blink and move on.
This creates a sensation that perfectly mirrors how memory actually works. Life doesn’t pause for you to appreciate perfect moments. Time moves forward relentlessly, and you can’t go back to relive what you missed. The frustration of blinking during an important conversation or missing a crucial detail because your eyes betrayed you isn’t a bug in the design. It’s the entire point. One player described realizing they missed something important and accepting it as Benjamin not remembering rather than the game malfunctioning, which shows how effectively the mechanic merges with the narrative themes.
| Blink Type | Function | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Free blinking | No effect on progression | Allows natural eye comfort during scenes |
| Metronome active | Advances to next memory | Creates tension about when to let go |
| Interactive blinking | Reveals details or dialogue | Rewards deliberate exploration |
| Keeping eyes open | Extends current moment | Lets players fight against time briefly |
The Story Behind the Story
Before Your Eyes started as a student project at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Director Graham Parkes, designer Oliver Lewin, and composer Will Hellwarth created the initial concept exploring how eye-tracking could drive narrative progression. The team had backgrounds in film, which heavily influenced how they approached game design. Parkes described the concept as offloading the cut, the editor’s job, to the player, treating each blink transition like a film edit.
Early versions made literally every blink advance the story, which proved overwhelming and frustrating. After extensive playtesting and player feedback, the team refined the system to only advance during metronome prompts, giving players breathing room while maintaining the core disempowerment philosophy. This allowed them to have their cake and eat it too, as Hellwarth explained, creating moments players could miss for that feeling of loss while ensuring story-critical dialogue always gets delivered before the metronome appears.
What Makes It Emotionally Devastating
The narrative follows Benjamin Brynn’s life from childhood through his death, exploring his relationship with his parents, his passion for art and music, dreams that didn’t materialize the way he hoped, illness, and ultimately the question of whether his life had meaning. You experience pivotal moments and mundane ones, watching time slip away as Benjamin grows up, relationships evolve, and opportunities pass. The game never explicitly judges Benjamin’s choices or suggests his life was wasted, but it forces you to confront the temporal nature of existence.
What hits hardest is how the blinking mechanic reinforces themes of fleeting time and impermanence. Happy memories with his mother fly by as you desperately try not to blink. Painful hospital visits linger as you’re forced to witness discomfort. The game captures something fundamental about human experience that most games ignore: you can’t pause life, you can’t reload to fix mistakes, and eventually everything ends whether you’re ready or not. Multiple reviewers described crying during playthrough, not just because the story is sad, but because the mechanics make you feel the passage of time in your body.
The Technical Challenges
Implementing eye-tracking as a primary control scheme created numerous challenges the team had to solve. Webcam quality varies dramatically across devices, lighting conditions affect tracking accuracy, and players wear glasses or contacts that interfere with detection. The team had to build systems robust enough to work across these variables while remaining responsive enough that blinking felt immediate rather than laggy.
The Netflix mobile version, which launched in July 2022, reportedly has even better eye-tracking consistency because smartphone cameras are sophisticated and face detection has fewer unforeseen variables compared to random computer webcams. The PlayStation VR2 version released in 2023 offers yet another way to experience the game, though opinions vary on whether VR enhances or distracts from the emotional core. Designer Oliver Lewin noted the mobile version might actually be the best way to play due to camera quality and the tactile feel of controlling camera movement with your fingers.
Critical Reception and Awards
Before Your Eyes received overwhelming critical acclaim when it launched. PC Gamer praised it as an innovative and moving experience. Game Informer called it an emotional, eye-opening experience where the blinking mechanic meaningfully enhances the storytelling. Multiple outlets gave it perfect or near-perfect scores, and importantly, the praise focused on how the mechanics served the narrative rather than being a gimmick.
The industry recognition validated the team’s experimental approach. At the 2022 BAFTA Games Awards, Before Your Eyes won Game Beyond Entertainment, which recognizes titles that provide transformative experiences addressing social, emotional, or political themes beyond simple amusement. It was also nominated for Narrative and Debut Game categories, competing against major releases with much larger budgets. Winning that BAFTA proved experimental indie games using unconventional mechanics can achieve the same impact as traditional AAA productions when the vision is executed properly.
Why More Games Don’t Do This
If Before Your Eyes proved eye-tracking can create powerful emotional experiences, why haven’t we seen more games adopt similar mechanics? The answer involves both technical and design challenges. Not all narratives benefit from involuntary control schemes. Action games, strategy titles, competitive multiplayer, most gaming genres require precise intentional input that blinking can’t provide. The mechanic works specifically for reflective narrative experiences exploring themes of time, memory, and loss.
Additionally, requiring webcams or sophisticated camera technology limits your potential audience. Not every PC has a webcam. Console implementation requires special consideration. The Netflix mobile version works because virtually all smartphones have high-quality front cameras, but that’s a specific platform advantage rather than universal accessibility. Creating a game around eye-tracking means accepting you’ll exclude players whose setups can’t support it, which is a significant commercial risk many developers and publishers won’t take.
The Netflix Partnership Changed Everything
GoodbyeWorld Games always wanted Before Your Eyes on mobile, knowing that smartphones have better cameras than most computer webcams and mobile platforms reach audiences who aren’t traditional gamers. However, as Graham Parkes explained, the mobile marketplace makes it extremely difficult for narrative-focused games to succeed commercially. It’s so easy to get buried in app stores, and creating a business case for premium narrative games on mobile is challenging when the market expects free-to-play models.
Netflix approaching them to include Before Your Eyes in their gaming library solved that problem. The streaming giant wanted high-quality narrative games to differentiate their gaming offerings from typical mobile fare. For GoodbyeWorld Games, it meant reaching Netflix’s massive subscriber base without competing in crowded app stores. The partnership allowed them to focus on their next project while BKOM Studios handled the mobile port. Both parties benefited, Netflix got an award-winning exclusive that showcases their commitment to premium gaming, and Before Your Eyes found its ideal audience.
What the Developers Learned
In a 2023 GDC talk titled Designing the Experimental Narrative of Before Your Eyes, the team reflected on lessons learned during development. The most important realization was that being flexible with their initial concept actually strengthened it rather than compromising the vision. The original idea of every blink advancing time was too rigid, but adjusting to metronome-based progression while keeping voluntary interactions preserved what made the concept special while improving playability.
Another key lesson involved trusting players to fill narrative gaps. Games often over-explain everything, worried players will miss important information or get confused. Before Your Eyes intentionally leaves details ambiguous and accepts that players will miss dialogue or moments. That missing creates the emotional texture that defines the experience. Players discuss what they saw or didn’t see in different playthroughs, realizing their unique experience of Benjamin’s life differs from others based on when they blinked, which mirrors how memory works differently for everyone.
FAQs
How long is Before Your Eyes?
The game takes approximately 90 minutes to two hours to complete in a single playthrough. The short runtime is intentional, designed to be experienced in one sitting to maximize emotional impact, similar to watching a film.
Do I need a webcam to play?
Yes, on PC you need a webcam for eye-tracking. On mobile versions through Netflix, your phone’s front camera serves this purpose. There is a mouse mode for accessibility, but it significantly changes the experience and is not the intended way to play.
What if I can’t stop blinking during important parts?
That’s by design. The game accounts for involuntary blinking and ensures you won’t miss story-critical information. The frustration of blinking through moments you wanted to experience longer is part of the thematic point about time’s relentless passage.
Is Before Your Eyes on PlayStation or Xbox?
The game is available on PlayStation 5 with a PlayStation VR2-specific version released in 2023. It originally launched on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store in April 2021, and came to Netflix mobile in July 2022.
Can I replay to see what I missed?
Yes, you can replay the game and likely have different experiences based on when and where you blink. Some players have completed multiple playthroughs discovering details they missed previously.
Who made Before Your Eyes?
GoodbyeWorld Games, an indie studio founded by Graham Parkes and Oliver Lewin. The game started as their student project at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts before being fully developed and published by Skybound Games.
Did Before Your Eyes win any awards?
Yes, it won Game Beyond Entertainment at the 2022 BAFTA Games Awards and was nominated for Narrative and Debut Game. It received critical acclaim across major gaming outlets with many perfect or near-perfect review scores.
Is the blinking just a gimmick?
No, critics and players widely agree the mechanic is integral to the storytelling rather than a shallow gimmick. The involuntary nature of blinking creates emotional resonance that traditional controls couldn’t achieve for this particular narrative.
How much does Before Your Eyes cost?
On Steam and Epic Games Store, it typically costs around $10. On Netflix, it’s included with your subscription at no additional cost, making it essentially free for existing Netflix members.
Conclusion
Before Your Eyes represents what happens when developers fully commit to an experimental mechanic that serves their narrative rather than chasing trends or playing it safe. The blinking mechanic could have been a disaster, an awkward gimmick that reviewers mocked and players avoided. Instead, by understanding that games don’t always need to be about empowerment, that losing control can be more emotionally powerful than having it, GoodbyeWorld Games created something genuinely special. The story of Benjamin Brynn isn’t particularly unique on paper. It’s about an ordinary person living an ordinary life, dealing with ordinary disappointments and finding ordinary joys. What makes it extraordinary is experiencing that life through mechanics that force you to confront how fleeting everything is. You will blink during important moments. You will miss dialogue you wanted to hear. Time will move forward whether you’re ready or not. And when the game ends after 90 minutes, you’ll probably cry not because something tragic happened, but because you felt something fundamental about existence that most games never touch. That’s the power of matching mechanics to themes, of trusting experimental ideas even when they seem risky, and of respecting that games can be about more than just winning or losing. Before Your Eyes is about experiencing a life, with all the impermanence and loss that entails, and doing it in a way that only games can achieve. If you’ve never played it, you owe it to yourself to experience those 90 minutes. Just make sure you have tissues nearby. You’re going to need them.