Not every Halloween horror experience has to terrify players. Starting with iconic favorites like animated detectives to endearing shows such as Over the Garden Wall, many autumn-inspired titles are enjoyable without requiring raising your heart rate. Additionally, a increasing selection of spooky-cute titles including Halloween vibes, but not the sleep-with-the-lights-on level of horror. Gloomy Eyes arrived in the fall, and serves as an superb comfortable alternative to the intensely frightening games of this year.
An Original Self-Coop Adventure
Known as a “self-coop” brain-teaser, Gloomy Eyes pairs up a undead youth called Gloomy and a human girl named Nena as they begin an mission to bring the sun back to their gloomy world. Their design resembles Funko Pops blended with the puppets from a animated feature. The light-complected and baggy-eyed aesthetic is influenced by the visual style of Gothic fantasy movies, and the plot is a classic suitable for everyone journey. The pair forms an unbreakable connection over the span of the game’s numerous levels as Nena strives to prove to her clerical relative that, you know, possibly living-impaired beings aren’t half bad.
Creative Problem-Solving Features
The innovative label stems from the game’s interactive problem-solving. When Gloomy and Nena encounter each other, gamers switch amidst the newfound friends to solve puzzles and progress through the areas. Being a zombie, Gloomy cannot pass through the brightness of a streetlight, while Nena can be captured by idle zombies unless a lamp is directed on them.
They have to work in tandem — in practice, players control them in tandem — to complete stages. Nena might relocate or temporarily shut off lamps to clear paths for Gloomy, while the intellectually curious youth will use his zombie strength to move obstacles in the environment, revealing routes for Nena.
Captivating World Building
These challenges evoke memories a touch of The Gardens Between, in the way the stages are floating, model-like designs that the view pans around in sync with your heroes. Gloomy Eyes’ environments are quite fun, leading the companions around a carnival and through a ghostly building, amid other locations. Players can use a “diorama view” feature that enables you to pull back and rotate the levels, both for enjoy the artwork and search for routes that may not have been obvious.
Slight Issues and General Gameplay
This represents one of the sole hiccups with Gloomy Eyes. Similar to other releases with a static view, sometimes it's unclear where the characters are able to move. Players might have to simply collide with a multiple different elements to figure out which ones are interactive, as the game doesn't always indicate.
Nonetheless, those small obstacles don't obstruct of a ghostly-charming good time. Gloomy Eyes has a compact length, with roughly several hours worth of challenges. Subsequent stages integrate light sneaking and exciting moments with the problem-solving, as Gloomy Eyes progresses to a fulfilling — and moderately unexpected — finale.
Availability and Final Thoughts
Those avoiding the scares of terrifying titles should definitely try Gloomy Eyes. The game is out on Nintendo platform, PS5, computer, and Microsoft console, and is currently on sale for 25% off on game marketplaces.
The spooky-cute adventure has been released on multiple platforms and delivers a delightful choice for gamers looking for autumn enjoyment minus the terrifying moments.
