Not all spooky season adventure has to terrify players. From beloved classics such as animated detectives to delightful stories including Over the Garden Wall, many Halloween-themed staples provide fun without needing raising your heart rate. Additionally, a expanding collection of spooky-cute titles featuring autumn atmosphere, yet without the keep-you-awake degree of fear. Gloomy Eyes arrived in the fall, and stands as an outstanding cozy choice to the deeply scary titles of this year.
An Original Single-Player Cooperative Quest
Labeled as a solo collaboration problem-solving title, Gloomy Eyes teams up a living-impaired child called Gloomy and a human girl known as Nena as they embark on an adventure to bring the sun back to their shadowy world. Their design is similar to stylized dolls blended with the characters from a animated feature. Their fair-toned and heavy-lidded aesthetic borrows heavily from the look of Tim Burton’s films, and the plot is a quintessential family-friendly journey. The duo builds an strong connection over the duration of the game’s numerous levels as Nena strives to show to her religious guardian that, look, possibly living-impaired beings aren’t half bad.
Original Problem-Solving Features
This unique term comes about from the game’s environmental puzzles. When Gloomy and Nena cross paths, you’ll swap between the budding companions to complete challenges and move forward through the levels. As an undead, Gloomy cannot pass through the illumination of a streetlight, while Nena will get snatched up by wandering undead without a lamp is shone on them.
They must collaborate effectively — actually, you’ll use them in tandem — to advance through areas. Nena could adjust or briefly disable lights to clear paths for Gloomy, while the open-brained character will use his zombie strength to shift around items in the environment, revealing ways for Nena.
Captivating Level Design
The brain-teasers remind me a bit of The Gardens Between, in the fashion the levels are hovering, model-like structures that the perspective moves across in coordination with your protagonists. Gloomy Eyes’ settings are highly entertaining, leading the companions around a fair and through a spooky mansion, among other locations. The game includes a “diorama view” button that enables you to view from afar and rotate the areas, both to enjoy the designs and search for paths that may not have been apparent.
Slight Challenges and Overall Experience
And that’s one of the only difficulties with Gloomy Eyes. Comparable to other releases with a fixed perspective, occasionally it's confusing where the characters may or may not travel. You may need to simply collide with a few random elements to discover which ones are interactable, as it’s not always intuitive.
Nevertheless, those small challenges don’t get in the way of a spooky-cute fun adventure. Gloomy Eyes is relatively brief, with approximately a few sessions worth of challenges. Later levels blend together light sneaking and exciting moments with the puzzle solving, as Gloomy Eyes advances to a rewarding — and slightly surprising — finale.
Release and Conclusion
Players steering clear of the frights of intense horror titles ought to experience Gloomy Eyes. The game is out on Nintendo Switch, PS5, Windows PC, and Microsoft console, and is currently on sale for 25% off on game marketplaces.
The spooky-cute adventure is available on various systems and provides a pleasurable alternative for gamers seeking autumn enjoyment without intense scares.
