When I blinked for the first time in _Before Your Eyes_ and watched the game screen jump forward with my physiological reaction, I suddenly realized that it was no longer me playing the game, but the game “playing” my life. This game that controls the narrative with blinking stole my tears in the most gentle way.
The game opens in the world after death. Benjamin, who I played, took a mysterious ferry and was asked to prove that he was worth entering the afterlife through memories. But the real revolution lies in the way of operation — the webcam will track the player’s blinking action in real time, and each blink will drive the passage of time. When I try to look at my mother more in my memories, I must open my eyes wide; when painful memories come, I can’t escape by closing my eyes.
The cruelest tenderness occurs in the piano chapter. Young Benjamin learned to play the piano under the guidance of his mother, and he would skip months in the blink of an eye. I desperately suppressed the impulse to blink and wanted to stay in the warm moment when my mother taught me the piano, but my physiological instinct finally made the picture jump ruthlessly — in the blink of an eye, my mother was sick in bed, and the piano was covered with dust. This kind of emotional tension created by physiological reactions is more direct to the soul than any QTE.
The game’s interpretation of “miss” is heartbreaking. When I missed my father’s birthday wishes because of blinking, missed the farewell to my first love because I was too slow to react, and even missed my mother’s last smile because of fatigue, the real tears in the camera became part of the game progress. The most shocking thing is the revelation at the end: it turns out that the ferryman is Benjamin himself who feels guilty, and the whole journey is his self-blame for irreparable things.
As the memories deepened, I found that the blinking mechanism itself was a wonderful metaphor. Those fleeting beauty in life, those moments that hope to stay forever, will eventually become the past with the “blink” again and again. When the game finally asked me to close my eyes and end my life memories, I couldn’t tell whether the tears in the camera were the game effect or the real emotion.
Late at night after customs clearance, I looked through the photo album of my childhood. The cruelest gift of this game is that it makes me realize that every daily life that is not cared about may be precious memories in the future, and the fairest thing about life is that no one can keep their eyes open forever.
If you also want to experience the magic of narrative with physiological reactions, _Before Your Eyes_ will give you the most private emotional journey. But please be prepared. When the game is over, you may be reluctant to blink at the reflection on the black screen for a long time like me.
