You know that specific, heavy feeling in your chest after the credits roll on a game that just... got you? That was Before Your Eyes. Most people went into it thinking the eye-tracking gimmick was just a neat trick. Then, ninety minutes later, they’re staring at a black screen with puffy eyes, wondering how a story about a kid playing the piano became a literal existential crisis.
The "blink and you’ll miss it" mechanic wasn't just a gimmick. It was a metaphor for how life actually feels. Finding games like Before Your Eyes isn't just about finding more titles that use a webcam; it's about chasing that specific brand of narrative gut-punch where the gameplay mechanics are inseparable from the emotional stakes.
Honestly, it’s a tough itch to scratch.
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Most narrative adventures try too hard. They give you a hundred branching paths that lead to the same three endings. But the games that actually resonate with fans of Benjamin’s story are the ones that understand one simple, brutal truth: we have no control over time.
Why the "Uncontrollable" Mechanic is the Secret Sauce
What made Before Your Eyes stick was the lack of agency. Usually, in gaming, we are gods. We save the world. We reload saves. In this game, if you blinked, you lost the moment. Forever.
If you're looking for that same feeling, you have to look at What Remains of Edith Finch. It’s the gold standard for a reason. You explore an impossibly built house in Washington, tracing the deaths of a "cursed" family. There is one specific sequence—the Lewis Finch cannery scene—that captures the Before Your Eyes magic perfectly. You’re performing a repetitive, tactile task with your right hand while your left hand (and your brain) wanders into a vivid, sprawling fantasy world. It forces your brain to split in two. It’s uncomfortable. It’s beautiful. And just like the blinking mechanic, it uses your physical inputs to tell you something about the character's mental state.
Most "walking sims" fail because they're just movies you have to walk through. The good ones? They make the act of playing the story feel like a burden or a gift.
The Best Games Like Before Your Eyes You Probably Missed
Let’s talk about OneShot. It’s a meta-narrative game that treats you, the player, as a god-like figure guiding a child named Niko through a dying world. It sounds cliché. It isn't. The game communicates with you through your actual Windows operating system. It moves files. It changes your wallpaper. It breaks the fourth wall in a way that makes you feel a terrifying sense of responsibility for Niko.
When you look for games like Before Your Eyes, you're usually looking for that feeling of "I am responsible for this person's happiness, and I am failing."
Then there's To the Moon. Don't let the 16-bit RPG Maker graphics fool you. This isn't a game about fighting slimes. You play as two doctors who enter the memories of a dying man to fulfill his last wish: going to the moon. He doesn't know why he wants to go. You have to travel backward through his life—from old age to childhood—to find the trigger.
It’s basically Before Your Eyes in reverse. Instead of moving forward through blinks, you’re digging deeper into the past to find the "why." Kan Gao, the creator, has a specific talent for writing dialogue that feels like real people talking—messy, awkward, and occasionally hilarious—which makes the inevitable tragedy hit ten times harder.
When Mechanics Meet Mortality
If the thing that gripped you about Before Your Eyes was the Ferryman and the judgment of a soul, you need to play Spiritfarer.
Thunder Lotus Games marketed it as a "cozy management game about dying." That is a wild sentence. You play as Stella, taking over for Charon (sound familiar?). You build a boat, cook food for spirits, and eventually, you have to take them to the Everdoor to pass on.
The hook here is the hug. You can hug every character. It sounds silly until you realize that you’ve spent ten hours learning a character's favorite meal, hearing about their regrets, and improving their living quarters, only to be told they are ready to leave. You have to sail them to the gate. You have to say goodbye. The "gameplay" is just chores, but those chores build intimacy. When they're gone, the boat feels empty. That silence is exactly what Before Your Eyes mastered.
A Different Kind of Vision: Unusual Inputs
We can't ignore the technical side. Before Your Eyes used your eyes. Florence uses your phone (or mouse) to simulate the awkwardness of a first date.
In Florence, you put together speech bubbles like a puzzle. When the characters are getting along, the puzzles are easy. When they fight, the pieces are sharp, jagged, and don't fit together. It’s a short experience—about 45 minutes—but it’s a perfect example of how to use a simple interaction to mirror a complex emotion.
If you want something darker, look at Immortality or Her Story by Sam Barlow. These aren't about childhood innocence. They are about the voyeurism of looking through someone else’s life. You aren't blinking, but you are scrubbing through footage, searching for a truth that might be better left hidden. They tap into that same feeling of being an observer of a life that isn't yours, yet feeling completely entangled in it.
The Emotional Tax of Narrative Games
Let’s be real: you can’t play these games back-to-back. You’ll burn out.
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There is a psychological phenomenon often discussed in game design circles regarding "bleed"—where the emotions of the character bleed into the player. Games like Before Your Eyes are designed for maximum bleed. They use "forced perspective" to make sure you can't look away from the uncomfortable parts of being human.
Take A Beginner’s Guide by Davey Wreden (the creator of The Stanley Parable). It’s a narrated tour through a series of unfinished games made by a person named Coda. It starts as a look into a creative mind and ends as a devastating exploration of toxic friendship and the way we project our own needs onto others. It’s uncomfortable. It’s meta. It’s essential.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Next Playthrough
If you’re ready to dive back into the emotional deep end, don't just grab everything on sale. Be surgical about it.
- Start with What Remains of Edith Finch if you want the highest production value and a story that feels most similar to the "family history" vibe of Before Your Eyes.
- Pick up To the Moon if you don't mind dated graphics but want a script that will genuinely make you sob.
- Try Spiritfarer if you want a longer experience (25+ hours) that lets the grief breathe over several weeks of play.
- Play Florence on your phone during a commute if you want a quick, punchy reminder of what it’s like to fall in and out of love.
Before you start any of these, do yourself a favor: turn off your notifications. These games rely on "presence." If you’re checking your phone, you aren’t in the room with the characters. Before Your Eyes forced that presence by tracking your pupils. For these other games, you have to provide that focus yourself. Set the mood, dim the lights, and let the game do what it was designed to do—make you feel something real.