A game that evoked a strong emotion in me is Before Your Eyes. The game is played in first person as a dead soul, who has to retell his life story to a wolf and eventually a gatekeeper who will judge his life and decide if he can enter paradise. The soul, Benjamin, first lies about his life story, telling a story about how he became a great artist after failing to become a pianist and falling sick. The wolf realizes he is telling a lie and forces him to tell the true story which is that he died due to his sickness and never became a great artist. Despite the fact that he accomplished less in his real life compared to his fake story as an artist, the gatekeeper allows him to pass into paradise showing how the relations he made with his friends and family were more important than career accomplishments. The game’s mechanic of blinking amplified the feeling of sadness that is conveyed in the story. As blinking progresses his life story forward, our natural blinking forces us to miss parts of the story like they are real memories which we cannot stay in forever. The most emotional part of the story for me was when Chloe visits Benjamin and reveals that he was her first love or the ending where his mom and the wolf tell his life story.
