Behind These Eyes is a short horror game that lasts anywhere from 10-30 minutes, depending on how quick you are at solving its puzzles. This information is fully disclosed in not only the game's sub-title, but also within the description on the store page. Players take control of a guy named Mobius, who has decided that the only way out of his gang lifestyle is to commit suicide. However, in doing so he is thrust into a dark and terrifying world.

Unfortunately, the world isn't as scary as the developer would like think; it is dark though, too dark. There is no way to control the brightness within the game settings, which leaves players with the choice of dealing with barely being able to see, or turning up the brightness on their monitors. If you're like me, and you've calibrated your monitor to have as close to perfect picture quality as possible, you're not going to bother screwing things up. The overwhelming and over-contrasted darkness takes away from the rest of the graphics, and the gameplay to boot.

Behind These Eyes consists of two levels, each with their own puzzle. The first one is a semi-labyrinth where you're tasked with finding three sets of symbols, and then the exit door. The second puzzle is simply putting those symbols in the correct order, finding the pattern that is produced afterward, and putting the pattern into a triangle. There's nothing groundbreaking here, and when it comes down to the puzzles and gameplay, the store page for this title is extremely misleading. The developer has stated, verbatim, "Most horror games go no further than a maze or two, but I have gone a few steps beyond all that. Complete various unique, never before seen puzzles (as well as a few horror classics)". There are literally two puzzles. No more. No less.

There's no way to die, no scare factors, no voice acting, the soundtrack is nearly non-existent, the UI is extremely rough around the edges, and the puzzles are both easy to solve and rather boring. For what it's worth, the written dialogue isn't too bad and the story could be decent if it were elaborated on further. The biggest thing holding Behind These Eyes back is how unnecessarily dark it is. It's definitely not the worst dollar horror game out there, but there are even better free titles such as Cry of Fear.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

Behind These Eyes has its movement control keys bound to WASD input and not to the WASD keys, meaning the movement keys are all over the place if you're using anything but a qwerty keyboard. With no way to change the key bindings, this makes the game unplayable with a non-qwerty keyboard. There should have been a clear warning on the Store Page, or at least a mention of it in the minimum requirements: "Behind These Eyes requires a qwerty keyboard to play!"



Behind These Eyes doesn't get the best reviews. Of the eight English reviews, three are negative, and the five 'positive' reviews aren't that positive, really. Two people didn't play the full game and the other three give the game points for effort (because it's a one-man's effort) more than anything else.

Moreover, the developer himself announces his next project in the following words: "I have learned a TON from Behind These Eyes (mostly things not to do)" and "trust me, its gonna be alot better than BTE". Speaks volumes…

But as I'm a sucker for adventure games / walking simulators like this, I decided to give Behind These Eyes a try anyway. Well, I didn't get beyond a try. I'll summarize the issues I had to deal with:

- The game wouldn't run and got stuck performing the 'first-time setup' ('Installing Microsoft VC Redist Package (step 1 of 2)').

- In the discussions forum, a few more people complained about the game not working for them. The advice I found there was "uninstall & reinstall".

- I tried doing that but the game wouldn't download anymore. Every time, Steam would download a couple of MB of data and then abort the download to show the following message: "Disk Write Error". I've downloaded hundreds of Steam games and never encountered that error. Also, I immediately tried downloading some other Steam games and that worked without any problems. Only Behind These Eyes wouldn’t download.

- From time to time, I tried downloading Behind These Eyes. After a couple of days, downloading worked again, but now the game wouldn't run yet again because it got stuck performing the 'first-time setup', as it did before.

- I decided to let the game run without me canceling or interfering otherwise. Turns out the game needed 27 minutes to perform the 'first-time setup' that takes other Steam games less than two minutes (usually a lot less than that, even).

- Now that I've managed to get Behind These Eyes running, it asks me to agree again to the same EULA I already agreed to when I installed the game. They want you to agree twice to statements like 'this game may contain a virus' and 'this game may damage your computer'? I know these are standard clauses in a EULA, but if you ask people to 'sign an e-contract' containing those clauses not once but twice, it comes across like you're really, REALLY worried your software may contain viruses or wreck people's CPU or GPU.

- When the game starts, I see what other reviewers meant when they said this game is very, very dark. It is indeed very, very dark and there's no option to increase brightness/gamma.

- I discover I can't move around using the normal movement keys (i.e. not by means of the keys labeled WASD on a qwerty keyboard, and not by means of the arrow keys). I need to use the keys labeled WASD on my azerty keyboard, which are al over the place. After looking through the game's menus and directories, I find no way to change key bindings so I have to call it quits.

- While troubleshooting, every time I launched the game I had to sit through a text-only intro I couldn't skip.

I'll be the first to write a review. Had some issues with the download but the developer fixed it within 12 hours. (def brownie points there). I am not one to judge for horror because nothing scares me. Im sure others would think creepy maze games are scary, but I have yet to find a game in VR or PC that actually "scares me". So if you're a person that gets creeped out easily, you would like this.
Must give props to the developer though. Its not some big A+ studio creating it. He's a single developer and I respect that As an artist I know that creating stuff for others is tough!

Overall, for the $2.59, helps support the artist. Hes got a great idea-just need to expand it. Well worth the 3 bucks. There are games that are $9.99 that are way worse!

The story is jumbled nonsense; it's too dark to see, and you can't adjust the brightness; when I pressed paused and went into the settings, the settings menu remained floating in the middle of the screen even after I resumed playing and wouldn't go away; the grammar is awful; and the audio randomly stops and starts for no reason.

That said, I did enjoy the second puzzle. It only took a minute or two, but it was fun.

i want to recommend this game as the graphics for an indie game are quite good. they did a very good job of making a scary atmosphere. however the problem is the lack of anything worth while. all together there is a total of 2 semi jumpscares and thats it. no monster or any real way to lose. the story is also janky and feels like you're playing a sequal. not to mention numerous bugs. and all together it took about 20 minutes to beat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHQImZR2XoU&feature=youtu.be

Ever played around with a mod or game engine, and built something simple just to get something to work? It's like that, but released on Steam with a price.

I just returned home from a 6 month tour in Iraq, and I wanted to play video games with my friends for the first time since I left. What we like to do is pick games to watch each other play, and I decided on this due to the price. I looked past all the bad reviews and decided to give it a try because it looked quality. All I did for 25 minutes was run around in a circle and have to click on my screen every 5 seconds because my mouse would go to the other monitor. When I FINALLY advance to the next stage, I run into a cave that has no direction and a million paths. Next thing you know, I jump and then I got stuck and could not move. Literally ruined my night, and I may consider quitting gaming as a whole. Thank you for ruining my happiness

I bought this game as a short experience for my lunch break. Oh boy, I just wish I had bought an extra drink...

Absolutely horrendous level design. Typical maze time wasters with nothing really interesting happening.

The game started with an interesting premise and I was ready to believe that the reviews were exaggerating on how bad the game actually is. But the reviews are more than accurate. Even for free, this thing is not worth your time.

It's as if the developer(s) had fun for an evening and then decided to put it out on Steam.

Strongly NOT recommended, even for free.

Gameplay is roughly 20 minutes. Puzzles are pretty easy. The game looks great, considering it's a solo effort. Only problem I had was that there was no sound after the intro cinematic. I have emailed the dev about it, so hopefully it will be fixed and I'll give it another go. (Quiet) Playthrough here: https://youtu.be/Dd-p4d5sqVU

really bad game and boring no save