Eyes in the Dark Review: a roguelike with a unique style

The eternal conflict between light and darkness has always fascinated philosophers and poets of every age and is an absolutely fundamental theme for the Eyes in the Dark: The Curious Case of One Victoria Bloom by the boys of Under The Stairs, who defined it nicely as “roguelight” to emphasize the core gameplay mechanics behind the experience. Anyway, we found ourselves fighting a primal evil in this peculiarly styled title and now we are finally ready to talk about it in detail (about roguelite with a formidable aesthetic component, here our review of Hades).

A return to the 1920s

Riding the border between the dreamlike and the surreal, Eyes in the Dark tells us the story of Victoria Bloom, a little girl invited by her grandfather to visit the family manor, which in the past hosted great scientists, thinkers and philosophers, of her own lineage. Arriving at her destination, the girl begins to look for the old man but she notices something strange: a grim and inexplicable darkness surrounds the villa. To make his way through this black cloud he must therefore resort to light and consequently a useful torch, without which it is impossible to explore the Bloom residence.

Becoming familiar with the controls, which at first glance seemed rather uncomfortable given the unusual arrangement of the keys, we came across something sinister and specifically in little eyes that, in addition to observing our every move, they wanted our blood at all costs. Clearly there is a way to eliminate these creatures similar to small insects and needless to say it concerns the beam of light emitted by the main instrument. Returning to us, Victoria pushes herself further into the structure and at a certain point she meets her grandfather, unfortunately held prisoner by a sprawling black presence.

Before disappearing into the darkness, however, the old man gives to his niece a watch capable of altering time, in reality a banal narrative device to justify the continuous rebirth of the protagonist. From the beginning of the adventure it is possible to notice the beauty of an artistic direction that colors the images in black and white to further sharpen the conflict between light and darkness.

The “silent film” cut during the interlude scenes, however, boasts slides containing the dialogues of the interlocutors and gives a retro nuance to the experience, which is perfectly combined with the appearance a la “Cartoon Network” of characters and enemies. Don’t be fooled by the playful trait, because the creature of the boys of Under The Stairs is clearly inspired by some great pillars of Gothic literature, from Lovecraft to Edgar Allan Poe. The references to the work of these authors are present in every corner, think of the presence of a merchant crow called Edgar and clearly inspired by the novel “The Raven”.

Scan the abyss

The slightly less bright aspect of the production is certainly the gameplay, because – despite being sufficiently effective – it declines its founding mechanics in an unoriginal way. First of all, the torch has both the function of discovering the game map and that of a weapon to defeat the insectoids.

The thick fog that has conquered the residence of Victoria’s ancestors is dark, it is found in every corner and the only way we have to dispel it is through the light of the instrument. The other “weapons” given to the player will mainly be a sling and shoes, respectively secondary and defensive weapon for dodging. The flashlight can be upgraded with bulbs, which represent the primary upgrade. These in fact change the shape and size of the light beam in a very similar way to the tears of The Binding of Isaac, while the batteries – a secondary upgrade – increase the statistics of the various instruments (by the way, here our review of The Binding of Isaac).

Both elements can be found while exploring, at the shop or after defeating a Guardian (this is the name of the bosses at the end of the level). The same goes for the sling and for the shoes, the introduction of which has positively influenced the playful stratification. For the rest, the structure is similar to the cornerstones of the genus. Starting a new game the map of the area will completely change, with procedural rooms both for forms and for content. The whole adventure will be set inside the Bloom villa – but expect some exceptions to the rule – and to access the other wings of the house we will first have to kill the Guardian, who will provide the young woman with a key with which to choose which of the nine zones available go into it.

Opening a new path will cause a “divergence in the timeline” and at this point we will have to select a bonus and a penalty that will accompany us during our run. In case of a premature departure of Victoria, we will have to start from scratch, but thanks to the special currency accumulated during the previous trip: with” Knowing “in fact it will be possible to unlock objects and permanent bonuses, to facilitate the young girl’s adventure. The game economy is also based on another coin called “Spark”, with which we can buy upgrades in the shop and increase the number of slots to upgrade the tools of death.

Light and dark

In short, the entire playful scaffolding is not particularly innovative but is well packaged, also thanks to the well-established genre to which Eyes in the Dark belongs. However, if on the one hand the refined style of the work manages to convince, on the other it gives rise to some too many problems in the most excited and full of enemies scenes: the black and white clashes have not always been confirmed as easy to read and sometimes they called us to dodge bullets and enemy offensives in a somewhat uncertain way, in some situations rather confusing.

As for the characterizations of the enemies and bosses, moreover, we could certainly do more: no creature that we have annihilated has managed to remain etched in our mind and it is a shame, also given the beauty of the game world. We think about balancing this lack the sense of satisfaction resulting from the elimination of insect monstrosities, thanks to a satisfactory and perhaps more accessible combat system than that of other similar productions. Finally, we report the presence of an annoying bug that on one occasion forced us to reload the game (but nothing that a day one patch cannot correct).