Not all spooky season journey needs to terrify you. Including iconic favorites for example mystery-solving cartoons to charming series like Over the Garden Wall, plenty of autumn-inspired favorites provide fun without raising your heart rate. Additionally, a increasing selection of ghostly-adorable releases with spooky themes, though lacking the truly terrifying level of horror. Gloomy Eyes arrived in September, and acts as an superb comfortable alternative to the truly terrifying titles of 2025.
An Original Single-Player Cooperative Journey
Labeled as a single-player cooperative puzzle game, Gloomy Eyes pairs up a living-impaired child known as Gloomy and a living girl known as Nena as they embark on an adventure to return daylight to their shadowy environment. They look is similar to stylized dolls mixed with the figures from a Laika film. Their light-complected and heavy-lidded style borrows heavily from the visual style of Burtonesque cinema, and the narrative is a quintessential suitable for everyone adventure. The duo builds an enduring connection over the span of the game’s 14 chapters as Nena attempts to demonstrate to her religious guardian that, look, maybe zombies are actually good.
Creative Problem-Solving Features
The “self-coop” description stems from the game’s world-based challenges. Once Gloomy and Nena meet, gamers switch amidst the budding companions to complete challenges and move forward through the stages. Being a zombie, Gloomy can’t walk through the brightness of a light source, while Nena may be grabbed by idle zombies except if a light is focused on them.
They have to cooperate closely — well, gamers operate them together — to finish levels. Nena might relocate or temporarily shut off illumination to open routes for Gloomy, while the intellectually curious boy will utilize his supernatural ability to rearrange obstacles in the world, opening up paths for Nena.
Engaging Level Design
The brain-teasers evoke memories a little of The Gardens Between, in the manner the areas are floating, diorama-like structures that the view rotates in conjunction with your protagonists. Gloomy Eyes’ environments are highly entertaining, leading the friends around a fair and through a ghostly building, among other locales. There’s a “diorama view” feature that allows you to view from afar and spin the levels, simultaneously to appreciate the visuals and hunt for paths that may not have been obvious.
Slight Hiccups and General Adventure
Here lies one of the few problems with Gloomy Eyes. Similar to other games with a locked camera, occasionally it's confusing where the characters can and cannot go. You may need to just bump into a multiple different objects to figure out which ones are usable, as the game doesn't always indicate.
Nonetheless, those small speedbumps don’t get in the way of a ghostly-charming fun adventure. Gloomy Eyes runs on the short side, with about several hours worth of brain-teasers. Subsequent stages integrate light sneaking and action elements with the puzzle solving, as Gloomy Eyes advances to a satisfying — and somewhat surprising — finale.
Release and Conclusion
Players avoiding the frights of fear-inducing releases should definitely try Gloomy Eyes. You can find it on Switch console, PS5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X, and is presently discounted for 25% off on digital platforms.
This charming title is available on several consoles and delivers a pleasurable choice for fans looking for spooky entertainment minus the fear factor.
