Each blink may be your last with Close Your

Don’t blink.  No, this isn’t an episode of Doctor Who but a new game called Close Your where your eyes control the story.

Close Your is a game in development where your character is about to be hit by a car.  Time stops and Death itself offers you a chance to relive your whole life.

The catch?  Your webcam tracks your eye movements and each blink will jump the story forward in time from anywhere from a month to years in the future.  These events can be seen as either ordinary or extremely important and include learning to walk, school and work, meeting the love of your life and raising a child.  Thankfully you are not Adam Sandler.

So how do you play the game?  Unlike most RPGs that give you choices based on your actions, the storyline in Close Your depends on how you behave in each scene.  Whether you stay focussed at work or look to listen to a co-worker’s jokes can impact where your next blink will take you.  Closing your eyes on a fight with your mother may end up at her funeral, and closing them on your first kiss may end up at a wedding.  And considering that blinking is inevitable, and eye movements can be involuntary, the story is certain to take many twists as a result.

The concept artwork and gameplay shown to date is simple yet stylish with gentle tones to allow for focussed gazing, and aims to create the feeling you are watching an animated short about someone’s life.  This game certainly has the potential to be both extremely humorous and heart wrenching.

Will Hellwarth and his team at GoodbyeWorld Games won the IGF Award for Best Student Game in 2015 for this unique concept and have launched a Kickstarter campaign that is on track to make this game a fully fledged reality.

My eyes are already sore just thinking about Close Your but it will be quite an amazing game if it is able to deliver what is promised.