Not each spooky season experience has to frighten players. Including iconic favorites like mystery-solving cartoons to endearing shows such as Over the Garden Wall, many spooky-season favorites are enjoyable without requiring raising your heart rate. There’s also, a growing library of ghostly-adorable titles with autumn atmosphere, though lacking the sleep-with-the-lights-on degree of fear. Gloomy Eyes arrived in September, and acts as an superb comfortable choice to the deeply scary titles of 2025.
An Original Single-Player Cooperative Adventure
Known as a single-player cooperative puzzle game, Gloomy Eyes pairs up a undead youth known as Gloomy and a mortal child named Nena as they begin an adventure to bring the sun back to their dark, dark realm. Their appearance evokes stylized dolls blended with the puppets from a Laika film. Their fair-toned and heavy-lidded style draws inspiration from the look of Burtonesque cinema, and the plot is a quintessential suitable for everyone adventure. The duo develops an strong connection over the course of the game’s 14 chapters as Nena attempts to demonstrate to her clerical relative that, look, maybe the undead are actually good.
Innovative Problem-Solving Features
The innovative description stems from the game’s interactive problem-solving. When Gloomy and Nena meet, players alternate between the newfound friends to solve puzzles and move forward through the stages. Since he's not alive, Gloomy cannot pass through the light of a lamppost, while Nena may be grabbed by idle zombies except if a beam is directed on them.
They must cooperate closely — well, players control them in tandem — to finish levels. Nena may move or briefly disable illumination to open routes for Gloomy, while the intellectually curious boy will use his zombie strength to shift around objects in the world, creating ways for Nena.
Captivating World Building
These challenges evoke memories a touch of The Gardens Between, in the fashion the levels are suspended, model-like designs that the camera pans around in sync with your protagonists. Gloomy Eyes’ worlds are highly entertaining, taking the friends around a fair and through a haunted house, including other locales. The game includes a “diorama view” button that enables you to zoom out and rotate the areas, simultaneously to admire the visuals and look for ways that may not have been clear.
Minor Hiccups and Complete Experience
This represents one of the sole hiccups with Gloomy Eyes. Comparable to other releases with a static view, occasionally it's confusing where the protagonists are able to move. Players might have to just bump into a several various elements to figure out which ones are interactive, as clues aren't consistently provided.
Nonetheless, those slight obstacles don’t get in the way of a spooky-cute fun adventure. Gloomy Eyes is relatively brief, with roughly three to five hours worth of puzzles. Subsequent stages integrate subtle hidden movement and exciting moments with the problem-solving, as Gloomy Eyes advances to a fulfilling — and moderately unforeseen — finale.
Accessibility and Conclusion
Those shying away from the scares of intense horror games won’t want to miss Gloomy Eyes. You can find it on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X, and is currently on sale for a discount on game marketplaces.
This charming title has been released on several consoles and delivers a enjoyable option for fans in search of autumn enjoyment without the intense scares.
