Not each spooky season experience has to scare gamers. Including beloved classics like mystery-solving cartoons to delightful stories including Over the Garden Wall, plenty of spooky-season staples are enjoyable without needing increasing anxiety. There’s also, a increasing selection of spooky-cute releases with autumn atmosphere, yet without the truly terrifying level of terror. Gloomy Eyes was released in September, and serves as an excellent cozy option to the deeply scary games of 2025.
A Distinctive Single-Player Cooperative Journey
Described as a solo collaboration puzzle game, Gloomy Eyes unites a living-impaired child called Gloomy and a living girl named Nena as they start an mission to restore sunlight to their gloomy environment. Their appearance resembles stylized dolls blended with the figures from a Laika film. Their light-complected and heavy-lidded appearance borrows heavily from the visual style of Burtonesque cinema, and the plot is a archetypal all-ages tale. These two develops an strong friendship over the course of the game’s multiple stages as Nena tries to demonstrate to her clerical relative that, look, perhaps living-impaired beings can be friendly.
Creative Gameplay Systems
The “self-coop” term comes about from the game’s world-based challenges. Once Gloomy and Nena encounter each other, you’ll swap between the newfound friends to solve puzzles and move forward through the levels. Being a zombie, Gloomy cannot pass through the illumination of a lamppost, while Nena can be captured by loitering creatures unless a light is directed on them.
They must work in tandem — in practice, you’ll use them simultaneously — to complete stages. Nena might relocate or momentarily deactivate lights to open routes for Gloomy, while the open-brained boy will utilize his supernatural ability to move items in the environment, revealing paths for Nena.
Immersive World Building
These challenges bring to mind a bit of The Gardens Between, in the fashion the stages are floating, diorama-like constructions that the view pans around in coordination with your protagonists. Gloomy Eyes’ environments are very enjoyable, taking the duo around a fair and through a haunted house, amid other places. Players can use a “diorama view” option that enables you to view from afar and rotate the stages, both for admire the designs and hunt for ways that may not have been clear.
Minor Issues and Complete Experience
Here lies one of the sole hiccups with Gloomy Eyes. Like other games with a locked camera, occasionally it's confusing where the protagonists are able to move. You may need to simply collide with a multiple different items to determine which ones are usable, as clues aren't consistently provided.
Nevertheless, those slight obstacles don't obstruct of a eerie-adorable enjoyable experience. Gloomy Eyes has a compact length, with approximately three to five hours worth of brain-teasers. Subsequent stages blend together subtle hidden movement and action elements with the challenge completion, as Gloomy Eyes progresses to a satisfying — and moderately unforeseen — ending.
Accessibility and Summary
Gamers shying away from the frights of fear-inducing games ought to experience Gloomy Eyes. It’s available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PC, and Microsoft console, and is currently on sale for a quarter off on game marketplaces.
The spooky-cute adventure is available on several consoles and delivers a pleasurable choice for players seeking autumn enjoyment minus the intense scares.
