Not each autumn fright experience needs to scare gamers. Starting with iconic favorites like animated detectives to endearing shows including Over the Garden Wall, plenty of autumn-inspired favorites are enjoyable without raising your heart rate. Moreover, a growing library of spooky-cute games with Halloween vibes, but not the truly terrifying level of horror. Gloomy Eyes was released in September, and acts as an superb cozy choice to the intensely frightening titles of 2025.
An Original Single-Player Cooperative Adventure
Known as a solo collaboration problem-solving title, Gloomy Eyes teams up a living-impaired child called Gloomy and a human girl named Nena as they begin an adventure to return daylight to their dark, dark environment. Their appearance is similar to Funko Pops mixed with the figures from a Laika film. Their fair-toned and tired-looking style draws inspiration from the visual style of Burtonesque cinema, and the story is a quintessential suitable for everyone adventure. The duo builds an strong connection over the duration of the game’s numerous levels as Nena strives to prove to her religious guardian that, hey, perhaps living-impaired beings can be friendly.
Original Gameplay Systems
This unique description comes about from the game’s interactive problem-solving. After Gloomy and Nena meet, players alternate among the recent allies to solve puzzles and advance through the stages. Since he's not alive, Gloomy can’t walk through the brightness of a streetlight, while Nena will get snatched up by loitering creatures without a lamp is focused on them.
They must collaborate effectively — well, players control them simultaneously — to finish levels. Nena might relocate or briefly disable lights to clear paths for Gloomy, while the open-brained character will utilize his supernatural ability to shift around obstacles in the surroundings, revealing routes for Nena.
Immersive World Building
The brain-teasers remind me a little of The Gardens Between, in the manner the stages are hovering, model-like constructions that the perspective moves across in conjunction with your characters. Gloomy Eyes’ environments are highly entertaining, leading the companions around a amusement park and through a haunted house, amid other locales. There’s a “diorama view” button that allows you to pull back and turn the areas, both for admire the visuals and look for routes that may not have been apparent.
Minor Hiccups and General Experience
This represents one of the only hiccups with Gloomy Eyes. Like other releases with a static view, occasionally it's confusing where the protagonists are able to move. Gamers could require to simply collide with a multiple different items to figure out which ones are interactable, as clues aren't consistently provided.
However, those slight obstacles don't obstruct of a spooky-cute enjoyable experience. Gloomy Eyes has a compact length, with roughly several hours worth of puzzles. Later levels blend together light sneaking and dynamic sequences with the challenge completion, as Gloomy Eyes progresses to a satisfying — and slightly unexpected — conclusion.
Availability and Final Thoughts
Gamers avoiding the terror of fear-inducing games won’t want to miss Gloomy Eyes. The game is out on Switch console, Sony system, Windows PC, and Microsoft console, and is currently on sale for a discount on game marketplaces.
The spooky-cute adventure is out now on various systems and provides a delightful choice for gamers looking for spooky entertainment minus the terrifying moments.
