Not every Halloween horror experience must terrify you. Including well-known tales such as animated detectives to delightful stories like Over the Garden Wall, numerous spooky-season favorites are enjoyable without requiring causing fear. There’s also, a growing library of ghostly-adorable games featuring Halloween vibes, yet without the keep-you-awake degree of terror. Gloomy Eyes was released in recent months, and serves as an superb cozy choice to the intensely frightening games of 2025.
An Original Single-Player Cooperative Adventure
Described as a “self-coop” puzzle game, Gloomy Eyes teams up a zombie boy known as Gloomy and a mortal child named Nena as they embark on an adventure to bring the sun back to their shadowy world. They look evokes Funko Pops combined with the characters from a stop-motion animation. The light-complected and tired-looking style draws inspiration from the appearance of Gothic fantasy movies, and the narrative is a quintessential family-friendly tale. These two forms an enduring bond over the course of the game’s multiple stages as Nena tries to show to her religious guardian that, you know, possibly the undead are actually good.
Innovative Puzzle Mechanics
The innovative description comes about from the game’s world-based challenges. When Gloomy and Nena cross paths, you’ll swap amidst the newfound friends to overcome obstacles and progress through the levels. As an undead, Gloomy can’t walk through the light of a streetlight, while Nena may be grabbed by loitering creatures without a lamp is focused on them.
They must collaborate effectively — in practice, players control them simultaneously — to complete stages. Nena could adjust or temporarily shut off lamps to clear paths for Gloomy, while the open-brained youth will employ his undead power to shift around obstacles in the world, creating ways for Nena.
Immersive World Building
The puzzles remind me a touch of The Gardens Between, in the way the levels are suspended, model-like constructions that the view rotates in conjunction with your protagonists. Gloomy Eyes’ environments are highly entertaining, leading the companions around a carnival and through a haunted house, amid other places. Players can use a “diorama view” feature that enables you to pull back and spin the stages, simultaneously to appreciate the designs and search for ways that may not have been apparent.
Minor Issues and Complete Experience
This represents one of the few hiccups with Gloomy Eyes. Similar to other titles with a locked camera, sometimes it's unclear where the characters can and cannot go. You may need to simply collide with a several various objects to determine which ones are interactive, as the game doesn't always indicate.
Nonetheless, those slight speedbumps don’t get in the way of a eerie-adorable enjoyable experience. Gloomy Eyes has a compact length, with roughly several hours worth of brain-teasers. Advanced areas combine minor stealth and dynamic sequences with the problem-solving, as Gloomy Eyes advances to a satisfying — and slightly unforeseen — finale.
Accessibility and Summary
Players avoiding the frights of intense horror titles should definitely try Gloomy Eyes. It’s available on Switch console, PlayStation 5, computer, and Microsoft console, and is currently on sale for a quarter off on online stores.
Gloomy Eyes is available on various systems and offers a pleasurable option for gamers seeking spooky entertainment minus the intense scares.