Review: Shut Eye
Shut Eye is a first person horror game, played from the perspective of a child in their room at night. You must survive the night and keep your anxiety level down. Shut Eye is available on steam for $4.99 and the Nintendo Switch for $3.99.
Note: This review is for the Nintendo Switch version.
Story
Think back to when you were a child; your imagination would go crazy and nighttime was the scariest part of the day. In Shut Eye, you play as an unnamed child who must survive the night. Your imagination is going wild and your toys are out to get you. You have to stay in the light and keep the toys away. There is no actual story in the game. You get that background information from the game description and then you just jump right into it. You have to survive until morning each day. The night ends and the morning begins at 7 am. The first day starts at 4 am and then each day after starts an hour earlier than the last. Your goal is to survive a week.
With no real narrative in the game, it’s hard to find the motivation to keep going. You’re in the same room each night, for just a little longer each day, with no extra context.
*SPOILER ALERT*
When you do survive the week, you just get a still image with the name of the game saying “Congratulations! You have survived for seven days!”
Then that’s it. There’s really no reason to ever play it again.
Gameplay
You start out on your bed, a bunk bed, and you are on the bottom bunk. You have two tools at your disposal: a flashlight and a music box. The object is to survive until morning; the way you do that is by keeping your anxiety level down, and your toys away from you, until then.
When you are in the room without the flashlight on, your anxiety goes up by one. When your flashlight is on, your anxiety goes down by one. When you take out your music box, your anxiety goes up by two. You need to stay under 100; when you hit 100, it’s game over. The first few days that won’t be a factor, but the later days get very stressful.
Your flashlight runs on a battery. When it runs low, you need to find a new battery. There are only three places to check in your room: under the bed, on the top bunk, and on the side of the bed. These three locations are also the starting locations for some of your toys to scare you. The first time you go to check under the bed, there is a toy there waiting for you; it is an uneasy feeling that just doesn't sit right.
When the toys start to come out, you have to play your music box to send them away. In the later areas, this is where it gets tougher. You’re always low on flashlight battery, your anxiety is already high in the later stages, and then you have to purposely bring it higher to fend off some toys. It’s very stressful, and in the beginning enjoyable, but the repetitive nature quickly wears thin.
As you get closer to the end of the week each night gets more difficult. Your anxiety counts up quicker, your batteries die faster. It was such a big change from day one to the final day, and since it’s a short game, it escalates so quickly. Day five was a fun challenge, day six seemed a little tedious, and then day seven was just a crapshoot. Your batteries die so quickly, and if you guess the wrong location for batteries, you’re screwed. You have to continue to get lucky for the entirety of the level. Then, the ending of the game sucked the fun right out of this one; the payoff you get is so unrewarding, I don’t think the journey was really worth it.
Scares
The game does have its moments and its jump scares. When you are hunting for batteries, and then are face to face with a toy, it got me almost every time. When your anxiety gets really high, things get more intense and crazier. I was never truly scared during this game, but for the majority of it, I did feel uneasy. It felt like the game truly got me when it got me to jump.
Verdict
Shut Eye has a budget price and a budget experience. It will take you roughly an hour to survive for the week and the game has no replayability. There’s a lot worse you can spend five bucks on but I find it a little hard to recommend this one. It has a fun and interesting premise, but repetitive gameplay and an unrewarding ending drag this one down. Shut Eye gets a score of — 4/10 — . Play at your own risk.
For more game reviews, check out my reviews of Call of Duty Mobile and The Get Out Kids, great entries in Apple Arcade so far. For everything else, be sure to give me a follow on Twitter. I’m @Big_Broons.
