Planet of the Eyes attempts to replicate Limbo's success, but lacks the kind of atmosphere and challenge that made Limbo good. It has the simplicity and core puzzles, but beyond that, it is a very bland title.

Playing it I never felt challenged by the platforming or puzzle design, only frustrated with its limitations. Towards the end, you'll encounter rotating arrangements of boxes to traverse. You have to carefully balance your little robot to not slide down on either side of a block, and figure out the right angle to jump off from. It is a matter of timing and precision, yet the controls feel noticeably unprecise in these sections.
This is mostly down to when your robot will find it in himself to latch onto a ledge. The angle of a box has to be just right for it to happen, and even when you feel you should have been able to grab onto it, the automatic system might think otherwise. In reverse, you might end up sticking to ledges when you didn't mean to, and die as a result as well.

That kind of design quirk makes me wonder why the devs couldn't have implemented, I don't know, a button press for hanging on to things? Its not like the game offers more than jump and interact buttons, plus a joke/achievement related dance button. Well, there is the pause menu too, but that, while it has a "Resume" button, doesn't actually pause the game. Oh joy.

A lot of the puzzle-platforming could have been improved simply by requiring my user input, which a ledge-grab action would have helped with. There are a lot of spots where you have to jump from ledge to ledge, and the button-press timing necessary for that would have made them a lot more engaging. The way the game plays now, however, just had me bored. Beyond the clean and quirky art style, and the occassional audio log detailing the plot passively, I didn't feel like this was something enjoyable to play. The minimalist sound design adds to that as well.

Compared to Limbo, which it is closest to, everything felt too basic, too simplistic and without real tension. There were a bunch of cool sections with alien wildlife making things difficult for you, but those mostly happened in the earlier parts of the game, and the closer you get to the end, the more it turns into pulling switches to avoid repetitive traps and waiting for platforms to move on their pre-described rotations or ferry you over lava lakes, while you're standing in place until reaching the jump-off point.

It is an utterly inoffensive game, but sadly, that also means it has nothing really going for it to keep me playing.

Planet of the Eyes attempts to replicate Limbo's success, but lacks the kind of atmosphere and challenge that made Limbo good. It has the simplicity and core puzzles, but beyond that, it is a very bland title. Playing it I never felt challenged by the platforming or puzzle design, only frustrated with its limitations. Towards the end, you'll encounter rotating arrangements of boxes to traverse. You have to carefully balance your little robot to not slide down on either side of a block, and figure out the right angle to jump off from. It is a matter of timing and precision, yet the controls feel noticeably unprecise in these sections. This is mostly down to when your robot will find it in himself to latch onto a ledge. The angle of a box has to be just right for it to happen, and even when you feel you should have been able to grab onto it, the automatic system might think otherwise. In reverse, you might end up sticking to ledges when you didn't mean to, and die as a result as well. That kind of design quirk makes me wonder why the devs couldn't have implemented, I don't know, a button press for hanging on to things? Its not like the game offers more than jump and interact buttons, plus a joke/achievement related dance button. Well, there is the pause menu too, but that, while it has a "Resume" button, doesn't actually pause the game. Oh joy. A lot of the puzzle-platforming could have been improved simply by requiring my user input, which a ledge-grab action would have helped with. There are a lot of spots where you have to jump from ledge to ledge, and the button-press timing necessary for that would have made them a lot more engaging. The way the game plays now, however, just had me [i]bored[/i]. Beyond the clean and quirky art style, and the occassional audio log detailing the plot passively, I didn't feel like this was something enjoyable to play. The minimalist sound design adds to that as well. Compared to Limbo, which it is closest to, everything felt too basic, too simplistic and without real tension. There were a bunch of cool sections with alien wildlife making things difficult for you, but those mostly happened in the earlier parts of the game, and the closer you get to the end, the more it turns into pulling switches to avoid repetitive traps and waiting for platforms to move on their pre-described rotations or ferry you over lava lakes, while you're standing in place until reaching the jump-off point. It is an utterly inoffensive game, but sadly, that also means it has nothing really going for it to keep me playing.