Out of sight

Games that approach humanity as a theme are hard to pull off. Those that seek to highlight the complications of the human mind are even more so. Out of sight is a game that touches on the latter and does it in an original and very captivating way.

Out of sight is a game about a woman who seeks medical help from a psychologist. She suffers from dysmnesia, an affliction of the brain that has sliced away bits and pieces of her memory. Left with a severely afflicted subconscious, she seeks to piece together what is left of her sanity in an attempt to understand her family’s traumatic past.

The subject is complex on its but in the game, the presentation is fairly lightweight. After choosing what to talk about with the psychologist, the game immerses you into the environments where the events have taken place. Using all of her senses, the woman must find anchor fragments within her memories and try to recall the events as they happened. This is done by identifying objects in the house and choosing the feelings and memories they want to associate with them.

As you can imagine, a broken down mind will always produce variations of the same events, and that happens in Out of sight as well. In each room you will experience two sides of a memory, each one is engraved in the mother’s mind. The game is a blend of tragic and dramatic events as it showcases instances of an alcoholic mother, an abusive father, and a rebellious and misunderstood teen. It all comes crashing down around the player.

One of Out of sight’s many appealing points is its gameplay. Using your controller you need to explore portions of a room, selecting objects and what memories to attach to them. It takes a bit of getting used to but after a few minutes it all makes sense and flows naturally.

Depending on your choices, you get different outcomes for the game and at the end, you might find yourself facing a conclusion that catches you by surprise. At least that happened to me. Out of sight has less appealing moments as well. For example, although the game benefits from good voice acting, there are uncomfortable and unnecessary pauses in the line exchanges between the characters. That tends to lower the dramatic atmosphere of the game.

Another thing I loved about Out of sight is the visual style it uses. The segment by segment browsing of each environment coupled with the photo mache characters looks great. If development to this game should take a higher form, Out of sight might be one of the best games of this kind you can play. There is a lot of untapped potential to it.