Before Your Eyes vs Goodnight Universe: How the BAFTA-Winning Team Evolved Their Emotional Storytelling

The creative journey from Before Your Eyes to Goodnight Universe represents one of the most compelling developer evolutions in modern gaming. Childhood friends Graham Parkes and Oliver Lewin, who served as writer/creative director and game director/producer respectively on their BAFTA-winning debut, have transformed their successful collaboration into a formal studio structure with Nice Dream Games.

This evolution from the GoodbyeWorld collective to a dedicated studio marks a significant milestone in their mission to "craft games that pursue storytelling and innovation in equal measure." Goodnight Universe, positioned as a spiritual successor to Before Your Eyes, continues the team's fascination with unique control schemes and emotional stories while expanding their technological and narrative ambitions. The transition from blink-controlled life review to psychic baby adventures demonstrates how the team has refined their approach to emotional storytelling while maintaining their core creative vision.

The Creative Foundation: Before Your Eyes

Revolutionary Blink Mechanics

Before Your Eyes uses standard webcam technology with eye-tracking plugins to detect player blinks. This turns an involuntary biological function into the primary control mechanism for narrative progression. Each blink can advance the story by seconds, minutes, hours, or even years, creating a powerful sense of time's relentless passage that players cannot control.

Embodied Interaction: The mechanic bridges the gap between your physical body and the digital narrative. Your own biological rhythms dictate the pace at which the protagonist's life story unfolds, transforming you from a passive observer into an active participant.

• Players instinctively try to keep eyes open to linger in happy moments.
• Physiological compulsion to blink forces progression through difficult scenes.
• At certain points, blinking reveals details without advancing time.

The blink mechanic serves as a powerful metaphor for life passing "in the blink of an eye." This makes the narrative's themes of mortality and memory feel intensely personal, as your own blinks become emotional triggers.

Emotional Storytelling Innovation

The game follows protagonist Benjamin Brynn as his soul is reviewed by a supernatural Ferryman after death. Players experience key moments from his childhood and adolescence through fragmented memories. The narrative structure intentionally mirrors human memory with short, fleeting vignettes that can be cut short by involuntary blinks, creating a powerful sense of time's relentless passage through both joyous and heartbreaking scenes.

Memory as Metaphor: The blink mechanic turns simple actions into emotional triggers. It explores themes of grief, memory, and mortality by making players complicit in the pacing through their own physiological responses.

• Players face family tragedies and childhood moments like learning the violin.
• The Ferryman questions and guides the recollection process.
• Alternate story routes emerge based on blink timing and player choices.

The design mirrors the texture of memory itself. It explores how we make meaning from experiences and how stories about our lives and those we've lost are fundamental to processing mortality.

Developer Evolution: From GoodbyeWorld to Nice Dream

The Formation of Nice Dream Games

Nice Dream Games was co-founded by childhood friends Graham Parkes and Oliver Lewin, who previously served as writer/creative director and game director/producer on Before Your Eyes. The studio emerged as a logical conclusion to the team's collaborative experience developing that award-winning game.

Nice Dream Games: A new studio formed to continue the innovative storytelling approach of the Before Your Eyes team. The studio's mission is to craft games that pursue storytelling and innovation in equal measure, broadening the narrative potential of video games. The formation reunites numerous notable talents from the original Before Your Eyes team while creating a permanent home for their creative work.

• Announced in April 2024 alongside their first project, Goodnight Universe.
• Goodnight Universe is positioned as a spiritual successor to Before Your Eyes.
• Maintains partnership with Skybound Games, the same publisher as Before Your Eyes.

The name "Nice Dream" reflects their focus on creating dreamlike, emotionally impactful experiences that explore boundaries between reality and imagination. The studio aims to build upon Before Your Eyes' technological innovations while expanding into new forms of interactive storytelling and control schemes.

Creative Philosophy Evolution

GoodbyeWorld Games: A gamemaker collective formed by Will Hellwarth in college around the same time he created the core concept for Before Your Eyes. The studio's philosophy prioritized authentic, meaningful experiences drawn from the team's personal stories, with key members blending roles.

Nice Dream Games evolved this into a formal studio structure, representing a logical conclusion to the collaborative experience and creating a permanent home for the team with institutional stability.

• GoodbyeWorld emphasized incredibly powerful experiences through innovative control schemes like the blink mechanic.
• Nice Dream maintains core commitment to emotional storytelling and unique interactivity.
• New structure adds foundational staff to support sustainable growth and expansion.

The evolution preserves the focus on deeply personal storytelling while adopting a more structured approach to broadening narrative potential. Nice Dream's formal mission explicitly pursues technological innovation, building upon their proven formula with greater resources.

Goodnight Universe: The Spiritual Successor

Innovative Protagonist Perspective

Players control Isaac, a six-month-old baby with adult-level intelligence and awareness who discovers he possesses formidable psychic abilities including telekinesis and telepathy. This baby perspective fundamentally alters traditional adventure game mechanics, requiring creative solutions for movement, communication, and problem-solving that reflect Isaac's physical limitations.

Camera as Consciousness: The world is viewed from Isaac's limited vantage point, such as from a crib or car seat, creating an immersive perspective. Isaac's greatest challenge is communication—he understands the world but cannot verbally express his thoughts to his family. This creates a central conflict driven by his desire to be loved and accepted.

Players use telekinesis to manipulate objects within Isaac's line of sight and telepathy to sense family members' emotions and thoughts. Choices influence relationships and story branches. The gameplay alternates between psychic-powered segments and quieter, mundane moments that reinforce the reality of being a baby. Isaac is voiced by actor Lewis Pullman, providing internal monologue and narration from the baby's perspective throughout the game.

Narrative Mechanics Evolution

Goodnight Universe expands on face-tracking technology from Before Your Eyes, offering opportunities to play with its control scheme outside of blinking. The telepathy mechanic requires players to tune into characters' minds by performing specific facial gestures like closing eyes and turning their head.

Blinking Refinement: While Before Your Eyes used blinking to advance time, Goodnight Universe refines blinking to serve telepathic functions where blinks are interpreted as the baby's attempts to send or receive thoughts and emotions.

The game creates a symbiotic relationship where the player's genuine facial reactions can shape dialogue and events, making the emotional journey inseparable from gameplay. Narrative choices are driven by timing of blinks and conveyed emotions rather than traditional dialogue trees.

• Tune into minds through facial gestures.
• Shape story through genuine reactions.
• Influence relationships via psychic feedback loop.

The psychic mechanics create a feedback loop where player actions directly influence relationships and story branches. The face-tracking system aims to create profound empathy by making physical actions mirror the baby's psychic efforts.

Comparative Analysis: Storytelling Innovation

Feature	Before Your Eyes (2021)	Goodnight Universe (2025)	Evolution
Protagonist	12-year-old Benjamin Brynn	6-month-old Isaac	Shift from child to infant perspective
Core Mechanic	Blink-controlled time progression	Psychic baby powers	From physical action to mental/psychic abilities
Themes	Life, death, memory, regret	Family, corporate intrigue, consciousness	Broader scope with corporate elements
Studio Structure	GoodbyeWorld Games (collective)	Nice Dream (formal studio)	Professionalization of creative team
Platforms	PC/mobile	PC/PS5/Xbox Series/Switch 2	Expanded multi-platform release
Critical Reception	BAFTA winner	Tribeca Games Award nominee	Continued critical acclaim

The Future of Emotional Storytelling

Industry Impact and Legacy

Before Your Eyes won the BAFTA Games Award for Game Beyond Entertainment in 2022, establishing the team's reputation for innovative narrative experiences that push gaming boundaries. Goodnight Universe continued this recognition with a Tribeca Games Award nomination in 2024. Both games demonstrate how the team has pioneered new storytelling approaches in the industry.

Embodied Interaction: This is the use of physical player actions as core gameplay mechanics. Before Your Eyes pioneered this by using involuntary biological functions like blinking to create deeper player-character connections.

The team demonstrated how webcam technology could serve emotional storytelling rather than just communication. Goodnight Universe expands this innovation by incorporating smiles, frowns, and other expressions as gameplay inputs.

• Recognition from prestigious awards bodies.
• Pioneering use of biological functions as mechanics.
• Inspiring other developers to explore embodied interaction.

The games have influenced accessibility discussions, as Before Your Eyes offers alternative control schemes while maintaining the emotional impact of its core mechanic. It has also been used in educational settings to teach narrative design and the relationship between mechanics and theme. The team's work shows how constrained perspectives create powerful experiences impossible through traditional gaming approaches.

What's Next for Nice Dream

Nice Dream Games is strategically expanding its roster with new foundational additions while maintaining the core team from Before Your Eyes. This evolution from GoodbyeWorld's collective model to a formal studio structure indicates a move toward sustainable growth and institutional stability. The studio's continued partnership with Skybound Games provides stable publishing support for future projects, a successful relationship that began with Before Your Eyes and positions Nice Dream for long-term development.

Embodied Interaction: The studio's focus on camera-based technology suggests this will remain a core strategic pillar. Goodnight Universe's expansion from blinking to full face tracking demonstrates their commitment to innovation. Nice Dream's mission to "broaden the narrative potential of video games" suggests continued exploration beyond their pioneered mechanics.

• Teased upcoming multiplayer features for Goodnight Universe.
• Director describes their approach as "dreaming big."
• Continued exploration of constrained perspectives.

The team's deliberate growth strategy involves establishing their identity through innovative titles before expanding their portfolio and technological capabilities.

Conclusion

The evolution from Before Your Eyes to Goodnight Universe demonstrates how Nice Dream Games has successfully built upon their award-winning foundation while expanding their creative and technological horizons. The team's journey from the GoodbyeWorld collective to a formal studio structure represents a natural progression that has allowed them to refine their approach to emotional storytelling.

By transitioning from blink mechanics to psychic abilities, they've maintained their commitment to innovative control schemes while exploring new narrative territory. The continued critical recognition and expanded platform availability underscore their growing influence in the narrative gaming landscape. As Nice Dream continues to "broaden the narrative potential of video games," their evolutionary pattern suggests they will keep pushing boundaries with unique perspectives and innovative mechanics that forge deeper connections between players and stories.