• The Eyes Of Ara Game
• The Eyes Of Ara Walkthrough
• The Eyes Of Ara

'The Eyes of Ara is a masterclass in art design, the realizations of one man’s personal interests in game form.' Nominee: Excellence in Art - Australian Game Developer Awards, 2016 - The Australian Game Developer Awards are an annual celebration of the talent that makes up the Australian game development industry. Winner: Made With Unity Showcase. The Eyes of Ara will floor you. This is beautiful, every nook and cranny that you can explore has so much detail, quirks, and surprises. It has a VERY original story and there is SO much to SEE! I kept getting lost, like a kid in a mansion.all alone and left to explore. The story drives the art and it isn’t one you will have heard before. The Eyes of Ara is a predominantly one-man project, created by Ben Droste, independent developer and founder of 100 Stones Interactive. For more information and regular updates on The Eyes of Ara, check back here often and follow 100 Stones Interactive on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

There’s a delicate balance that needs to be met when developing a quality puzzle game. If the puzzles are too easy, players may become bored and stop playing. If they’re too difficult, they may become frustrated and walk away. There also needs to be a sense of purpose, of course, to drive players forward in the form of a narrative or overarching goal. If done well, these games can be a rewarding experience and provide the sense of accomplishment that comes with solving difficult problems. The Eyes of Ara, the debut title from 100 Stones Interactive, aims to strike that balance with a focus on environmental storytelling.

You take on the role of a contractor for a telecommunications company sent out on a remote job: find the source of a signal that’s been interfering with over-the-air communications throughout the area and put a stop to it. It’s a simple enough task, until you realize that the source of the signal has been pinpointed inside an abandoned castle. That castle is where you’ll spend the entirety of your time with The Eyes of Ara, unraveling a mystery closely tied to your task that unfolds before you as you hunt down the rogue interference.

The Eyes of Ara lacks a traditional narrative and, much like other puzzle-based graphic adventure games it’s modeled after, the story is told through interacting with the environment. Information about the mysterious “Eyes”, as well as the most recent occupants of the castle, is slowly revealed by reading documents scattered throughout its rooms. As you explore the castle, you learn more about the last tenants — a researcher and some of his family members — from the writings they’ve left behind. Their characters aren’t particularly deep, but the telling of their time in residence adds a bit of depth to the castle’s history rather than just having you explore a bland, lifeless, and empty game setting.

The overarching tale of the Eyes is told through the notes left by the researcher regarding his efforts to understand them. There’s even a story reason for why the castle is laced with puzzles throughout, which was a little flimsy but a nice touch. The story itself is mostly average, but the game’s execution of this environmental storytelling is spot on and adds to the sense of mystery and discovery that its visuals cultivate.

One gripe I have about how The Eyes of Ara chooses to tell its story is that, despite the many documents scattered throughout the castle to piece together the narrative, there isn’t any kind of player journal that records what you find. You have to go back to previous rooms and click on each document if you want to read them again. This extends to the various notes and scribbles you find related to puzzles. I found myself taking pictures of them with my phone after a while so I didn’t have to keep trekking back to look at them. This hearkens back to the days of keeping your own notes while playing games, sure, but it doesn’t really make sense why the player-character can’t simply pocket the notes in-game.

Speaking of puzzles, there are plenty in the Eyes of Ara that vary in both complexity and cleverness. There are some logic puzzles, some “guess and check” puzzles, and some that are so incredibly simple you may overthink them. The puzzles and environments are well-integrated and require you to be aware of your surroundings. A hand-scribbled note here, a picture there, and a seemingly innocuous book entry may all be pieces to a larger puzzle. The Eyes of Ara pulls these more complex puzzles off fantastically, and there were moments when I felt genuine satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment when I figured out the solution to a head scratcher.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t issues with some of the puzzles, however. The game has moments when things temporarily devolve into hidden object mode. There are a handful of times when a vital piece of a puzzle is an object that’s so well-blended into the environment it’s tough to see. There was one instance in particular near the very end of the game that frustrated me to no end because I could not figure out how to move forward. It turned out that I didn’t see a well-hidden object within the environment. Its position was such that even clicking around everywhere and on everything, a tactic to which you never want your players to resort, didn’t help. Though these moments are rare, and admittedly could be blamed on me and my aging eyes, they pulled me out of the experience nonetheless.

The Eyes of Ara’s visuals are quite beautiful. Although the game’s four main areas are all inside the castle, they each have their own distinct look and feel. The amount of detail put into each of the rooms within those areas, from floor to ceiling, is readily apparent as you explore. The one issue I did have with the visuals was that the text within some of the documents was a little hard to read and could use a bit of sharpening. The music is well done and fits the atmosphere of mystery and exploration perfectly. I wish there was more of it, though the game seems to skew towards minimalism in this aspect. Additionally, the music often seems to cut in and out for no discernible rhyme or reason.

The Eyes of Ara succeeds in providing just the right balance of difficulty in its puzzles while expertly weaving them into the environment. While the overall story is fairly average, it delivers on its intention to tell it through fun, immersive puzzles and top-notch aesthetics. The fact that this title was developed by essentially one man in Ben Droste is fascinating and makes one wonder what he could accomplish with a dedicated development team. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out.

A downloadable game for Windows and macOS

Escape to another place. Become enthralled in an award-winning Adventure-Puzzle game set in a gorgeous 3D environment. Explore a vast and ancient castle riddled with secret vaults and hidden rooms. Solve elaborate puzzles, locate lost treasures, and unravel an ancient mystery.

Weave your way through a tale of mystery and discovery. Solve numerous and varied puzzles to reveal long forgotten secrets. Locate the lost keepsakes of the former occupants, and discover stories of those who once called the castle home.

Story

How to mod tenkaichi 3. Alone on a remote island stands an ancient weathered castle, steeped in legend, shrouded in mystery. For years it has remained quiet and undisturbed, and yet still the townspeople recall old stories of restless dreams, violent storms, and the eerie glow of ghostly lights dancing in the mist. Recently a mysterious radio signal has begun broadcasting from somewhere within the ancient walls. Something inside the castle has awoken, and someone needs to venture inside to uncover the truth…

Features

Countless Secrets to Discover

The Eyes Of Ara Game

• Weave your way through a complex web of puzzles to unlock the castle’s ultimate truth.. or choose your own path. The Eyes of Ara does not hold your hand: Go in search of secret vaults and hidden passageways, locate all of the lost keepsakes, or entwine yourself in the history of the castle and its former occupants.

Immersive Environments and Organic Storytelling

• Delve into an intriguing tale set within a richly detailed, immersive environment. Explore abandoned rooms, discover lost writings, and recover forgotten keepsakes to piece together the stories of those who once called the castle home.

Tactile Gameplay

• Manipulate complex mechanisms, solve elaborate puzzles, and interact directly with the environment in a tactile, hands-on experience.

Minimalist Interface

• Investigate the castle’s secrets through a sleek, minimalist interface that with a click, can be hidden entirely off-screen.

The Eyes of Ara is a game about exploration, puzzle solving, and discovery. Will you pay heed to the unsettling tales and legends surrounding the castle, or will you set fear aside and venture in with an open and inquisitive mind to uncover the truth for yourself?

System Requirements

Recommended

OS: Windows 7 or later / OS X 10.11 or later
Processor: 3.20GHz Processor or higher
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDA GeForce GTX 750 / AMD Radeon R9 M390 equivalent
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 2 GB available space

Minimum

OS: WindowsXP SP2 or later / OS X 10.7 or later
Processor: 2.40GHz Processor
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Video card with Shader model 3.0 support and 256MB of Memory
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 2 GB available space

The Eyes of Ara was developed by one-man indie studio
100 Stones Interactive and is available on itch.io DRM-Free

Purchase

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $14.99 USD. Your purchase comes with a Steam key. You will get access to the following files:

Download demo

Development log

• Patch 1.4 - The Explorer’s Journal
  Oct 12, 2018

The Eyes Of Ara Walkthrough

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The Eyes Of Ara