Before Your Eyes

Lore & Background

The concept for Before Your Eyes originated in 2014 during an intro to game development class at the University of Southern California, when a student assistant discussed modifying a game to respond to eye movements via a built-in camera. Two students teamed up with him to create a project called Close Your, which won the Developer's Choice award at IndieCade and the Best Student Game award at the Independent Games Festival in 2015. A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016 funded the project, originally slated for a 2017 release, but development was sporadic until 2018 when funding from RYOT was secured. The game was rebranded as Before Your Eyes and released on 8 April 2021 for Windows, with a macOS port in September 2021 and mobile ports via Netflix Games in July 2022.

The game's narrative structure was inspired by the 1949 stage play Death of a Salesman. The player controls Benjamin Brynn, who is dead and being transported to the afterlife by the Ferryman. To be judged worthy of paradise, Benny must recount his memories, but each blink moves time forward. The story covers his childhood, his passion for music and art, a terminal illness, and his eventual death. The Ferryman later discovers that Benny's memories of becoming a successful artist were fantasies; his true life was short and ordinary, but he gave hope to his family and friends. The Gatekeeper allows him to pass based on this sincerity.

Reader's Guide

Before Your Eyes received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising the story as moving, earnest, and powerful, while noting the eye-tracking controls as often inconsistent. The game's narrative was described as having a beautiful defense of its thesis, with vocal performances that helped reach emotional depths. Some critics noted frustration from missing important moments due to the blinking mechanic. The game's ability to tell a parable on life and death in a short runtime left a deep impression on reviewers. Its legacy lies in its innovative use of eye-tracking as a core gameplay mechanic, though the functionality of this feature received criticism. The game represents a full reimagining of the team's earlier project Close Your, and its development path from a student project to a commercially released title highlights the challenges of indie game development.

Did You Know?

• The player can opt to use a mouse instead of a webcam, with clicking performing the same actions as blinking.
• The seagulls in the game are the souls of liars.
• The game was originally conceived in a 2014 university class at the University of Southern California.

Roots in Capitol Hill

Benjamin Hammond Haggerty came into the world on June 19, 1983, in Seattle, Washington, the son of Bill Haggerty and Julie Schott. Growing up in the Capitol Hill neighborhood alongside his brother Tim, he was shaped by an Irish-Catholic household that, as it turned out, would produce one of hip-hop's most distinctive voices. The genre first found him at age six through the irreverent energy of Digital Underground, and by fifteen he was writing his own lyrics. His teenage listening was deeply rooted in East Coast underground rap—artists like Hieroglyphics, Freestyle Fellowship, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, and Talib Kweli became his compass. In high school, he split his time between Garfield and Nathan Hale, where he co-founded a student hip-hop collective called Elevated Elements and, for an art project centered on a fictional superhero, coined the stage name "Professor Macklemore." A year at the College of Santa Fe proved transformative; he later credited it as the place where his rapping truly sharpened. He eventually earned his bachelor's degree from Evergreen State College in 2009, where he also led music workshops for incarcerated youth through a program called Gateways for Incarcerated Youth.

The Heist and a Historic Run

The partnership between Macklemore and producer Ryan Lewis crystallized in 2009 after Lewis had spent years photographing Macklemore's promotional work. What began as friendship quickly became a creative engine. By 2011, the duo was selling out the Showbox at the Market three nights running and headlining major festivals from Lollapalooza to Bonnaroo. Their October 2012 album The Heist debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, moving more than 78,000 copies in its first week. But it was the singles that rewrote chart history: "Thrift Shop" became the first self-released track in eleven years to claim the top spot on the Hot 100, and the follow-up "Can't Hold Us" made them the first duo ever to land their two initial singles at number one. At the 56th Grammy Awards, the pair swept four major categories—Best New Artist, Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song for "Same Love," and Best Rap Performance for "Thrift Shop"—cementing a moment that few independent acts in hip-hop had ever achieved.

Independent by Design

Long before "Thrift Shop" made headlines, Macklemore had already built a career on the principle of self-distribution. His 2000 mixtape Open Your Eyes was released entirely on his own, followed by the 2005 full-length The Language of My World and the 2009 Unplanned Mixtape, which climbed to number seven on the iTunes Hip Hop chart. This independent streak was not accidental; it was a deliberate philosophy that carried through his biggest commercial moment. When The Heist was ready for a wider audience, the duo signed an unconventional three-month, single-album deal with ADA, the independent distribution arm of Warner Bros. The arrangement let them keep full ownership of their intellectual property and preserve what they described as their artistic integrity. In an industry where major-label contracts typically demand multi-album commitments and broad rights, this compact structure allowed Macklemore and Lewis to walk away with their catalog intact after a single release. The result was a rare case in mainstream hip-hop: a number-two album and two number-one singles achieved without surrendering the creative and financial control that had defined his career since 2000.

Beyond the Duo: Solo Chapters

After the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis partnership concluded in 2016, with their second album This Unruly Mess I've Made serving as the final chapter, Macklemore stepped back into the spotlight as a solo act. In June 2017, the single "Glorious," featuring Skylar Grey, announced his return and marked the first major release he produced without Lewis since his mainstream breakthrough. That momentum carried into September 2017 with Gemini, his second solo studio album, which climbed to number two on the Billboard 200. The project demonstrated that his commercial appeal extended well beyond the duo format. Years later, on March 3, 2023, he returned with Ben, his third full-length album, which entered the chart at number eighteen. The trajectory from Gemini's peak to Ben's more modest placement reflects a natural evolution: the artist who once played a sold-out 48,000-seat Mariners Opening Day and swept four Grammys in a single night had settled into a career defined by steady, self-directed output rather than blockbuster spectacle.

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