It’s easiest to describe The Star Named EOS as an escape room, but you might not want to leave. It’s a story about photography, nostalgia, and the interplay between the two, where photos are treated as an occasionally literal key to memory. It’s also a remarkably effective ad for instant cameras.
EOS is a short first-person adventure game from the Taiwanese developer Silver Lining Studio, which previously made 2021’s Behind the Frame. It’s got a few interesting things to say, and I was genuinely touched by its story as I was genuinely annoyed by some of its puzzles.
EOS is set across several critical moments in the life of Dei, the son of a photographer. Since Dei was a kid, his mother sent him letters and instant photos from wherever she traveled, as a way to encourage him to find the beauty in the world around him.
Throughout his life, Dei occasionally sets out to recapture some of the scenes his mother photographed, either through set design or traveling to the places where she’s been.
Dei’s photo quest is the initial hook of EOS. Each chapter is set at a particular point in Dei’s life as he’s trying to connect with his mom through their shared hobbies. You start in a single room surrounded by puzzles, and by solving them, you get closer to being able to recreate the image from a particular photo. When you get that photo just right, you can move on.
Initially, I was worried that EOS was going to end up as too idealistic for its own good. The first few chapters are devoted to idyllic, hand-painted landscapes, all of which are suffused with a warm rose-colored glow. I’d wondered if it was meant as pure comfort food, like an interactive greeting card, all childhood puzzles and cherished memories.
It does have more to say than that, however. After roughly its halfway point, EOS tosses in a couple of narrative swerves that put most of what’s come before in a new context. It absolutely is what it says it is, a story about photography and nostalgia, but it’s also about the need to grow. The past is over; remember it, but you can’t live there.
I’m trying to be delicate here for the sake of spoilers. Ideally, you’d play EOS blind, with no idea that there were any twists coming at all. On the other hand, if you didn’t know that it would eventually take a turn, it might be harder to stick with it. If your reaction to the first 15-20 minutes of EOS is to roll your eyes and write it off as another zero-conflict zero-calorie “cozy” game, as I almost did, keep going. I promise you that it’s eventually worthwhile.
That being said, it’s got the same issue as virtually all other adventure games: the first challenge is to get a handle on the developers’ unique brand of moon logic. This has been an endemic issue with the genre since the days of text-parser games. It’s often hard to figure out not just what to do, but how the hell you’re supposed to figure it out with the clues you possess.
Escape rooms in general seem to thrive on that inaccessibility, and in EOS’s case, it doubles down with its sense of Miyazakian magical realism. It’s not even dream logic; it’s pure metaphor, almost from the start, and only gets more abstract as you reach its endgame.
That can result in some frustratingly opaque moments in what’s otherwise a memorable experience. EOS also features a bunch of random achievements and optional challenges that you wouldn’t know were there unless you did some out-of-game research, such as the process of filling out Dei’s personal photo album.
That’s the nature of the beast, though, and the real reason I’d recommend The Star Named EOS to anyone is for its purely emotional beats. There are a few moments in this game that hit me harder than I expected they would.
As I hinted at above, I went into the first chapter of EOS with a real sense of cynicism, which has been fostered by playing way too many “cozy” adventure games, and EOS’s various narrative abstractions didn’t help with that.
It really hits the road at the halfway point, however, and its handmade art never stops being less than evocative. It’s a genuinely beautiful game. EOS is worth a look if you like weird puzzles, non-linear narratives, and Studio Ghibli movies.
