Free bad dating sim Don’t Stare makes me want to play an Elder Scroll where NPCs object to your gaze

The self-explanatory Don’t Stare is both a gamejam creation I enjoy for itself and also, an idea I’d love to be incorporated into any number of first-person RPGs. Here is how the latter possibility might work: you are bandying insults with the Demon King ahead of the final battle. You’ve got some solid bantz going, but there’s a note of awkwardness, for the Demon King has very large, protruding ears, and you can’t stop looking at them.

Such biteable tubercles! Such luscious lobes! The more you stare, the more agitated the Demon King becomes, till at last, he flees in tears before you’ve exchanged a single blow. And that, young Chosen One, is how we first defeated evil many decades ago. I understand the Demon King has had some plastic surgery since.

There could actually be a Demon King in Don’t Stare, for all I know. It’s a speed-dating sim with 67 fantastical characters. Your own character doesn’t want to be here – they’ve been signed up for the event by an interfering friend. As such, your goal isn’t to romance anybody but to scare them all away by moving your eye cursor over parts of their anatomy they’re sensitive about.

Sometimes it’s as obvious as a literal hole in somebody’s head. Sometimes it takes a bit more calculation. You’ve only got 20 seconds before the bouncer throws you out, mind, so peel those peepers.

NPCs in videogames seldom object to being stared at – an expression of the player’s power that could always do with more analysis, versus the more obvious intrusive agency afforded by, say, guns and traversal abilities. Think about how you keep your eyes to yourself while walking down a city street, and compare how you swing the camera about without a care while playing Assassin’s Creed.

Some exceptions to the rule: in Lethal Company, there are creatures that respond (very unpleasantly) to being looked at. In Death Stranding, Norman Reedus will sock you one if you look at his crotch while visiting the “Private Room” (compare and contrast “press L1 to gawp at cleavage” in MGS3).

I guess you could argue that Amnesia games also constrain your gaze, because looking at awful stuff will drive your character nuts. And perhaps you could make connections with a game like Object Impermanence, in which parts of the world are only present when you’re looking at them. Any other weird eye mechanics to discuss?