“Éalú”
Developer: Beyond the Bark
Genre: Stop-motion puzzle adventure game
Released: October 2, 2025
Rating: 8/10

Can a little mouse in a maze beat the mainstream games of today? With the rise of high tech video games that show off the most realistic graphics possible, it feels like there is no room for the unique, smaller games to show off.

“Éalú” is about a mouse that the player controls running through a maze to either find an exit or die enough times to receive the death ending. What is unique about this game though is that the entire game is created through stop motion.The creators had to build the set and run the mouse through each room, building each death scene and each press of the buttons on the puzzles. It’s something that players don’t see a lot in
a world where every game needs to be high end.

Every game today feels like it has to have the best graphics, fastest paced animation, and the most detailed story lines to even get a glance from the buyers. It doesn’t help that these large companies are setting a dangerous precedent that “good games” like “Zelda” or “Mario” have to be expensive, with new games costing upwards of 70 dollars.

But what about the games that don’t have the budget to have these perks?

Sometimes buyers will be surprised by these hidden gems. One of which is a new game “Éalú.”

With a team smaller than their playtesters list, “Éalú” is a surprisingly simple little game. Only 3 people worked on this game, apart from the music being made by Will Wood, they were able to create a fun puzzle game that keeps adding as players try to find hidden achievements.

The music is also strange, using a variety of different instruments combined in novel
ways to create a different atmosphere for each room, which adds to the whole uniqueness of the game. Created by Will Wood, an artist who is known for having an amalgamation of psychedelic, rock, punk, pop and jazz, the music is more soft in the beginning than
his normal music. However, as the player advances to different areas of the map, they get a taste for the strangeness of Will Wood.

While each section holds a very different spin on the piece, although some of the original is still present. The music is just too strange to fully be able to describe it.

The puzzles are also not too difficult that the players will struggle with it for hours while also still being challenging enough to make them sit and stare for a bit. The only issue is some of the most challenging puzzles are right at the beginning of the game.

Out of the six puzzles in the game, only three feel like a puzzle. Those three are perfect, the exact amount of trickiness that is necessary for a game like this.

However, the other three are lacking, with the waterwheel one feeling more like a chore that has to be repeated with every death than a puzzle the player has to solve.

Along with this, the amount of times a player needs to die in order to receive the bad ending is not proportional to the amount of deaths available in the game, so players will need to purposely run into the same trap multiple times to get the achievement.

Another issue that players have is the amount of time it takes to complete. On average players will take 5 hours to complete
all the puzzles and escape the maze. But for 25 dollars, that’s not a lot of playtime. Especially when factoring in that there are only six puzzles that players are redoing over and over again every time they die. It becomes repetitive and even tedious if someone wants to get all of the endings.

Despite these shortcomings that the game has, it has an incredibly cute character design made by a small group of people and deserves recognition for their hard work.

Companies like these aren’t able to promote themselves as much as large scale corporations like Nintendo and Xbox are, so it is difficult to get the support they need to continue creating.

This is the first game for this company, so they are sure to make improvements in their future endeavors.