In a leap past shoot’-em-up mindlessness, Pulse invites players to make their way through a reality in which they cannot see

I’m not sure if we had the idea of specifically a blind protagonist at the beginning. It was more: Oh, let’s use the idea of sound and echo-location to create some kind of interesting game mechanic. Game designer Maxwell Hannaman

For a grad project, it had an ambitious premise: a video game in which a blind girl goes on a quest through a creepy, darkened world, trying to find her brother who has disappeared.

Created by five students at Vancouver Film School, the game follows a 13-year-old blind girl on a quest to find her brother in a darkened universe.

Pulse is meant to give some insight into what it’s like to be blind – and also speaks to the ongoing evolution of gaming from a shoot-’em-up good time to a mind-opening experience with broad appeal. Unveiled last week at Vancouver Film School’s industry-attended Pitch & Play session to a whole lot of wowed reaction, the game was once reckoned too ambitious for a student project.