Limerick, Ireland — October 2025 — With visuals created entirely by hand inside a garden shed, Éalú is a haunting yet heartfelt stop-motion puzzle/adventure game about a wooden mouse trapped in a maze, who dreams of escaping into the outside world. Developed by Irish studio Beyond the Bark, the game combines painstaking physical craft, emotional, wordless storytelling and tactile artistry in a way rarely seen in video games.
In Éalú (which is Irish for “escape”), players guide a handmade clockwork mouse through a wooden maze. Along the way they help their rodent companion solve puzzles, gain knowledge and face moral choices which pull at their curiosity and compassion. Every movement of the mouse was animated frame-by-frame using real sets and physical props with the mouse in-situ, no sprite was used for the mouse. The over 18,000 photos captured via this process resulted in more than 512 individual animation clips created by a single animator.
“Éalú was designed with an aim to feel like an interactive silent film or a symphony,” says animator and conceptual designer Ivan Fisher-Owen. “Every element - the lighting, the use of wood as the primary material, the pacing of the music - was chosen to hopefully elicit feelings of wonder and unease, culminating in an ending that rewards empathy and patience.” The themes which inspired Éalú & its mechanics center on the confusing, sometimes destructive nature of algorithm driven behavioral loops, & the potential to be drawn in by or escape them.
Since its release, Éalú has been featured on RTÉ, streamed by French Twitch personality Recalbox to hundreds of live viewers, and celebrated by critics for its “unmatched stop-motion craftsmanship” (Heybox) and “beautiful, haunting” atmosphere (NoobFeed). Flotsom of GameBoomers said "Éalú is an engaging bit of puzzling, which is nothing I thought I would ever say about a maze."
Éalú is available now on Steam for Windows.
Key Features
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A real handmade world — Every set, prop, and puppet physically built and animated frame-by-frame.
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A maze that feels alive — Over 70 interconnected rooms divided into distinct zones, each with its own music and mood.
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An emotional journey — A wordless story about curiosity, care, and how sometimes discovery has a cost.
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A Creation with roots in Ireland — Produced independently by Beyond the Bark, an Irish theatre and puppetry studio known for tactile storytelling, with menus presented in Irish with English subtitles.
About Beyond the Bark
Beyond the Bark is an Irish theatre, puppetry and animation studio specializing in handcrafted storytelling. Helmed by Emma & Ivan Fisher-Owen, the studio’s work spans set design, live performance, stop-motion, and digital interactivity — creating emotionally resonant experiences that celebrate art as storytelling.
Press Contact:
Ivan Fisher-Owen
Beyond the Bark
📧 ealugame@gmail.com
🎮 Éalú's Steam Page