I can't start Signalis because I can't stop playing with the menu eyeball
I cannot resist teasing this eyeball which follows my cursor
Today has brought the launch of Signalis, a new retro-styled survival horror about an android trapped in a spooky place in deep space. It looks neat! I've heard it's good! I can neither confirm nor deny that because I can't get past the main menu. The background is a big blinking eye, see, and it follows my mouse cursor, so I cannot resist making the eye look around and go silly. I don't know how the devs expected players to beat this near-impossible first task of leaving the eye alone long enough to click the "Begin" button.
I really, really like that it blinks. Or winks? I suppose it could be winking. How would I even know how many eyeballs the protagonist has?
As I understand it, Signalis is set in the far future, where humanity has spread amongst the stars, and it turns out space isn't the best place. We play as an android who wakes in a wreck to find terrible, terrible things afoot. So off she goes, fighting monsters, solving puzzles, and stretching limited resources in that classic sort of Resident Evil-y, Silent Hill-ish way. Or that's what I understand from what I've heard and read, anyway. I couldn't say for certain because, you know, the eyeball.
I know in my bones that I always enjoy eyeballs tracking cursors, yet I cannot remember where else I have encountered this. It is right and it is good so I must have encountered it before yet I do not know how I know this. This does make it feel like a hallucinatory experience, a reverie felt then lost. Or an experience my brain blocks out because the knowledge is rooted in something so terrible. Why can't I remember why I am so in love with making an eyeball follow my cursor?
Signalis is out now for Windows on Steam, Humble, and the Microsoft Store, including on Game Pass. It's on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch too.
Look, I'm going to try my best to beat this first boss battle and start Signalis so I can tell you more about it, but no promises. Might be stuck teasing this eyeball for another few hours yet. Sam Greer said it's dead good in Eurogamer's review, at least?
