Signal From The Stars Brings Zak McKracken-Style Mysteries to Early Access
A Dutch pixel art point-and-click adventure built around real mysteries and real places is now playable on Steam, with five scenes and the classic verb interface.
Signal From The Stars, a pixel art point-and-click adventure from the Netherlands, is now in Early Access on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux. It launched on October 30, 2026.
The game follows Martin, Diana and Nikki through the 1980s as they chase mysteries at places that actually exist. It opens in the Netherlands, where a thunderstorm brings down a tree and uncovers a strange old object. Solve that first puzzle and the trail leads abroad: the planned route takes in Peru, Egypt, India, Mexico, Easter Island, Costa Rica, Antarctica and Bosnia, among others.
The interface is the classic verb set. Open, Pick up, Look at and Talk to are all here, and you can switch between the three characters, with the same action sometimes playing out differently depending on who tries it.
The inspiration is worn openly. Developer Martin, a programmer who grew up with a Commodore 64, points to Zak McKracken and the way it sent players off to look up the real mysteries behind its story. “That is the effect I aim to recreate,” he says. His mysteries are archaeological finds and ruins drawn from books written before the internet era; UFOs, ghosts and aliens were deliberately left out.
What is in the Early Access build
Five scenes are playable today: four in the Netherlands (outside, living room, hallway and bedroom) and one in India. According to the developer, the story, the engine and the sketches for every scene are finished; what remains is the final pixel art, music and voice acting for the other scenes. The Early Access price is said to be about half of what the full release will cost, and a public progress page tracks the work scene by scene.
The game runs on an engine Martin wrote himself in Lua with LÖVE, supports 16 languages, and is made without AI: the art, music and voices are all by people. Pixel art is by Lucas Mendieta, sketches by Mayo Lopez and music by Matias Sosa.
Signal From The Stars is available on Steam. More on the game’s Just Adventure page.
