Sight Unseen Lets You Detach Your Eye To Solve VR Puzzles

Sight Unseen is a unique VR puzzle game where you detach a robotic eye to find solutions.

Developed by Pretty Interesting Experiences, a team comprised of Abertay University graduates, Sight Unseen uses each lens differently inside your VR headset. Your detachable eye is capable of seeing in infrared vision, revealing hidden traps like lasers or pathways completely invisible to your other eye. All while being armed with a gun to take down potential threats. As seen in the latest VR Game Spotlight at EGX & MCM 2024, here’s the trailer.

We went hands-on during the same event, using a headset fittingly primed with googly eyes. Accompanied by a holographic assistant, this demo offered two vision modes and seeing different things across each eye is disorienting – to the team’s credit, the game warns you about this prior. Sight Unseen mitigates this with a separate “sunglasses” mode that feels considerably more user friendly.

The imaginative design is immediately clear and while some segments are relatively straightforward, the idea holds promise. Solving puzzles with your detachable eye requires grabbing it with a controller, then either throwing it across the room or rolling it to another location through a vent. It’s a creative approach that lets you spot hidden enemies or information like room codes, and recalling the eye back requires a quick button press.

I’ll be keen to see whether the team takes this idea further, and the studio’s website says Sight Unseen is getting a public release today via itch.io. A prototype version was previously released for Quest and PC VR.