ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴏᴜʀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ. ᴡᴀᴋᴇ ᴜᴘ.

As it is mentioned lots of times already by many people, and I will mention it as well, Signalis is a genius, well designed and a tremendous survival horror experience, and a groundbreaking moment for indie videogames.

An incredible work of art from two developers (with a little help from others of course) who offered a loving tribute to all survival horror games from the late 90s to early 2000s, including a presentation of how far someone is willing to go for their loved ones.

Elster, a Replika unit, wakes up after crashing to an unknown planet, not remembering the reason she's here. Forgetting her 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲. She leaves her ship to find something, only to run into a strangely familiar room, yet she can't wrap her finger around it. That was the moment, she got the first message from an unidentified sender. The moment she got back all her memories. From past selves maybe? From other Elsters? That she had made a promise. And she'd do anything to keep it. Her promise. No. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 promise.

A story about a person stuck in a neverending dream. A loop. An eerie and dreadful reality. To keep reminding Elster. 𝗧𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲.











W̴̛̼͖̒͋̇̍̇̔͑̉̈ă̸̡̢̖͍̗k̵̯͎̇͂̍̏̉̆͠ĕ̵̞̞͂͜ ̶͔̯̹̣̤̝̻̀͒u̴̥̭̟͂͒̈͑p̷̬̖̘̩͖̰̘͍̦̳̉̅̐͝.̷͚̙̅͂̑̓͗̀̉͠










I would love to get more into the messages and themes of Signalis and how fun of a time I've had with the gameplay, but decided in the end to keep it short, to avoid spoilers mostly, but the game has made a huge impact on me and turned this experience from a spine-chilling horror survival, to a thought provoking narrative with hidden details waiting to be discovered. To remind you. To keep you straight to your goal.


ɪ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ. ɪ'ʟʟ ᴅᴏ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ.

Was really hoping to get spooked and blown away by this one after seeing it explode everywhere but uh... who gave all of these zombie robots kitchen knives? I guess the zombie shrieks are unsettling, the bosses have cool designs, the glitches were... uh... glitchy? and I do enjoy the pixelated vibe, but the controls were bad, (not in a way that makes the game intimidating ala RE tank controls) I was never really that scared of anything besides the horrible inventory size, and none of the puzzles ever made me feel smart.

I'll give some short thoughts on this before pointing out the best softlock ever.

-- The pixel art is fantastic.

-- The horror aesthetic is great.

-- The initial descent into the facility works really well.

-- A particular point in the game where you learn more about your REPLIKA unit was probably my second-favorite moment of the game.

-- Kinda hate that the inventory is only six slots and you're using one of those slots for a necessary item for about half of the game, because it creates a lot of needless backtracking and pushes you to just run through areas instead of engaging enemies (or even dispatching them with tools).

-- The puzzles are a little obtuse at times, but it's not too hard to figure out what's going on most of the time.

But really, I'm here for when I beat the game and it softlocked during my ending. It was such a WTF moment because I'm sitting there on a screen that's not-quite frozen, with the words "YOU SELFISH MONSTER" just stuck on the screen while occasional artifacting happens. I waited ten minutes and then had to go look up the endings to confirm it was a softlock and not something else, since no buttons would give any sort of response to move it along.

YOU SELFISH MONSTER. Yep, that's me! Fun game, but also a real dick for calling me out like that. I got it on sale for 20% off and I think it's worth it at that price, given I got about eight hours out of it for 15 bucks. There's better survival horror out there, but this one definitely feels like a rather unique experience, if nothing else.

Quite possibly one of the prettiest games of a modern era. Puts most other attempts at translating classic survival horror structures to shame.

Somehow manages to also bring a fresh and exciting narrative to the table. It's carried by its presentation, but if you're won over by the visuals the story will likely grab you alongside it.

Lacks some form of subtlety in its aesthetic, which is to say that it doesn't bother to hide where its inspiration comes from. Wish more games were like this. Makes it feel more personal in an odd way.

Soundtrack is pretty good too.

Yah, anyway, play this or you suck at video games and I rebuke you

As a pretty big horror fan, I was very much looking forward to playing Signalis earlier this year when I finally got it. I’d heard a ton of really good things about it and it felt like it was about time. I was not at all prepared for the existential dread that awaited me. And also for how great Signalis truly is.
On a gameplay level, Signalis follows the basic gameplay formula of the survival horror titles of old; there’s a clear focus on resource management, a ton of puzzle solving and the fixed camera angles to go along with it. In this department Signalis isn’t groundbreaking or anything, far from it, but that’s not its aim. This is a game that’s more about refinement than it is about revolutionizing the genre, which is totally fine (especially considering how this style of game has gone out of fashion, in the mainstream at least). Signalis combines the harsh resource management of Resident Evil on PS1, along with its level philosophy, and the structure and puzzle design of the golden age of Silent Hill to great results. The difficulty curve here is a designer’s wet dream, easing the player into the gameplay loop over time while never running the risk of being stale. There’s always something new in each area, a new challenge to confront head on; the pace is so great that I don’t think newcomers to the genre would have any difficulty adapting to it at all. That isn’t to say Signalis isn’t difficult, however; the tight inventory system, in which you’re only ever allowed to carry 6 items at a time, forces you to think about every possibility each and every time you venture out into the horrors that lay in wait. Weapons and ammunition are robbed of all importance as key items needed to progress take up inventory space, leaving you defenseless against all enemies and forcing you to come up with solutions on the fly. Even downing an enemy doesn’t guarantee your safety, as they will eventually get back up when you least expect it unless you take drastic measures to get rid of them, which will cost you even more resources. Again, nothing that’s never been seen in the genre, however all of these pieces coming together really make Signalis a prime example of something that is greater than the sum of its parts; another one of these pieces that makes it so great being the atmosphere.
Signalis adopts a retro-inspired visual style which resembles the PS1 era graphics, and while on the surface it may look like something chosen for the sake of nostalgia there is quite a bit more to it. With this level of graphical fidelity our brains have to fill in a lot of the blanks, and for a game that is all about cosmic horror and the fear of the unknown, it’s pretty easy to see why this artstyle fits the game like a glove. The dark hallways of the space station of course have an eeriness to them, but also a very slight sense of comfort as you’re still seeing things you’re vaguely familiar with. As the game progresses, however, this familiarity is pulled from under you, and as you descent further down this hellhole the true fear of that which you don’t even recognize truly sets in. This is all accompanied by masterful sound design and a soundtrack that knows when to pull its punches and when to go for the jugular. Atmosphere in games is always a bit hard to put into words, but just playing a bit of the game really tells you all you need to know. Simply phenomenal.
I mentioned that Signalis falls under the category of “cosmic horror” and honestly that’s about the only way you can describe its story and how its told. Signalis is very vague with its plot, leaving lore and character motivations up to the players who are up to the task of exploring this world (i.e. notes, computer files, pictures, environmental storytelling, etc). Uncovering the horrors that these characters are going through fills you with a sense of dread that few others in the medium can even grasp, and there are several points where it truly feels like the game is toying with you just as much as it is toying with its characters. I’d say it’s the most comparable experience to a classic Silent Hill that has released ever since the disbandment of Team Silent, so props to them. I don’t want to go into much detail here in case someone does decide to give it a go, but it is one downer of a story with few, if any, bright spots that left me feeling quite hollow.
Signalis is a modern classic and one of the greatest to ever do it in my eyes, undoubtedly the best game I’ve played all year. If you’re a fan of horror and haven’t played this, do not pass up the opportunity to do so. It is worth every minute of your time.

Really good game that has amazing atmosphere but also has some minor annoyances that show up a lot throughout. Inventory management was good overall, but I feel like the flashlight should be just built in and can be toggled with a button, rather than needing to be equipped and used in the inventory every time. I also thought the hitboxes on interactable objects and doors could be sometimes too sensitive and sometimes not sensitive enough, leading to a few cheap hits from enemies just because a door wouldn't open when I'm mashing the button to open it.

"PERHAPS, THIS IS HELL."

I had high expectations for Signalis since its release in October 2022 but was busy catching up to the genre with Silent Hill and Resident Evil to fully understand the depth of the survival horror era.

What a ride it's been, to come to the conclusion of nearly 30 years of survival horror with Signalis.

It was breathtaking for the entirety of my playthrough and I loved playing it.
But what's more is the understanding behind it. I had no problem witnessing the result of the magnificent community that worked together to ensure proper explanation and theories about the world to us and the audacity from the devs to make a deep enough story that self drives anyone to craziness as it did to the characters from the game.

The fact that two people created this game amazes me, and the level of detail and love that emanates from it makes me really grateful that inde dev can now express themselves to a wider audience thanks to the digitization of games.

Signalis is not a reference dump.
What's the difference between a good reference and a bad one, or between homage and plagiarism?
It’s the purpose, and Signalis' aim, to bring such a tragic story to life, moves me.

It's a compelling story of romance, purpose and promise.
A story in which the boundary of identity between gestalt and human is revealed in a magnificent movement of devotion.

I had to read a few theories online to fully understand some very simple plot details from the game's documentation. But I think it's part of the beauty of video games to be able to create a community that helps each other in a never ending loop of friendship that crosses the boundary of distance between players.

I love tank control, I love Tchaikovski, I love Lovecraft, I love romance, I love time traveling and loop, I love difficulty, I love NieR, Neon Genesis Evangelion, GinEiDen and Monogatari. What more to ask than Signalis to be one of my favorite games of all time ? God, I love video games.

With the atmosphere and presentation of Signalis, I was sure I would fall in love with this game. In the first few hours, the gameplay was interesting and fun, motivating me to solve the puzzles laid before me through its mechanics that very much reminded me of the classic survival horror genre.
Unfortunately, the horror aspect of Signalis isn't very appealing and while everything is stunning to look at and play through, there's never a feeling of tension and that's a huge miss.
Nearing the end, those mechanics that I found so engaging towards the start, started to dwindle and became monotonous with countless times feeling burdened with whatever comes next.
I stopped caring and I dropped it.

a Nier fan's spin on Resident Evil. maybe feels a little unfair to reduce it to its influences, but signalis absolutely wears said influences on its sleeve - at one point i was like yeah the developers for sure loved evangelion cos of all the huge kanji cut-ins and then they 1:1 ripped the one shot of shinji from eva episode 26 n i was like ah yep that makes sense. Only even played this game cos of the generational lesbian fanart that was coming out of the fandom so imagine my surprise when suddenly i'm fighting for my fucking life for 10 hours. goated game, thank you harper for the rec

Art is highly subjective. Different things will resonate with different people for different reasons: our aesthetic sensibilities, nostalgia, the sum total of our experiences that shape our inclinations over the course of our lives. I often find it difficult to put into words why something speaks to me. The term “debcore” has found a place in my vocabulary as a useful shorthand for “this is my thing, though I may not be able to articulate why.” Signalis may be the most debcore game I’ve played yet.

There's a lot I can point to that I like about this game. The animesque cassette futurist aesthetic; the thick atmosphere; the powerful, open-ended romantic tragedy; the lived-in feel to the environment; the music. All of these are related to its greatest strength: its presentation. Signalis is a master class in doing more with less. rose-engine has achieved so much more with quality writing, direction and a handful of simple assets than lesser studios have with hundreds of millions of dollars.

There are plenty of games out there that share some of these qualities, but few have tickled my brain the way this one has. Work shifts, showers and late nights spent contemplating what actually happened in this surreal, tender, cruel work of robot yuri. Maybe I’ll be closer to understanding it if I go for the other endings. For days now, I’ve been thinking on why exactly I love this game so much. Ultimately, Signalis as a whole feels laser-targeted at the things I like in video games and storytelling. I think I now have a clearer picture of what debcore actually looks like.

The fifth console generation and the golden age of survival horror were before my time. I grew up in the era of the annual or biennial military shooter, and came of age at the onset of that disease called “games as a service.” In an industry landscape where each AAA release just wants all of your spending money and free time, this relatively short but impactful single player experience has reminded me that, maybe, video games are alright.

Signalis puxa inspiração de onde pode - Resident Evil, Eva, Blame!, entre outros - e disso constrói uma peça de tom e apresentação arrebatadores, ainda que um pouco presa à fonte: uma linha tênue entre homenagem, conjuração ou plágio. É uma loucura pra mim que duas pessoas apenas tenham escrito, animado, desenhado e organizado um esforço tão carregado de qualidade e imensidão para além de suas amarras.

Brinca um pouco perto demais com a frustração, especialmente em relação à seu nada popular inventário limitadíssimo, que aqui defenderei: vejo como positivo como sua inclusão força backtracking constante em áreas que nunca estão verdadeiramente aliviadas de hostilidade, assim requerindo que seu entendimento de mapa e otimização de rota seja quiçá mais importante do que sua habilidade em combate - quanto mais você conseguir evitar, melhor na fita está para quando não houver outra opção. Existem algumas situações que considero meio sacanas, como a imprecisão geral que envolve o contato com inimigos - hitboxes ativas e controles difusos com base na proximidade são uma receita para frustração. A energia opressora de seus ambientes intercala muito bem com os puzzles, que achei satisfatoriamente calibrados e absurdamente bem apresentados, geralmente através de mudanças de perspectiva para a primeira pessoa, trazendo uma nova realidade para aquilo que de longe é distorcido e maligno - de perto tudo fica mais humano, a fisicalidade do ambiente dando corpo ao que outrora foi vivido.

Uma jornada em um inferno solitário, apoiando-se no imaginário do que já veio para projetar suas próprias imagens. Os pilares de seu mundo, alicerces de tirânica tranquilidade, ruindo ao redor de uma realidade insustentável sendo questionada. Crescendo entre as frestas de uma jaula de concreto, o amor é a onda que desmorona tudo.

A stylish, old school inspired, science fiction, psychological, survival horror game at an affordable price point. Yes please and thank you!

Signalis plays how you would expect a survival horror to and is heavily inspired by Resident Evil and Silent Hill. You have a limited inventory space, which means considering what to pick up and planning your trips to the item box. You use the map to get around and see what needs to be explored next. Every enemy encounter needs consideration as you have limited health, ammo and items and you will probably need to back track through each location again too. There are good puzzles to solve which are not too easy but not too obtuse. The game does not hold your hand either and there are no constant check points. It’s all very satisfying to play and it is the type of game that is hard to put down. I found myself saying “I’ll just check out these two rooms” or “I’ll just see what this key opens.” Then another hour would fly by and I’m still playing.

The combat is the weakest part. The way the enemies move, look and sound is creepy but they don’t really pose a threat on their own. One or two enemies can usually be easily dodged around or put down. The way the game ups the difficulty is by throwing small groups at you and/or heavily restricting space. It would have been cool if the enemies were a challenge on their own and a greater variety in enemies and how they attack would have been good too. I found the combat definitely got tiresome by the start of a second play through. There are also some first person sections which felt too slow and tedious.

The story, world and lore of Signalis is interesting and I really enjoyed it. It’s not told in a direct way and there is room for interpretation. There are multiple endings as well which are all valid. The art direction and sound all fit perfectly with this story and world. It looks somewhat like a PS1 era game but has so much of its own personality and style which I am a big fan of.

Signalis was easily one of the best games released in 2022. The very small development team are absolute legends and I can’t wait to see what they do next. If you have any interest in survival horror then you need to play this or even if you just like good games in general then I recommend Signalis.

8.3/10

After hitting the credits and mulling this game over in my head for a couple of weeks now, I find I am disappointed with it. When this game released, it was the hot new shit, and finding new survival horror in the vein of the classics we all love is still pretty rare. So I knew I had to play this game.

I wont even begin to talk about the game's convoluted story, because I did not enjoy it and honestly I did not follow. Maybe I am just stupid, and that is fine. If you wanna have a confusing-ass story, that's your deal, and I don't need to understand the story completely to have a good time, but from my end it sure does feel like a game that is meant to be complicated so that people think it is smarter than it actually is. Like bait for Youtube channels to make videos like SIGNALIS STORY EXPLAINED as so many games do in a post-Souls world. But honestly that's still fine because even with a weak story, the atmosphere, sounds, and music were so on point, I can forgive this shortcoming. The gameplay however, is where this game lost me, and lost me hard.

I found gameplay to mostly miss the mark. I love survival horror classics of the 5th gen/6th gen era so I am no stranger to what some would call outdated mechanics of those games, but when it comes to the implementation of those mechanics here, they are such an annoyance that it really drug the entire experience down for me completely.

The gameplay is mixed between two specific titles, which clearly are Signalis's biggest influences. Those being Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil 1. These two games are indeed both survival-horror games, but when their mechanics are slapped together haphazardly, it makes for a very wonky experience. The biggest example is the inventory slots, and item box management. This mechanic is straight out of Resident Evil. The problem with this however, is the game gives you only 6 slots, the minimum amount from the first Resident Evil game, reserved for Chris Redfield who was considered the games harder character to play. However, in RE1 most of the items in the mansion are health items and ammunition, which means, if playing efficiently, even with 6 slots, as long as you watch your health and ammo, you wont run into the slot limit, and therefor have to run back to the item box TOO often. Signalis however has many many MANY puzzle items to pick up, multiple in each room, which means to progress, you are forced to pick all of these up at some point or another, meaning many forced trips back to the item box. It feels like item boxes and item limits were included because they are Resident Evil survival horror staples, but not thinking about how they would influence the moment to moment gameplay and exploration of THIS game.

It is even more frustrating when examining the fact that this games primary influence, Silent Hill 2, also has many puzzle items to pick up in many different rooms. BUT, that game HAS NO INVENTORY LIMIT. Meaning exploration is never interrupted. And then Silent Hill 2 gives you items like a flashlight, which you pretty much need at all times to be able to play the game. Signalis also gives you a flashlight, and you pretty much need it at all times to play the game, especially when they start introducing traps, but guess what, THAT TAKES UP ONE OF YOUR 6 SLOTS. See why this mixing and matching doesnt work??? You now have 6 slots, minus 1 for your flashlight, MINUS ANOTHER ONE FOR YOUR GUN, which you will pretty much have on hand at all times. So really you DON'T have 6 slots, you actually have about 4.

The good news is if you are on PC, you can fix this problem that did not need to exist in the first place, giving yourself just about as many slots as you want, and when you do this, the game feels more like it falls into place, and most of the annoyance is removed. The bad news is, if you are on console, you can pretty much get fucked, as not only does Signalis only give you 6 slots, but UNLIKE Resident Evil, the series Signalis idolizes this inventory mechanic so much for, there is no option in game to upgrade your inventory amount. Meaning you will take those 6 slots from start to finish. And yeah, I know in RE1 you cannot upgrade your slot amount, but hey, Signalis devs, did you ever ask yourself why, in almost all future RE games you are able to give yourself more slots and more inventory? And in the case of Resident Evil 1specifically, did you maybe ever wonder why more people play as Jill (who has 8 slots) than Chris (who has only 6 slots)? It's definitely worth thinking about!

I still believe after all that, that this is a game that survival horror fans should play, because even with my opinion of the game's shortcomings, there are still great things to experience here, but the gameplay needs to be improved for the sequel. I cannot see a bigger audience jumping on otherwise.

To not end this on a sour note and whip this around to a positive, if I had to say the kindest thing I can to these developers, it would be this:

YOU GUYS should be the ones remaking Silent Hill 2. FUCK Blooper Team! Never have I felt so close to that initial playthrough of SH2 than hearing this music, being so creeped out by these monster designs, being drowned in this thick atmosphere. It is truly amazing what an indie team with passion can accomplish over a larger studio that just pumps out dogshit and keeps failing upwards.

I wanted to like this game more than I did, I really truly did.

While impressive for a small scale team, ultimately some frustrating aspects of the gameplay really weighed down the experience. The amount of times I took damage from being unable to properly interact with a door or an item.... way too many to count. And what worked in the 90s doesn't always translate well decades later. Understanding this is a call back to that generation of gaming but that doesn't exclude you from improving on that genre. The 6 item limit felt even more cumbersome in this title than it did in the original games of the survival horror genre.

Still, I recommend it for a playthrough if you can get pass those annoyances. The art direction is nothing short of fantastic and really shines, just maybe not enough to outshine the issues.

Signalis is a tense, gripping sci-fi survival horror that feels like a return to form for the genre with its focus on resource management and exploration. The game remains engaging through its excellent worldbuilding and trippy storytelling with even trippier visuals that manage to blend low-poly PSX horror and Seinen anime aesthetics surprisingly well.

Although this sounds weird, Signalis heavily reminds me of Zero Ranger, despite these being two games in completely different genres. Both are indie darlings that also happen to be incredibly derivative - so much that they almost feel like some kind of crossover fanfiction at points, but despite this, they execute their central ideas well enough to remain fresh and original.

What's so derivative about Signalis you may ask? Well, most of the gameplay mechanics evoke classic Resident Evil, the thematic storytelling is a mishmash of Silent Hill and NGE, and this game's visual direction thing of regular jump-cuts to large block Kanji (AKSHULLY, it's Hanzi in this case) against monochromatic backgrounds is basically one big long-running Monogatari reference. Somehow these conflicting inspirational elements manage to work, even if it gives the impression of Signalis being less cohesive than it could be otherwise.

I previously mentioned the focus on exploration and resource management, and yeah for the most part it's done well here. A common complaint I'm seeing is about the restrictive six-item inventory limit, but I didn't really have a problem with it in my 9.5 hour playthrough. It may be because I did my first playthrough of Resi 1 with Chris Redfield (bruh) so I'm used to this kind of restriction, but I suspect it might have more to do with the fact that the inventory restriction genuinely doesn't feel as painful here as it does in classic resi games.

For better and for worse, you're never far away from where you need to be to use an item you just found, and most items are one-use before being cleared from your inventory. Additionally, sneaking past enemies is super viable here due to the generally slow enemy attacks and wide corridors, meaning that much of the time I didn't even need to carry a weapon either.

Overall though I liked the restraint that Signalis shows in its gameplay. It's a very pure experience with good gameplay density - not bogged down with any pointless upgrade systems or tacked-on RPG mechanics. Even the first-person walking sim sections felt pretty good at respecting your time.

In true classic survival horror fashion, there are many puzzles in Signalis you must complete in order to progress. These puzzles are generally solid, doing a good job of establishing an internal logic that isn't too obtuse for the player to follow but also just complex enough to feel rewarding to figure out. I especially liked the puzzles which utilise the radio frequency mechanic, which involved a lot of creative applications.

Unfortunately the exploration between these puzzles is quite lacking. The level design is far from the best this genre has to offer. There's little in the way of circular design that expands upon itself to make backtracking satisfying - for the most part you'll be exploring isolated floors of corridors with little else to spice things up. The key hunting can be incredibly transparent too, with there being some times where you just find a key to open a door to find another key with nothing else in between. As a side note, there were also some encounters that would have been better as a unique one-off, such as the "radio battle" against infected Kolibri units. I was really impressed the first time I saw one of these but by the fourth or fifth time the novelty wore off and it felt tedious to fight them, especially with other enemies poking at you simultaneously.

Admittedly I wasn't paying too much attention to the story, so I'm not gonna give a deep dive by any means here, but the vibes of the storytelling were on point. I loved the worldbuilding of this dystopian sci-fi settting built upon a mysterious "bioresonance" technology, the distinction between the different Replika units is great, and I liked the undeniable lesbianism between the main characters. The communication of the finer details of the narrative are obtuse for their own sake (if I was being cynical, one could call it "video-essay bait"), and this kind of storytelling approach via disconnected, wishy-washy lines of poetry usually doesn't do it for me, but like I said, the vibes are on point.

i have never felt an emptiness so comforting, disgust and depression and darkness so effortless in their omniscience. they carved their pneumatics and sonics into my senses, strangling my amygdalae with hooks and barbs of indiscriminate love.
i can only recount my experience in broad, emotional strokes- as if to make sure i never forget the decisive futility of it all, i browsed the final screenshots from my first playthrough as my brain finally caught up to my heart, demanding release. i withered and cried in mourning of people and places who don't exist. i felt cradled and blessed in that moment, and i wasn't sure if i deserved to know such divine clarity.

signalis bore holes deep into my flesh and bone of blackest nightmares, of the loudest louds and a thousand, thousand deaths and rebirths consuming my synapses with the wisdom and light of infinite sorrows, a kindness i fear i will never be able to repay for as long as i live. it is one of the most beautiful pieces of human creation i have ever endured, and its memory will persist long after i am nothing but ash and dust.

Great, but ultimately lacking: Signalis is the model indie game. And believe me, that is both a blessing and a curse.

Like any good indie game, Signalis is niche. The survival horror genre it calls home is now long dead--killed by its own god-king, Resident Evil. Although 'killed' might be the wrong word--'evolved' is probably a better choice. But it's hard to deny that games like Signalis are a rare sight in 2023. If there's one place--and only one place--where we'd see an honest-to-god survival horror game now, it would be in the indie sphere. And if you're a huge fan of the classics like I am, then that's a good thing.

...Is something my lizard brain wants to say...but my critical side starts to take over. When I first saw Signalis I knew I could immediately write it off as:

"Resident Evil + Silent Hill with a retro sci-fi anime aesthetic."

I say 'write off' because watching a line-up of indie game announcements is like seeing them get procedurally generated in real time. And unfortunately, "Silent Hill," "anime," "retro," and "sci-fi" are some of the most common marbles that get pulled from the "let's make an indie game" bag. More importantly--now that I've actually played the game--I can confirm I wasn't wrong to pigeonhole the Signalis like that.

And don't get me wrong, Signalis is a good game. A very good game. Hell, for a team of two people, it's an honest-to-God miracle that it turned out this good. But unfortunately for Signalis, the flaws are all the more clear when you get this close to greatness.


The House that Evil Built
The first thing you could slight Signalis for is its total lack of originality. And believe me, when I say 'lack of originality,' I mean there's not a single unique bone in the game's body.

But that's not really a bad thing...right?

Right. I'd say it's not a massive issue.

The problem isn't that Signalis is a hodgepodge of a some basic visual, gameplay, narrative, and atmospheric ideas. The problem is that Signalis isn't really better than any of its influences. And if the parts aren't performing up-to-snuff, then I regret to inform you that the whole isn't really pulling its weight either. But let's shelve this point for now--we should talk about some gameplay first.

Signalis' hollistic gameplay experience is...well I mean it'sResident Evil meets the more puzzle-heavy focus of Silent Hill. If you've played those games then you know what to expect. If you haven't played 'em--and you for some reason want my opinion on them--you'll have to wait for my Halloween review series (that'll get delayed until March). But the games are, in a word, excellent. Perhaps not perfect games (Resident Evil would be rendered obsolete by its Gamecube REmake), but they're absolutely iconic and deserve a playthrough from anyone serious about understanding gaming history. Unfortunately though, Signalis' fails to improve upon the now decades-old survival horror formula and even manages to throw some new problems in the mix.

If you love survival horror as much as I do, then you probably know exactly what I did when I booted Signalis up. Max difficulty (or the max allowed on first playthrough), tank controls turned way the fuck ON, and every single quality-of-life feature disabled. The damn genre ain't called survival comfort...I want the game to hurt me plenty.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to see how the Signalis fails hardcore survival horror fans. The game is made like most niche indie game titles are--with the expectation that you've already cut your teeth on all the classics. Because, dear god...the designers certainly have. Nearly every room in Signalis is filled with brutal (and sometimes admittedly clever) chokepoints, insane enemy placements, and ultra-tight turns that are custom-designed to fuck up your day. Obviously the RE games had their tough spots--sometimes turning the dial to eleven is exactly what good horror needs--but it was nowhere near this insane.

Seriously, I went back and reviewed a good half hour of Resident Evil gameplay to make sure I wasn't crazy. And thankfully, if there's one thing I can still remember, it's how RE plays.

Within an hour, Signalis is throwing you shit harder than nearly anything Resident Evil offered--at least in terms of area design. Moreover, Signalis makes a crucial change that basically kills the tank controls for anyone but the most ultra-hardcore of super players. In Resident Evil (and its clones), most enemies would only damage you if they made an active effort to hurt you. The zombie bastards might shamble all over the mansion, but they didn't bite unless they made for a real lunge at you. This was--in all likelihood--a way to tip the scales back in the players favor. After all, players would be wrestling with confusing tank controls for their entire playthrough. Signalis, on the other hand, gives enemies the accursed touch of death--meaning a simple bump into an enemy, no matter how slight, equals damage. And believe me, on hardcore difficulties that means you're always just three bumps away from certain death.

Don't get me wrong, I love my survival horror games to be tough. But this? This was just unfun. There are just so many brutal enemy placements and crazy small bottlenecks that transformed the tank controls from the ultimate way to 'enter the survival horror' into the most unfortunate way to 'experience the tedium and boredom' of running through the same areas over and over again after dying for the umpteenth time.

These issues are only compounded by the game's peculiar camera perspective. I'm sure you know that most of the survival horror classics feature the iconic 'fixed camera perspective'--something that heightens the genre's atmospheric and 'cinematic' qualities. Signalis, on the other hand, decides to have a go at a tilted top-down perspective. It's not inherently a bad thing…although it definitely diminishes the game's ability to build a true sense of world like the classics did.

The real problem arises from how tank controls interact with this novel perspective--particularly when your character model is blocked by objects in the foreground. Tank controls are relative to your current position--meaning you can't figure out where the fuck you're going if you don't know which way you're currently facing. This sounds like a minor gripe, but it's a complete nightmare when a sizeable chunk of the game's rooms are filled to the brim with occluding objects and 'what-the-fuck-am-I-looking-at' levels of darkness.

Combine all of this with the game's most terrifying revelation--that the final boss is a bullet-hell challenge--and you have a recipe for a complete tank-control meltdown. I know I can't harp too much on an optional feature, but I'm frustrated they'd taunt players with a mechanic that's core to the survival horror genre…only to implement it in the shallowest way possible.

Needless to say, I decided to switch off tank controls within the first few hours of my playthrough. After all, why suffer? Especially for something as trivial as an optional control type.

I did keep the rest of the difficulty options cranked; although at this point it was perhaps for vanity's sake. The switch made everything far easier--the aforementioned bottlenecks-of-doom were suddenly turning into walks in the park. But tank controls aside, there were still massive design blunders to wrestle with.

Enemies in Signalis will often 'patrol' a room a-la Metal Gear Solid guards. To spice things up, they'll keep moving even when you exit the room--meaning you'll never know exactly where they'll be when you enter again. Unfortunately, someone decided to allow enemies to patrol right in front of doorways. This might not seem awful at first glance, but there's another element at play here. You have to go through a baked animation every time you enter a room. Meaning you're relinquishing control until the animation completes. You and I might not be game-design geniuses, but I'll let you imagine how this one plays out.

It didn't happen often…but I can't express how frustrating it is to walk into a room and suddenly take massive damage before I have the chance to even move my character. It's a cruel joke: underthought game design at its worst. I work my ass off just to survive with ultra-limited healing items, and this is what I get?

Don't get me wrong, survival horror games are supposed to crank the heat up--sometimes way past comfortable and even sometimes past fair just to spice things up. But this was absolutely a step too far, and another reminder that other design choices (damage-on-touch) were just not working out.

I'll save you the rest of the boring itemized list and just say that Signalis is filled with similar micro-issues that add up to some missed potential. To be clear, it's nothing game-breaking. Not even anything that makes the experience really that bad, but it undeniably misses the mark--even when it had plenty of classics to directly learn from.


The King in Yellow
So the gameplay is slightly subpar to the classics…but that doesn't tell the whole story. After all, survival horror is just as defined by atmosphere and narrative as it is by gameplay--often moreso. And in this sense, Signalis performs pretty damn well…albeit with similar failings that hold it back from excellence.

Atmosphere is a very fickle beast. I think you'd agree that the best atmospheres are indescribable, right? It doesn't help that the lines between 'mediocre' and 'incredible' are usually separated by a few arbitrary and hyper-specific aspects. Hell, trying to review any atmosphere is nearly as tricky as making them. Music, photography, and film already have it bad enough--and you don't even get to interact with those mediums! So good luck trying to make an effective atmosphere when players are actually in control. You just know they're gonna get fed up with puzzles, accidentally clip into walls, and die forty times before clearing the area…so how the hell are you supposed to make an ambience that keeps them hooked? Give 'em an hour and they'll start looking beyond the game's aesthetics and see just its mechanics instead.

I'm not even gonna try and explain the 'good' and 'bad' with any specific examples. Like I said, 'atmosphere' is just too tricky to pin down. At least, too tricky to pin down without turning this into a 3 hour read. So I'll just leave the point as an exercise for you. You have your own survival horror favorites…right?

During its best moments, Signalis actually manages to nail those atmospheric highs--which is no small feat for an indie game. The cutscenes really shine in particular. The choices in editing, cinematography, music, and pacing feel genuinely directed and inspired. At least more directed inspired than the average triple-A game that actually tries to claim a 'cinematic' heritage. There are certain shots, moments, atmospheric slices, and vibes that I'll definitely be holding onto several years from now--and what more could you want from a game?

Well, I want a game to not ruin its own atmosphere with a desperate amount of failed scare attempts.

You get treated with industrial noise louder than a gun every time you approach an enemy in Signalis. And man. Have you played a Resident Evil game? You're gonna be approaching a lot of fucking enemies before the credits roll. To add insult to injury--you'll mainly be hearing the same song over and over again--a choice so completely baffling that it nearly destroys any sense of atmosphere the game was going for. It begs the question: why? What did rose-engine hope to accomplish beyond setting up some cheap, simple scares? Even the scares fade away quick--you're gonna be hearing this shit two thousand times before the game is over after all. It's shocking that design like this made it past the basic playtesting phase.

Welcome to Horror 101: don't fatigue the audience.

But even the aforementioned good moments are, truth be told, not entirely of Signalis' own creation.

They are, quite literally, inspired.

Of course, all art takes influence from other work--we all take influence from our environment every day. But Signalis goes a step further. Several crucial shots, environments, and scenes are essentially beat-for-beat remakes (or rip-offs, if you're a harsh critic) of classic moments in already great media. Shots from Evangelion (particularly The End of Evangelion), Ghost in the Shell, and Bakemonogatari get recreated one-for-one while other iconic elements from these series get very clearly folded into the mix. Especially the Monogatari series' trademark frenetic editing style [THIS SPACE IS LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK] and the distinct scenery from Evangelion's final moments.

And while references and homages are not inherently bad…I still detract some points from the score here. After all, I don't think any of these moments--that I often thought were Signalis' best offerings--were any better than the original scenes they were aping. Hell, half of the time it just made me want to go back and watch the original instead, which is a danger when you try to make such clear allusions. Signalis does well, but that's largely because it manages to stand on the shoulders of very large giants without completely blowing it. Not a very difficult, impressive, or interesting task.

But beyond the very clear pulls, there's plenty of other media you could read into the game's story and general vibe. Since we're already doing a popular art potpourri (did I mention the use of The Shining carpet?) I feel pretty at-home comparing Signalis' plot structure to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. The similarities are pretty clear even at a surface level: the impossible-to-resolve narrative ambiguities, notions of dualism, the general dreamlike presentation, the thematic focus on love, desire, and identity, and the two sets of female lovers who may or may not be exactly the same people strewn across different versions of 'reality.' Well, 'reality' with a lot more air quotes than that. But anyways, making the comparison to Lynch makes it obvious in other ways why I think Signalis ultimately misses the mark.

I've made it clear that the game loves references, but unfortunately it doesn't stop at basic visual nods. Much of the story is directly pulled from/heavily relies on other works of art--namely Chamber's short story collection The King in Yellow and Böcklin's Isle of the Dead painting set. These two works appear frequently throughout the game's runtime, primarily serving as obvious signposting for thematic ideas. And, if I'm being honest, it doesn't work at all. The frequent references feel like a cheap way to impart thematic weight and gravitas without doing much of the work. Why is the King of Yellow here? Well, because the writers wanted you to feel the same way that the King in Yellow makes you feel. Why are we quoting Lovecraft? Because we're going for his vibe. Why are we constantly looking at the Isle of the Dead's many variations? Because…well that would be a spoiler. But let's say it [if you read the rest of this sentence you release me from all liability in your spoiler-free experience] involves doing something over and over again involving…death.

But--you might be wondering--what if I haven't actually read The King in Yellow? Or what if I don't know (or give two flying fucks) about The Isle of the Dead? Well…then you can go pound sand, I guess. You'll just be seeing some (admittedly cool) paintings and a neat book cover over and over again, but that's about it. You can certainly read whatever you'd like into these symbols--art's subjective after all --but I don't really find value in these works being here. Not on a thematic level, and definitely not on a metacontextual level either. They're without a doubt the most awkward plot feature the game has to offer.

And don't get me wrong, Signalis wouldn't be the first surrealist piece to be based on an existing piece of art. Lynch's Blue Velvet involves the song of the same name, while Mulholland Drive is practically one street over from Sunset Boulevard. Similar surrealist icons like Haruki Murakami don't pull punches when Norwegian Wood is about the Beatles song and After Dark similarly involves Five Spot After Dark. But I think the real difference is the use of these references. These two (among many others) seek to elevate and extend the feelings, themes, and ideas presented by their referenced work. Blue Velvet doesn't seek explanation or thematic resemblance through its source material. It's looking to take emotions from that artwork and convolve it with the darker and complex themes of abuse and sexual deviancy it uniquely presents. Signalis, by comparison, uses these art pieces to offload the hard work of thematic development to something they don’t' have to write. If you want answers, I guess you're gonna have to look up what The Isle of the Dead is. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Moreover, Signalis--like any other surrealist art missing the mark--is pretty devoid of truly memorable objects/places/moments that are distinctly surreal. Being 'weird' is one thing: it's trivial to make up shit that don't make any sense. Most bad writers do that every day. The truly surreal, in my book, presents things that speak to you on a subconscious level. They provide content that doesn't make 'logical sense'…but it compels you. It compels you through something deeper--something you understand but just can't explain. It's the kinda stuff that hits different. The shit that'll stick with you forever.

They're the sorts of themes, emotions, and experiences you couldn't possibly get in regular, non-surreal media. The examples--even just through Lynch--are plentiful and obvious: The Red Room from Twin Peaks, the 'room above a convenience store' and the ring from Fire Walk With Me, the blue key and box from Mulholland Drive, every-other-fucking scene in Inland Empire, etc. etc. Beyond objects, just about anything can be made compelling when framed the right way. Be it phrases like 'fire walk with me' or just the mundane act of walking into the alley behind a Denny's…anything can be transformed into the most horrific shit you'll ever experience--provided the author knows what they're doing.

Signalis is missing these types of beats and feelings to a painful degree. That's not a massive strike against the game…but it is a shame that they couldn't reach greater heights when they had such a good foundation to work off of. I guess filling the game with End of Eva iconography will suffice…

And to be clear, I don't think you really need to pick Lynch/Murakami to do this. Considering how much else is ripped from famous stuff, the creators might have been pulling from different sources. I'm only using Lynch and Murakami because they're famous and there's a decent chance you've encountered them already. I don't think I'm getting 'cool guy cred' by name dropping a more obscure guy who does the same shit. And if you actually haven't encountered Lynch or Murakami...then put down the damn controller! Experience something that isn't a video game every once in a while! If a Doom WAD can convince TikTok kids to read fucking House of Leaves…then let this be the review that gets you to watch Mulholland Drive and read Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World!

As for the actual meat of Signalis' narrative…it's pretty good--especially for a medium as devoid of good narratives as gaming is. The lore is…serviceable, the characters are interesting enough, and the pacing designed to keep your intrigue. It's not going to reinvent the wheel, nor is it the best exploration of these ideas. But it mainly flows with grace and manages to stick the landing pretty well--provided you can handle ambiguity and incoherence in your narratives.

I will admit though: it is very funny to see hundreds of articles, video essays, and comments get themselves worked up over Signalis' lack of conventional narrative cohesion. Contradictory and unresolved plots have been around for a very long time--and are just as valid a way to tell a story as any other. So learn to just enjoy the ride and forget about the logic. Does your life make any more sense?


Das Model
All in all, Signalis is a model indie game: It's a passion project born of a very small and dedicated team. It seeks to explore genres that have long been forgotten by the mainstream. It tries more experimental approaches that you won't find in huge commercial products. And it manages to do it all with a good art style, charming presentation, and great gameplay. A very reasonable $20 ask, and an awesome way to kill a weekend.

But I think there's also a darker side to being the 'model' indie game. A side so dark that it might even make it into an horror game like Signalis! It's clearly based on (or ripping off) several already great games. It has very little to offer in terms of new ideas that expand upon those masterpieces. It doesn't surpass, or even meet those classic in almost every way. It somehow manages to screw up things the 'originals' got right in the first place. Its writing is incredibly uneven and can't help but shove in distracting meta-references to other art. Its presentation is tied to incredibly played out niches. And…most importantly…It rarely seems to understand what made the games it imitates 'masterpieces' in the first place.

So what do you think?

I'm the kind of guy that would rather just replay Resident Evil than play a worse version of it. But Signalis manages enough developed ideas to justify its own existence. And let's not forget just how insane it is that primarily two people developed it. I know my ass isn't doing that--and I know yours ain't either. It's just a shame the game couldn't punch above the 'great for 2022 indie games' weightclass and into the 'great for the decade' or 'great for the genre' ones instead. But such is the nature of the 'model' indie game--they aren't seeking greatness, they're seeking the familiar.

Here's hoping that rose-engine's sophomore effort escapes the model.