Nic Junius

Spoiler post will be for later

Overall, fantastic game with a great aesthetic and vibes. All my mechanical criticisms from my last post (https://cohost.org/quakefultales/post/372705-signalis-so-far) are still there though the ending I got makes me a little more okay with them. The game listens for a shocking amount to figure out your ending (something I've toyed around with in my head before) and I'm of two minds about this.

I like the message and it's not one I was expecting with the mechanics. I will go do another playthrough for the secret ending (and turn the difficulty down because I was way too paranoid about resources by the end of the game to actually want to use anything).

I'm not going to be saying anything about the narrative other than it is super lesbian because i haven't finished it yet

the part of the game that impresses me most at the moment is its understanding of horror game difficulty. They can't be too hard. Killing you is not their goal. Nothing in the game does that much damage to you, but you also don't do that much damage to anything else. Taking damage is less of an "oh shit I'm going to die" type of thing and "oh shit I'm using the healing resources now instead of later" deal, which I love

The small complaints I have are with the flares (the enemies are like RE1 Remake's stochastically respawning enemies that you can permanently kill with a special item). I get why they chose this, since you back track a lot and having rooms you cleared out suddenly get dangerous again is a classic bit of systemic horror. It plays into the resources as the primary tension builder too, but here's the thing, familiarity breeds contempt and the reviving enemies become less of something to build tension and more of an annoyance when you're schlepping back and forth. My main change to this would be...

...making the inventory slightly bigger, one maybe two slots. Or even just making equipped items not take up inventory space or be moved into a sub inventory, anything to give you a little more room to work. This wouldn't be to carry more weapons even, it's so you don't have to go back and forth constantly to pick up key items when you're pockets are full. Again I know how this plays into the respawning enemies but it feels tedious more than anything else

anyways, the game is superb so far and I love the atmosphere, the feel, and what I can piece together of the story so far. If you wanna talk, hit me up!