Yuri Stern and Barbara Wittmann are two illustrators and game designers currently living in Germany, in the city of Hamburg. In 2014 they began the development of Signalis, a survival horror with the mechanics and atmospheres typical of the great classics of the genre such as the very first Resident Evil. After eight years of hard work and a blessing in 2021 from Guillermo del Toro during the Tribeca Games Spotlight Digital Showcase, their work finally sees the light.
Signalis was entirely created by the creative duo and distributed with the support of Humble Games, publisher who also oversaw the release of Ghost Song, a metroidvania that we have greatly appreciated in recent times (if you missed it, here is our review by Ghost Song). The title is available on all platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PC and on Xbox Game Pass.
Svegliati Elster
Elster is a Replika, a working android who suddenly wakes up one day inside a spaceship after a long cryogenic sleep. Desperate and abandoned, she decides to set out in search of her missing partner, Arianne. She soon realizes she’s not as alone as she’d thought, for she discovers that some Replikas have now become hostile, bloodthirsty, ready to attack anything that moves in front of them on sight.
The story of Signalis, not localized in Italian, is obscure and extremely fascinating, therefore we do not want in any way to reveal further information on Elster’s fate also because, in support of the excellent narrative system enriched by an interesting and in-depth lore, we find well four finals to be unlocked based on the choices we will make during an investigation whose duration is between ten and fifteen hours in total.
Yuri and Barbara were inspired by the works of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, managing to build a well-characterized universe with its own identity, to be discovered step by step through many documents to collect on our journey.
Files to be studied with a watchful and attentive eye because they become fundamental not only for deepening the events narrated but also in a purely playful context. In fact, reading them carefully will help us overcome the many puzzles that are the cornerstone of Signalis’ survival experience.
The importance of pen and paper
Signalis is survival horror in its purest and most immersive form. The same sense of discovery that distinguishes the story of the work can also be found in the exploration of the rooms that make up the various levels of the title: claustrophobic, dark and full of monstrosities that attack us as possessed by an unknown entity. And it is precisely on the mystery, on the anxiety of entering a room that we don’t know what it will reserve for us, that the work has struck us deeply, thanks to its ability to create an atmosphere that is not so scary but rather distressing and tormented.
Where to go, what to do, which way to go while carefully choosing the objects to take with us (up to a maximum of six), are all questions that we have continually asked ourselves as we traversed a labyrinth with no apparent way out.
The gameplay of Signalis is almost entirely focused on solving complex puzzles, linked together. For example, to obtain the password for a sealed door we had to resort to pen and paper, the only way to trace a combination reported on a torn piece of paper found a few minutes earlier in a room closed by a magnetic card. The sense of satisfaction initially overwhelmed us but then, once we found the object of our research, we realized that we had found yet another piece of a puzzle to complete one puzzle after another.
To solve these enigmas we are helped, sometimes largely and other times minimally, both by a practical map and by the documents themselves: it is on this point that perhaps the absence of a localization in Italian could prove to be difficult for those who do not know the English. The game is not based on a complex writing to Disco Elysium (by the way, the review of Disco Elysium is a click away) but a good knowledge of the language is still strongly recommended to read and better understand the suggestions of the developers.
Naturally, as we catapult from one part of the levels to another, we also encounter hostile Replikas, quite numerous and of various types. To defend himself from their assaults Elster can initially only count on a 10mm pistol, which will then be followed by a shotgun, a revolver and much more. The shooting is quite convincing and presents a strategic nuance that shouldn’t be underestimated: when we aim the weapon at the enemy, the crosshair shrinks over time and when it reaches its minimum extension, we can fire the shot to maximize the efficiency of the shot and thus save precious ammunition (not easy to find).
Consequently, finding the right distance between us and the opponent requires careful analysis of the area but not always easy execution, because there are often two or more Replikas to face. To avoid direct confrontation we can also try to sneak behind them but without the possibility of knocking them out silently. A peculiarity of the scary creatures of the game is that, after a certain period of time, they get back on their feet to return to haunt the streets that we had previously cleaned. Basically, to get rid of them permanently we will have to set them on fire with some of the very rare flares to be found around the map.
It is therefore up to us to choose which monsters to burn, based on the conformation of the scenarios and the places we know we have to return to several times. This gimmick proved to be effective enough to keep tension high in the backtracking phases, which however did not prove to be free from defects.
Improved backtracking
A survival horror inspired by the sacred monsters of the past must necessarily have a healthy dose of backtracking to amplify that feeling of being constantly helpless prey at the total mercy of predators. Now, in the first part of the adventure, the presence of a map that can be consulted helps the user a lot to orient himself, so having to face the above replicas again is more than sensible and even fun.
However, around two thirds of her journey, the android protagonist sets foot in a more complex area and without the aid of the map (at least temporarily). If we add to this absence the difficulty of the puzzles, a maximum load of objects to carry that cannot be increased in any way, the shortage of flares and ammunition and finally the crazed androids who get up again, you understand how high the possibility is that fun turns into frustration. While some clashes can be avoided, others – due to some extremely narrow rooms – are almost mandatory unless you want to flee and take damage without reacting, always keeping an eye on the available treatments.
A couple of additional precautions would have been enough, including a greater number of flares and a few more transportable objects, in order not to force the players to go continuously to deposit key tools and so on at the save points and, in general, to avoid to weigh down a progression that already rests on complex puzzles.
From an aesthetic point of view, Signalis defends itself well, thanks to a pleasant pixel art with dark hues, with well-crafted interlude scenes and some first-person sessions that greatly increase the sense of bewilderment of a confused protagonist, desperate for the disappearance of Arianne and without any point of reference. All while we are gently cradled by an excellent soundtrack, which embraces the horrific atmospheres at the base of the production.
