Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to our second ever SideQuest season of the Gaming Backlog Book Club. We are in the middle of our regular season about Cyberpunk 2077 and continue to enjoy that. But since our originally scheduled spooky season game won’t quite land in October at all and we will play through it in November, we wanted a bite sized survival horror to enjoy anyway alongside Cyberpunk.

Now, dear listener, you might be wondering and ask, hey, didn’t you guys start a side quest season already way back in December of 2025, followed quickly by your first impressions episode and then never released the final episode about the full game?

Why yes, in fact we did. And while Hades is a lengthy game and virtually endless if you want it to be, sometimes a video game side quest comes in many pieces and objectives that unlock after you make more progress elsewhere.

Sometimes the main quest just becomes too distracting and engaging to put down, or sometimes life gets the better of you. You might finish the side quest, but someone else hasn’t. And sometimes for some people, the lure of an endless repetitive online rounds of battlefield with other real people get the better of you when you aren’t playing the podcast main season game ring any bells?

But let it be heard. The final episode of the Hades side Quest season will be live before a year has passed.

[00:01:20] Speaker B: That is true.

[00:01:21] Speaker A: So we’re putting our foot in the ground. It’s gonna happen.

[00:01:25] Speaker B: I promise you. I will have it done.

[00:01:27] Speaker A: Thank you.

[00:01:27] Speaker B: For four years.

[00:01:28] Speaker A: I’ve been ready to record for a couple months now, but we’re all good.

This is not a homework assignment. We’re doing this for enjoyment. So I think you were enjoying Hades when you were playing it. It’s time to get back.

[00:01:41] Speaker B: I was. I was. So I will get back into it and I will finish it.

[00:01:46] Speaker A: All right, you heard it here.

It will happen before 2027. Okay. Anyway, onto this new side quest to the side quest.

As a reminder, if you didn’t listen to our first Side Quest season intro episode about Hades, our side quest seasons are generally meant to be games that are a bit tougher for everyone to make the same amount of progress at the same time. In our traditional approximately one week between episodes schedule, think games that fall into genres that require a lot of repeated runs, a lot of trial and error, a lot of accumulated knowledge or specific knowledge about doing certain things, etc. This largely encompasses a selection of roguelikes, roguelites, time loop stories, and in many cases games with procedurally generated levels.

Due to the nature of these types of games, we decided they wouldn’t work well in our typical format, but we still want to cover them once in a while.

And while this side quest actually covers a more normal format game that we could do as a regular season, we’re playing it as a side quest anyway right now to avoid disrupting our normal season. And as mentioned, yes, it’s spooky season. Gotta do it.

So the plan is all within the month of October, so we’ve got what, three weeks?

Our second side quest season will be about Signalis.

The way we’ll run this particular side quest season is after today’s introduction. We’ll jump into the game over the next week on our own time, meet back up to chat about our initial thoughts and exchange some gameplay tips and early stories. And then wrap up by beating the game in one more episode before the end of October so we can come back and give you our complete breakdown of the game.

Sound good? Alex?

[00:03:28] Speaker B: That sounds good.

I think this one’s more durable for me.

[00:03:32] Speaker A: I would hope so.

[00:03:33] Speaker B: It is.

[00:03:34] Speaker A: So for background, if you aren’t yet familiar with Signalis, it was released in 2022, developed by Rose Engine and published by Humble Games and Playism for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

It received positive reviews and praise for its art, style and narrative, as well as its take on survival horror.

The story setup has us occupy the role of an Android named LSTR512, otherwise known as LSTR, as she tries to find her ship’s missing pilot, while a supernatural event of some sort is going down at a mining facility.

Does this ring any bells for you?

[00:04:14] Speaker B: This is very dead spacey.

[00:04:15] Speaker A: That’s exactly what I had in mind. Yep, while Isaac is not an Android, unless that’s something that revealed in Dead Space 3, which I did not play,

[00:04:27] Speaker B: I don’t believe that.

[00:04:27] Speaker A: I’m pretty sure he was a human who was losing his mind.

Yeah, sounds definitely like a bit of Dead Space influence here, at least as far as the setting.

The gameplay is a traditional survival horror in the vein of early Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with a very limited inventory where you see guns, you use guns to slowly shoot at scary reanimated enemies that can take plenty of damage before they go down. And yet all of that is with an isometric camera angle and a bit of a pixelated art aesthetic.

Yeah, everything is shot shown from a top down 2.5D perspective. You solve puzzles, you search for radio frequencies, and much like Resident Evil, there are safe rooms where you get to save progress and stash items.

So clear Resident Evil Silent Hill influence, Clear Dead Space influence.

Sounds very interesting. There are also some visual influences from anime, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, which. Yeah. Looking at the COVID character art of Elster, I can see the reference point there.

Outside of that, what do you know about Signalis going into this game, Alex?

[00:05:43] Speaker B: Not very much.

Not very much. But I will, I will say is maybe three years ago I did start this game on Xbox.

[00:05:57] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:05:57] Speaker B: But I only played about maybe 30 minutes, if maybe a tiny bit more.

[00:06:03] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:06:04] Speaker B: But I didn’t learn very much, like so.

And I honestly, again, this was three years ago. I can’t remember, so.

[00:06:11] Speaker A: Right, sure. I mean, story wise, I’m sure you don’t remember much of anything, but I guess as far as.

Was there a reason that you put it down then? Was it. Did it not grab you enough or did something else just distract you or you’re just kind of trying it out?

[00:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah, something else just distracted me. I ended up not. And then.

[00:06:26] Speaker A: So nothing about it turns you off to trying to play it again eventually?

[00:06:30] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. I’m still very much interested in like actually now really playing through this.

Like paying attention and getting through it and playing the whole thing. Like I, it’s, it’s been a game I’ve been intrigued by. I think I started it back then because I had seen on a YouTube video someone saying it was a hidden gem. And I saw it was on Game Pass and so I just was like trying it. Um, and then I obviously must have started to try it not long before it then left Game Pass or went away because. Oh, right.

[00:07:04] Speaker A: They cycle games in and out, kind of like PlayStation, right?

[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah. But now we have it on PlayStation and I would actually, to be honest, prefer to play it on PlayStation. Let’s just.

[00:07:12] Speaker A: As you show with every game that exists.

[00:07:16] Speaker B: So. Yeah, so I think that was what it was. Like someone said it was a hidden gem. It was like a really good like survival horror type game. I was really intrigued. Right, right. But again, I can’t. This is years ago, so I can’t A few years ago. So I don’t really remember much, but I do, I do remember. I will say all I do remember is what you just said. As in the enemies do take a lot of damage.

[00:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s very typical, you know, Resident Evil 1, you gotta, you know, I don’t know, there’s strategies to deal with that kind of situation,

[00:07:51] Speaker B: determining if you really want the flight or fight syndrome. And it might be more flight than fight.

[00:07:56] Speaker A: That’s yes, that’s. That’s probably a useful tactic for sure.

[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:02] Speaker A: So if I had to guess, just based on playing Resident Evil 1, the remake that was on Gamecube, and then redoing that on Switch, you know, Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remake get a bit more of the action oriented focus than I think their original releases did, which would have been the same scenario. I mean, you’d still need a fight or flight in re 2 and 3, but yeah, yeah, good to keep in mind. I’ll probably try that out in my first couple hours here.

But yeah, I mean, aside from the basic premise, I don’t really know a whole lot about this, to be honest. I know I was intrigued the moment it was announced and I saw the first kind of announcement trailer for it.

The more isometric camera angle and artsdale made it seem like a more claustrophobic version of Resident Evil 1. So I’m definitely excited to give it a try.

And yeah, I think I had seen it be referenced as a very great game, like a great horror indie game that has kind of those old school survival horror vibes to it. So excited. Also, I guess based on the fact that we play as an Android, I do wonder a little bit if the story will lean in the direction of many narrative focused games that also feature androids like Nier and Nier Automata, to name a few. There are plenty more that all kind of follow a similar through line. But I’m curious the one other thing I found in this bit of research. Apparently this story and game is largely influenced by a series of stories by an author named Robert Chambers, who was also an influence for HP Lovecraft, which is a big deal considering how famous he is. So this series of stories called the King in Yellow and then it’s also influenced a bit by this book called the Festival by Lovecraft himself. So I might have to give those a read once we’re done playing if I really enjoy it.

[00:10:00] Speaker B: Okay,

[00:10:03] Speaker A: yeah. And then I guess otherwise this because this is isometric and for whatever reason I love playing isometric top down or metroidvanias like anything that has small character models on handheld rather than on a giant tv. I don’t know why, it’s just kind of a thing that I enjoy doing. So I try to play those things on Switch or Steam Deck and I’ve wanted to play this game for a long time now and I’ve had it on my Steam Wishlist for years but it never ever goes below 30% off, which Bravo first of all because that’s a Sign they don’t need to discount it more than that.

Good for them. I’m happy for them. I would gladly pay full price if I didn’t have a backlog that’s like 400 games long.

But yes, considering why I deploy it now of all times. It was just recently added to the PS plus membership a couple months ago, so my patience finally paid off for once by not buying it.

But yes, very excited. As mentioned earlier, we’ll start up the game and make some progress learning the systems and our favorite means of survival. Play a fair bit and reconvene in about a week to share our first impressions and any tips or tricks we might have picked up, as well as strategies for certain enemies. Yeah, do you fight them? Do you run away or run by?

[00:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I will say quickly before like again for why I’m still like intrigued and I still want to play it like now go back to it even though I had tried. I think also now we’re doing the podcast and some other stuff. My gaming preferences and what we’ve played has changed it. So I’m definitely even more intrigued now. Like I think that was one of my first isometric type playing that and like not knowing exactly what that all meant and like okay, how that gameplay would be.

But now like I. I think I understand it more as well. So I didn’t like what I’d have to do and I think I originally when I first it was like just like a running gun. Like I was just.

[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yes, you were playing it like an action game.

[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Which it’s not.

[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:12:22] Speaker B: So yeah. But obviously over the time I’ve learned that from playing like we did the Silent Hill 2 remake and some other games I played.

[00:12:29] Speaker A: So you’ve gotten some. Some survival horror experience in from the podcast. You know, our other side quest season had is also isometric.

So for the art perspective for camera angle. Okay, well that’s good to know a opening up your gaming preferences. But also it sounds like you had a surface level interest and were intrigued by someone’s commentary about it, but now you’re like fully definitely interested.

[00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

Something else I do remember just quickly too is if I remember the sound, the soundtrack or just overall the.

The background noise is quite creepy.

[00:13:06] Speaker A: Ambient noise.

[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yeah, the ambient noise.

[00:13:09] Speaker A: So you’re saying play with headphones.

[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, probably actually might be the best way.

[00:13:13] Speaker A: I mean I think for atmosphere and immersion that’s going to be the best way. If you are afraid of things in

[00:13:21] Speaker B: general, play with headphones with the lights on.

[00:13:22] Speaker A: Play with headphones. With the lights on or play with your TV or whatever. Super bright speakers.

[00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:13:29] Speaker A: But also it. But the couple of screenshots in the trailer that I remember, I think it’s a pretty dark game, like art dark with the lights off in a lot of cases. So playing with the lights on might be.

Make it hard to see.

[00:13:42] Speaker B: That might be. Yeah, it might make it

[00:13:46] Speaker A: so.

So yeah, you know, experiment. Figure out what works for you.

[00:13:50] Speaker B: Exactly. But no, I’m very.

[00:13:52] Speaker A: See if there are some jump scares.

[00:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I am excited to like fully delve into signals now and get back.

[00:14:00] Speaker A: Awesome.

[00:14:00] Speaker B: When, when you, when you gave it as like an option for this, I was like, oh yeah, I want to. Yeah, gotta do it.

[00:14:06] Speaker A: And then there’s already some chatter in Discord that people are really big fans of this too. So.

[00:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah. All right.

[00:14:14] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, so we’ll, we’ll catch back up in a week after we’ve put maybe one to two hours in this first impressions before finishing it off. And of course, we’ll both keep playing along this alongside Cyberpunk 2077 for the handful more weeks until we beat that long.

Amazing immersive game.

[00:14:33] Speaker B: Incredible game.

[00:14:36] Speaker A: And yeah. So I think if we time this right, we’ll finish our full playthrough and provide our final thoughts in the last episode. Right in time for Halloween.

Yeah. Between hearing such good things about the story especially and wanting to chat along the way, let us know your expectations on Discord before you start and keep coming back to exchange tips too. Thanks everyone.

[00:14:57] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening and looking forward to getting started here with our second side quest of Signalis. And hope you guys are looking forward to joining us as well.

So thanks and have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of any games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.