How to get secret ending (without spoilers)?!

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

I'm spoiled on what the secret ending IS,
and I know the overall process of HOW to get it...

But, I'm wondering how other people figured out the exact details?
What in-game hints are there about where to go, & what to do?

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

Or do people seriously have no choice but to
keep trying every radio station in every room?
Cause that seems like obnoxious tedious overkill.

[goka9696]

You have 2 choices: either participate in the forums (which has already passed since the mystery is solved) or do it yourself, which would involve basically going through every place with every frequency and then testing it in a different software to see if it returns any images.

[CCfan]

It's a super-secret ending that was pretty obviously designed as an ARG for the community to solve, and story-wise it's meant to emphasize how you need to do some really weird stuff to break through the loop the game is set in.

But, yeah. It's not really meant to be figured out on your own. It's about finding special radio signals, decoding them as images, check the places in the game that the images depict and look for the three keys.

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

Okay, so it is (was?) some kind of 'meta-puzzle' that's already been solved?
Kind of like what happened with that 'card/horror' game Inscryption?
Can I get a link to the best webpage and/or forum discussion thread about it then?
Regardless of spoilers.

[goka9696]

Originally posted by CtenosaurOaxacana:

Okay, so it is (was?) some kind of 'meta-puzzle' that's already been solved?
Kind of like what happened with that 'card/horror' game Inscryption?
Can I get a link to the best webpage and/or forum discussion thread about it then?
Regardless of spoilers.

The big endings thread had a discussion about it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1262350/discussions/0/3473990693214672582/

I think it was Kein Zantezuken that posted the video with the ending which started the whole hunt for secret ending to begin with.

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

Originally posted by CCfan:

But, yeah. It's not really meant to be figured out on your own. It's about finding special radio signals, decoding them as images, check the places in the game that the images depict and look for the three keys.

Having finally started going for this secret ending (which requires beating the game once to even access anything), I can confirm that it's literally impossible to get without meta knowledge & using out-of-game tools, specifically an SSTV decoder to convert specific signals from specific floors/areas. Without that, you'd spend eternity having to click everywhere with every possible signal #, and get lucky 3 times throughout the game.

There is absolutely zero hint within the game itself for finding the 3 keys in any way. It's not like those 3 signals stand out particularly either, right? Besides maybe the first one. I browsed that massive endings thread, but I see nothing to indicate otherwise.

I thought it maybe possible to test all radio signals in the proper rooms to at least get some an audio or visual indicator in-game that you're doing something right, but there's nothing.

And for those who are curious what the 3 decoded signal image hints are:
Radio Signal Encoded Images[signalis.fandom.com]
Congrats devs, you made that infamous painting even more scary, lol

Although the final piece of the puzzle itself is kind of obvious,
and definitely doable with info & awareness in-game only:
The 'Achtung!' Number message in that room during the beginning intro,
has a purpose in that same room at the end. Best to write it down or save screenshots.

I won't hold this design choice against the devs, but 3/4 of the secret ending can only be discovered using an obscure software tool that most players won't already have installed, or by simply looking up guides after it was solved. It could be argued that especially paranoid 'hacker-minded' types will get suspicious and ♥♥♥♥ around with decoding various signals on their own whims... an arduous task, but it's apparently been done.

ARG for video games have been devised before after all, but I definitely would've felt more satisfied if I was able to accomplish this ending all in-game with my own brain. I'm sure the handful who figured out the decoded SSTV signals early on are pleased. Yet such triumph is fleeting, and now only second-hand knowledge remains.

TL;DR
The design of this secret ending is clever & good,
but I'm a bit salty that I couldn't have possibly figured it out myself, lol.

[Jallad]

The SSTV signals can be heard throughout the entire floor(s) they're broadcast on, so it's not as absurd to find them, you don't need to check every room. And they're easy to identify compared to random background broadcasts because every SSTV signal will start with that same little jingle.