Dev history

[Steel, my beloved]

Given how awesome Signalis is, I was curious if there's any info on their game development history. Previous games, background etc.

[Salty Juniper]

Signalis was apparently originally a 2D side-scrolling game in the very first builds, before it became 3D and top-down.

[Steel, my beloved]

Oh interesting. Where'd you hear that?

[Salty Juniper]

I don't remember where I originally heard it, but I did a quick Google for "Signalis early prototype" and got this: https://www.reddit.com/r/signalis/comments/11ne3n1/signalvania_very_early_signalis_prototype/

[goka9696]

There's a huge guide going in-depth into the game's dev story, but it's in russian

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3336989067

I don't really like his attitude since the guy basically thinks that the game that came out is bad because it was cut up multiple times, but to me it comes off like he's just disappointed they didn't keep stuff he liked. However, he did a good job collecting all the various info spread around the internet.

[Wind_Falcon]

I ran this guide through Google translate and the author does a lot of wild speculation based on crumbs regarding what the previous iterations of the game might have been. From what I saw, the devs seem to have had a lot less clarity regarding what kind of story they wanted to tell initially, and as time went on the narrative crystalized for them more and more, adding what was necessary and cutting what was placeholder. Now in some sense some parts of the game do feel more confusing or not aligning perfectly, probably due to this lack of upfront concrete plan for the plot, but overall the narrative now seems much much better than any previous iteration, at least the main story. There are some side plots which seem to just be hinted at in the release version without accomplishing much or going anywhere, and some characters seem to be quite mysterious and hard to pin down what is going on with them (Isa), as well as its hard to exactly figure out how much time has passed between the major events, but that's not a huge problem for the game as it is now, and maybe even can serve as plot hooks for future story expansion, maybe even not in the form of computer games.

[goka9696]

Originally posted by Wind_Falcon:

I ran this guide through Google translate and the author does a lot of wild speculation based on crumbs regarding what the previous iterations of the game might have been.

Yeah, like I said, I think he's just disappointed parts he liked weren't implemented. Even after my very first run I didn't feel like the story was that confusing. There was plenty of speculation of course, but the general gist of the story was clear.

[Wind_Falcon]

IMO the basic gist of the story is very clear - false memories based on the Vinetan soldier Gestalt + the Pareidolia effect melding Alina and Ariane (and other characters/events) together in the mind of Elster.

These two facts which are not ambiguous at all tell you the story of Elster and Ariane on the Penrose (the whole "wake up" and "remember the promise" ordeal) pretty clearly.