It is now October of 2023. Writing this, the feeling is coming up again. That there is no point to this. That I have nothing to say. Nothing substantive. The inclination comes up as I remember my past and how I felt at one point writing, and then before my finger even hits the first key, it collapses into nothingness. I become devoid of all desire to share my thoughts. Things are not what I thought they were. The inside cannot be exposed to the outside.

Noise cancelling headphones are not enough. They are designed for low-frequency background noise, such as that of an airplane or a lawn mower. I’ve yet to own a pair that can cancel out the rancid cackling of voices. Or the sonorous landfill of modern music blasting at full volume while I sit at a cafe.

I was fascinated with Diablo II as a kid because of what looked like a grim reaper on the front. Convincing my parents to buy it for me, I eventually got around to playing it while being scared shitless. Later on, I also got a hold of the first Diablo CD, but never got around to playing it.

I come from a place where analysis and predictability are prized. Where anything that comes close to creative bursts of energy are controlled, honed into finely tuned cybernetics, tested over and over from every possible angle. Optimized, stripped of all of its humanity, barren and desolate in its mechanical prose; I come from software development.

“A Dream about Dreaming”

Mind Contamination

Signalis is like no other game I’ve played. And I do not mean that in a superficial sense; you can play a variety of games in the realm of survival horror with similar combat and puzzle mechanics. Although this game may be like several of those, including the predecessors it is inspired by that I’ve seen mentioned in other reviews, it is simultaneously like none of those and nothing else at all.