Signals

I like this game. I like a lot about it. I've played Factorio and Civilization for hundreds of hours and this hits the right marks while bringing something new. But it has a distinct lack of a tutorial, so much so that I will use this review to explain how to play the game for anyone reading before getting into my opinions. Your main task is to build solar arrays around resource nodes, then place harvesters on the resources to generate money. Place one trading post per planet for the harvesters to begin working. You'll be doing this a lot, so using the keyboard shortcuts is highly recommended. Your long term goal is to repair the signal device, but this requires resources not found on the starting planet. Ignore the other buildings for now - your next goal is saving up cash to travel to a new planet, done so by clicking in the top right to view the star chart. Every solar system has an array of planets, some with no resources at all and others with plenty, or even the specific resources you need in order to complete the game. You'll need to look through each planet in each solar system to determine whether it's a good spot to harvest - check the resources menu to see which ones are more lucrative than others. The UI for this is very nice without being too much a selection of menus and numbers. Simply put if you click on a planet and it has oil, diamonds or plutonium on it it's good for making you money. If it has lithium, magnesium or silicon on it, you need to go there to win the game. You can click a star icon to add a planet favourites and find it easily in the planetarium menu (bottom right) and travel there once you have the money to do so. Find the planets with the resources you need and try to plan a route of planets towards it. Travelling between planets costs a LOT of money and the cost is dependant on how far away you're travelling, so the most efficient and safest way to play is to hopscotch along solar systems, setting up harvesters on planets with lucrative resources, until you reach the planets with the resources you need to fix the signal device. Then make your way back home, likely doing the same as before to build up more cash. Once back on the home planet and waiting for the resources to extract, start building farms and a water treatment plant to make food for an outpost. The outpost gives you workers to power the research centre, which you build next to the signal device. As your game-winning resources accrue, the signal device gets repaired further until completed. When all signal devices of the mission are repaired, you win the game! Though with a disappointing lack of any fanfare, merely being kicked back to the main menu (dev note: a fanfare leading to a screen with upbeat music showing your over-time progress as graphs would do a lot to make you feel more accomplished about doing well.) The game's main challenge is efficiency - resources on a planet are NOT infinite, your harvesters will eventually run them dry. It is entirely possible to fail the game by mismanaging your resources and having no income or money left to continue. You quickly realise you can't go further once trapped on a planet with no income and too little cash to fly away. On timed missions you do get a game over screen once the timer runs out, but it's very likely you'll know you've lost long before you reach that point. You need to be efficient about where you build solar panels so you can spend less upkeep while still grabbing as many resource nodes as possible, especially the game-winning ones. It isn't feasible to micromanage your planets and delete depleted harvester setups to save on upkeep, due to the cost of travel between planets, which is nice as having to min/max by doing that would get tiresome. There is however benefit to pausing the game while setting up your harvesters, to take less calendar days setting up a planet. Unlike an RTS, you actually get some breathing room and time to look around, which is very appreciated. Missions in the campaign and run mode focus on being as efficient with time and money as possible while maximising your profits. True min/maxers will focus on the simulated stock market and randomised quest orders to get the highest possible scores in run mode. Hopefully the game eventually updates with a leaderboard alongside a way to play the seeds others got scores on. I assume this is what the weekly challenge achievement is for? Unlike similar games such as Factorio, Civilisation or to some extent Rimworld, the game isn't about setting gamespeed to max and waiting for resources to roll in. The enemy is not aliens or other tribes but simply your ability to manage your time and money. I have to say it's nice to have a game focused on being beaten as fast as possible, rather than the usual 50 hour Civ games or week-long upgrade climb to building a spaceship in Factorio/Rimworld. This is what makes Signals stand out as a breath of fresh air in a genre usually made to eat up months of your life. Keeping harvesters and solar arrays to only one tier and not over-complicating the game systems by having more and more things to build and upgrade to was a good choice. There is seemingly one building not available early in the campaign, but that's about the limit you should keep it to. Presentation is clean and very suitable for any number of devices, the music very fitting and pleasant. Some resource nodes are hard to notice, there doesn't seem to be an option to highlight them, but that may just be part of the gameplay itself in needing to search for them. Selecting the harvester and swinging it across the screen has it turn green on viable nodes, at least. There are a few misspellings throughout the games limited text, but this is forgivable. What needs addressing is the huge lack of guidance when first playing the game if you are going into it without having watched the gameplay video on the store page - this is what a general audience is going to do and is why I did it. I HIGHLY recommend that you have that video added to the main menu of the game as a "How To Play" button, especially if you want to cater to players on mobile devices. Overall the game is an enjoyable little challenge presented simply but with a lot of complexity behind it. Due to the randomised nature of run mode there will never be an exactly perfect route to take, you'll need to be making decisions constantly, and making decisions is what makes games interesting to play. for the price point, signals is a good buy and can be an interesting game for anyone with a propensity to complexity, just don't go into it blind.

The gameplay premise is fun, but the game has a large number of tiny issues that all add up. Like not being able to move when paused or constantly having to reselect what building you want to build. I also wish there was small control changes, that currently can't be changed, like middle click and drag to pan the camera and having hotkeys to change the speed. I also noticed a bug when you pause and then go through menus that it sometimes weirds out and you have to press pause 2-3 times for the game to actually play again. Another issue I had is that when you pause, it doesn't keep your previous speed when you play again. Conclusion. The game is a good idea and the gameplay is fun, but there are so many little issues that it is a bit of a chore to play this which is supposed to be somewhat chill and relaxing.

I really wanted to like this game. I don't like combat games, or games that test hand-eye coordination. This has a lot to like for somebody like me. The problem is the interface. There's no decent help. I passed challenge #1, but couldn't pass challenge #2. So I tried the run mode. There are three icons at the top of the bottom bar. I can't repair the portal until I have all three resources, and I can't even figure out what the third resource is. Whatever I do, it stays at zero. It might be titanium, but I've three three runs and checked every planet and I can't find any with titanium. And I can't find a way to get advice. So I'm done.

This is the game for Vibing! Its super chill and the perfect for winding down. The music really sets the mood of the game and the next thing you know you know, you've lost track of time and its time for bed. The controls are intuitive and the shortcuts become muscle memory, navigation works well and the UI is clean. First play I sat there and completed the campaign mode and am now ready for getting those achievements in "Run mode". Campaign helped to learn how the economy works and gave some backstory to the "signals". Run mode allows you to note the seed and try and make the perfect run. I haven't completed a run yet as its late but I'm sure I'll be grinding this out.

I'm already addicted! I love casual strategy games and Signals ticks a lot of boxes for me. I love the graphics and how each planet has a different terrain and resources to harvest, It's easy to navigate and I've enjoyed figuring out how to place buildings, harvest resources and travel to different planets. I'm intrigued to find out what happens when I fix the signal and complete more tasks!

The simplistic gameplay and chill sound design/music makes the game really easy to get lost in. Very relaxing but has the ability to make you sweat when you want to complete a certain task on time. I do think it could use a proper tutorial, but the question mark button on the bottom right of the screen does explain enough and its fairly easy to find what you need to do. Overall good experience and chill time.

Balancing what is being built with the in game economy is a lot of fun. Highly recommend this game. :)

I'm mostly buying this so wooser's brother doesn't go homeless.

Extremely short game. Not bad, just very short.

Should take you 2-4 hours. I had a good time.