Nice video! However I have a different reading of Falke's position, I posted this elsewhere but I want to share it here as well We know of two entities who were dreaming in the game: Ariane and Falke. Ariane might not be "alive" at this point, and we never know exactly how strong is Ariane's bioresonance power. Maybe she only has a little bit of bioresonance. Falke on the other hand, the commander of Sierpinski, is strongest known bioresonanator on Leng, who have a lot of classified information in her head in the first place. SO here is my theory: We are not playing as Elster at all. When people say "No Elster was ever deployed at Sierpinski", they are speaking the truth. Elster was never there and cannot physically be there. We are Falke. Or rather, we are Falke who embodied a character of Elster in her own dream. This whole situation was the result of Falke's dream leaking into reality. Falke went out into the snow and found what's left of Penrose-512. The bioresonance residue from Ariane influenced Falke just like how Kolibris can mentally drag each other down. Falke went back and got "sick". She got trapped in her own recurring dreams of Ariane and Elster. She knows what Ariane wants, and tried to end the dream by fulfilling the promise. So she created Elster as her avatar in the dream. Adler who is closest to Falke, got corrupted by Falke first. He started to share a dream with Falke, and ran into Elster in his dream. This is how Kolibrie saw an Elster in his memory. This is also how Adler remembered his Gestalt past, by influence of Falke. Adler tried to resist the corruption by killing Elster in his dream over and over, hence the elevator shaft. Unfortunately Falke's dream only went deeper, and with each recurring dream, her creation of Elster gets stronger, more independent, and more real. To the point her psyche effectively split and "Falke ended and Elster began". When we the player started the game, it was the last straw. The dream fully merged with reality, and we the dream character of Elster took on physical form, or rather is finally visible by all other survivors at Sierpinski, not just Adler. And not just us, other dream characters also came out, like Isa Ito. By the time of fake ending, Adler realized who Elster really is. Which is why in that scene at the threshold, Elster replaced Falke's position. When Elster walked through the threshold, Adler lost all hope, knowing his beloved Falke have "changed", changed into Elster. Hence his "I hate everything" statement. This is also why, in the fake ending, in the scene where a line of several Elsters turn their heads, the first in the line is Falke; When a line of Ariane, Ito, and Alina turn their heads, the first in the line is also Falke. Falke is the host of this dream, and these are all effectively her dream characters. And you know the saying about meeting yourself in a dream is a sign of inner conflict? By the end of the game the Falke who became Elster run into Falke herself, or "return" to herself. The "we are incomplete, let us become whole again" is a very literal statement.
Super interesting interpretation! One that falls in line with what little I was able to make of the story on my first playthrough. It also justifies other creative choices, like the general obscurity of the visual style (which, of course, at face level is in reference to classic, PS1 Era Survival Horror games). Faces and general details are blurred except for quick flashes and close-ups, much like what we can remember from our own dreams. Sometimes we spectate upon our own dreams, sometimes we experience them in the first person. I've certainly had dreams that have transitioned between the two. What a great game.
i've answered your theory in another comment section, but for those who will only see this comment i have some problems with this interpretation: That would imply that elster and arianne landed in a habitable planet, or at least one where they could have sought help, but they didnt. The connection for Arianne and Sierpinski is the fact that she would have gone there if she hadn't entered the penrose program. Another thing that supports this is the fact that the outside of the penrose-512 can change, in the "bad ending" where elster doesnt fulfill the promise and walks away, when she exits the penrose, instead of being in the snow field she is in Vinneta, the water planet. I do not know where they are supossed to be but they're not physically in Sierpinski, the way you access the base is through a very strange fleshy hole down some stairs (beginning of the game) (who tf would desing an entrance that way) and even going through the hole originally lands you in Arianne's room. To me it makes no sense, and it's Arianne's unconscious mind trying map out a "logical" path from the penrose to the "shithole" that is Sierpinski. And I say shithole cause it's basically a gulag and her life there would have sucked. I like your interpretation as it is very grounded with things that are often left uninterpreted by other people's theory, but i really dont think falke saw the Penrose, iirc she visited the mines and was afflicted by the "red eye", the presence withing nowhere, the flesh
oi no hating on Addler, he's just a guy who finds himself at the center of a reality warping loop who cannot die, all he wants is for this to end and to go back to normal, but LSTR keeps showing up.
I just finished this game last night and this is the first video I've watched about it from several in my watch later, it was great! There's a minor detail I can't stop thinking about, I imagine other people have spoken about it too, but it's the fact the trains seem to be running in the Rotront metro. I can't even really put my finger on it. If the whole area (or even whole game) is a dream then the trains really add to that weird unsettling vibe. Here you are battling through the corrupt remnants of society but the metro is still chugging on. Or if it isn't a dream then it opens so many questions. Is society still functioning outside this hell? How far has the corruption spread? Is it only in the places Elster visits? There was just something so melancholic about the metro with the trains appearing to pass by that has really stuck with me.
I like that your video is other side of the coin to the one from noclip. While noclip derive subtext more from the personal relation of everybody involved as well as to the player's relationship and art appreciating habit. Yours derive it from the character-world building relation and put it in a real world social political context
I’ve watched so many Signalis videos and yours is the best! I would’ve never found this one except for a Reddit post that linked it. As a harpist, I’m obviously a huge Tchaikovsky fan :) None of the other videos I saw even talked about the Swan Lake connections. I loved how you pulled in the music into the analysis-- but I’m in a video game orchestra which biases me. TLDR; thank you for focusing on the power of music to underline narrative. This is the coolest.
So I've never played Signalis, but after hearing this brief synopsis, and it's influence, (and hey, someone said Sapphic?). I guess I'll go and play it now, and I'll probably be back when I've completed it. Can't wait to see the video now. :D
Great video! I must have missed this during my initial period of signalis obsession, but I'm glad I did because I can hop back into the brainrot once more 😅
My theory involves tthe non-linear nature of time. In a quantum level, time is a landscape that is already laid out but we can only walk the path one step, one moment at a time. Thus we experience time in a linear fashion with the appearance of cause and effect in the same way a movie is a series of frames that are arranged in an order that creates a narrative. In Signalis, the bioresonance of the dying Ariane is shredding the fabric of time and space and everyone is experiencing bit and pieces stitched together randomly in a slowly declining spiral that is shrinking into a singular moment. Past, present, future, dreams, memories are all collapsing into a singularity symbolized by the tesseract, a fourth dimensional cube that represents the structure of time. This singularity is revealed in the Artifact ending as Ariane's wish, to be in that single moment with Elster forever. After all the common meaning of artifact might be an old object, but it also means a defect or a distortion in an image caused by interference from another source. Such as the image or reality being distorted by a powerful bioresonance signal. Or Signalis.
I think one thing I've figured out about Signalis is that it's psychedelic. Meaning "mind revealing." All of the good Jungian archetypal stuff is on full display. Unfortunately, while that tells you what's going on psychologically, it does not tell you what's going on _in context._ What's happening in context appears to be the end of the world brought about by man's hubris. It's the book of revelation if Ariane were Christ and everyone now wishes they were nicer to her. Or something.
I found this game randomly on Game Pass, and was hooked when the cursed book The King in Yellow appeared on an alien planet xD I've been scared of that book ever since True Detective!
My interpretation is that the 4 endings were simultaneously canon, but they were all leading to the 4th ending, and the resolution of the game ceased to be contextual, but instead is transformed into a meta-textual one. The game has a very heavy pool of inspiration from romantic art and literature, and one of the the great thinkers on the subject, Nietzsche (himself also obsessed with the idea of cycles and suffering and the need for both to become self-becoming) was heavily invested into the work of Greek Tragedy. His Birth of Tragedy defines tragedy as an exercise in disguising the chaos and emotion and unfairness of life in a wrapping of rational logic and story telling, only to release that anxiety in an explosive end, a "violent" destruction of comforting rationalism with a raw appeal to pessimistic or bittersweet emotion. In this moment a rationalistic interpretation of the play is supplanted with an "intuitive" one, and the audience comes to a deeper understanding of the themes and characters as the mental barriers between the play and audience is broken and we allow ourselves to feel. In this way the 4th ending is entirely meta and is wholly given through sight and sound and imagery, the in-story timeline and its mechanics cease and we, the dutiful audience who made it through the game and poured over every piece and ending, are finally able to achieve catharsis with a potential realization of the promise and a final end to the story.
There are so many themes and different angles to examine in Signalis (be they political, ethical, metaphysical or otherwise), and I loved how this video got past all of that to the very heart of the game. An abiding anxiety about the nature of our own reality is an interpretation that really resonates with me, and I enjoyed Schubert trivia, as well as the neat parallels with how one might approach the game's multiple endings. Thank you!
My feelings on the 'true narrative' waffle a lot. I normally don't go in for narratives where it's all a dream of a main character who is really in a hospital bed, yet still believe that's probably that's probably the 'real' circumstances of Signalis, and Ariane's bioresonant abilities broadcast the vision to Elster. But it's still an immensely compelling setting and story despite this possibility. Ariane's projection is populated by the real people she knew, places she lived, and things she found significant. Ship 512, room 512, post box 512; the first keypad code is 0451--is it the developers being funny, or did Ariane play System Shock and it influenced her projection of the world? If The King in Yellow is a real book in her world then maybe System Shock is as well; the computers look at least advanced enough to play it. Why would Ariane create a 'game' for Elster to find her through? For the same reason Rose Engine did.
was looking for an analysis or this game earlier today and couldn't find one and searched again and this appeared just in time, thank you it is the best by far ive seen and really tackles every seemingly nonsensical aspect of the game
Signalis has really burrowed itself into my skull since I played it a couple months ago, and it just won't let go. I love that everyone who plays it pulls in their own cultural subtexts, and somehow they are all different from each-other. "facts might be elusive but you can always find truths" Also, as a trans woman in the US you've really hit the nail on the head. I feel that connection between the game's female characters and themes of circuity/hopelessness, and how they relate to the current state of affairs so acutely. You do such an excellent job here, and now I need to go through your backlog :)
Thanks for the video, this is one of the best looks I've seen into what was also my game of the year. It's been months and I still can't stop thinking about it. To me some of the ideas that I felt most strongly were that of how far even one meaningful connection can carry you and the value of treasuring happiness, even after acknowledging it is ultimately fleeting. Token enough ideas at face value, but sometimes it's all about set and setting (to borrow a term) and Signalis really succeeds in breaking through mental barriers to make it's various messages hit home. If the player is willing to put some thought into it at least. After watching your video I feel like I will have even more to think about now whenever my mind inevitably circles back round to Signalis again.
Aww thank you! And thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree that how a theme is delivered really matters and Signalis really threads a needle with its plot structure
One character I believe might be important, but is also one of the least mentioned would be Lilith Itou with the possibility of her being the original base for Elster. After all, it seems like Lilith knew Alina Seo and that get's mixed into Elsters own memories leading to the whole segment at the start.
Yeah, absolutely! Sadly I just can't get everything into one video even tho I'd really like to. So I just focus on what makes the most sense for the video and its thesis
For me, the game doesn't want to be understoode in a logical way, but it wants to be understoode by using fellings and the emotions that you fell by playing it.
one of the best youtube essays on a game out there, i still haven't played beyond the first couple of hours of Signalis but don't mind spoilers so i watched anyway to motivate myself to get back to it and the amount of layers deep it goes looks incredible!
Excellent exploration of the themes and motifs of Signalis. Just to be clear: the Penrose interpretation is a type of objective collapse theory. This suggests that there is, in fact, a sort of canonical ending, depending on the gravity of your emotional and interpretive resonance with the game (pun intended, sorry).
Converging realities would explain the references to LSTR-2301. However, I personally prefer a non-temporal loop: Ariane keeps resetting the actors back to their places, hoping to get another outcome from the same input. The time doesn't stop, or reset - and decay is slowly accumulating. A literal interpretation, if you will. The reason I prefer this, is because it is more horrific. (they are definitely dancing and alive at the end, and are definitely alive, as much as it means anything by that point)
Just wanted to say thanks for this. I've not played Signalis but I may have to pick it up, it sounds beautiful. I also really hope you can keep going with this sort of deep analysis, I love it
This is by far one of my favorite video essays on Signalis… this makes me want to make my own video essay one day… That ending connection bodied me and I’m glad to see others following that same line of thought
This reminds me of the description of what one of those keys (needed for the ARTIFACT ending) says: _"Are you still looking for answers where there are only questions?"_ ... Man, this game shook me to my core
a perfect space communism society if everybody hear you run hallways we will take you to a room where nobody hear you screams and remember: only 6 items, sweetie
Wew I need to stop playing games like this on stream. Once per week for a few hours at a time meant I just did NOT get on to a lot of themes or even overt text. Because frankly by the time I came to play again I'd forgotten a lot of details! I just assumed the entire game was an psychic dream pushed onto Elster.
I really wanted to watch this video but............. I just couldn't get over the horrible audio quality for your voice. Sorry! I don't know if it's your mic or something but, it's hard for me to follow. There are many other videos on Signalis that can communicate so clearly so I think I'll stick with those. Good luck in your future content creation though!
Nice video!
However I have a different reading of Falke's position, I posted this elsewhere but I want to share it here as well
We know of two entities who were dreaming in the game: Ariane and Falke. Ariane might not be "alive" at this point, and we never know exactly how strong is Ariane's bioresonance power. Maybe she only has a little bit of bioresonance. Falke on the other hand, the commander of Sierpinski, is strongest known bioresonanator on Leng, who have a lot of classified information in her head in the first place.
SO here is my theory: We are not playing as Elster at all. When people say "No Elster was ever deployed at Sierpinski", they are speaking the truth. Elster was never there and cannot physically be there. We are Falke. Or rather, we are Falke who embodied a character of Elster in her own dream. This whole situation was the result of Falke's dream leaking into reality. Falke went out into the snow and found what's left of Penrose-512. The bioresonance residue from Ariane influenced Falke just like how Kolibris can mentally drag each other down. Falke went back and got "sick". She got trapped in her own recurring dreams of Ariane and Elster. She knows what Ariane wants, and tried to end the dream by fulfilling the promise. So she created Elster as her avatar in the dream. Adler who is closest to Falke, got corrupted by Falke first. He started to share a dream with Falke, and ran into Elster in his dream. This is how Kolibrie saw an Elster in his memory. This is also how Adler remembered his Gestalt past, by influence of Falke. Adler tried to resist the corruption by killing Elster in his dream over and over, hence the elevator shaft. Unfortunately Falke's dream only went deeper, and with each recurring dream, her creation of Elster gets stronger, more independent, and more real. To the point her psyche effectively split and "Falke ended and Elster began". When we the player started the game, it was the last straw. The dream fully merged with reality, and we the dream character of Elster took on physical form, or rather is finally visible by all other survivors at Sierpinski, not just Adler. And not just us, other dream characters also came out, like Isa Ito. By the time of fake ending, Adler realized who Elster really is. Which is why in that scene at the threshold, Elster replaced Falke's position. When Elster walked through the threshold, Adler lost all hope, knowing his beloved Falke have "changed", changed into Elster. Hence his "I hate everything" statement. This is also why, in the fake ending, in the scene where a line of several Elsters turn their heads, the first in the line is Falke; When a line of Ariane, Ito, and Alina turn their heads, the first in the line is also Falke. Falke is the host of this dream, and these are all effectively her dream characters. And you know the saying about meeting yourself in a dream is a sign of inner conflict? By the end of the game the Falke who became Elster run into Falke herself, or "return" to herself. The "we are incomplete, let us become whole again" is a very literal statement.
That's an interesting reading, thank you for writing it out and sharing!
I like this theory, it's really amazing seeing other people's interpretations of the game.
Make us whole again dead space reference lol 😆
Super interesting interpretation! One that falls in line with what little I was able to make of the story on my first playthrough. It also justifies other creative choices, like the general obscurity of the visual style (which, of course, at face level is in reference to classic, PS1 Era Survival Horror games). Faces and general details are blurred except for quick flashes and close-ups, much like what we can remember from our own dreams. Sometimes we spectate upon our own dreams, sometimes we experience them in the first person. I've certainly had dreams that have transitioned between the two. What a great game.
i've answered your theory in another comment section, but for those who will only see this comment i have some problems with this interpretation:
That would imply that elster and arianne landed in a habitable planet, or at least one where they could have sought help, but they didnt. The connection for Arianne and Sierpinski is the fact that she would have gone there if she hadn't entered the penrose program. Another thing that supports this is the fact that the outside of the penrose-512 can change, in the "bad ending" where elster doesnt fulfill the promise and walks away, when she exits the penrose, instead of being in the snow field she is in Vinneta, the water planet. I do not know where they are supossed to be but they're not physically in Sierpinski, the way you access the base is through a very strange fleshy hole down some stairs (beginning of the game) (who tf would desing an entrance that way) and even going through the hole originally lands you in Arianne's room. To me it makes no sense, and it's Arianne's unconscious mind trying map out a "logical" path from the penrose to the "shithole" that is Sierpinski. And I say shithole cause it's basically a gulag and her life there would have sucked.
I like your interpretation as it is very grounded with things that are often left uninterpreted by other people's theory, but i really dont think falke saw the Penrose, iirc she visited the mines and was afflicted by the "red eye", the presence withing nowhere, the flesh
oi no hating on Addler, he's just a guy who finds himself at the center of a reality warping loop who cannot die, all he wants is for this to end and to go back to normal, but LSTR keeps showing up.
I just finished this game last night and this is the first video I've watched about it from several in my watch later, it was great! There's a minor detail I can't stop thinking about, I imagine other people have spoken about it too, but it's the fact the trains seem to be running in the Rotront metro. I can't even really put my finger on it. If the whole area (or even whole game) is a dream then the trains really add to that weird unsettling vibe. Here you are battling through the corrupt remnants of society but the metro is still chugging on. Or if it isn't a dream then it opens so many questions. Is society still functioning outside this hell? How far has the corruption spread? Is it only in the places Elster visits? There was just something so melancholic about the metro with the trains appearing to pass by that has really stuck with me.
this game is living rent free in my head for weeks now. love your video very good use of the game's graphic design
Thank you!
I like that your video is other side of the coin to the one from noclip. While noclip derive subtext more from the personal relation of everybody involved as well as to the player's relationship and art appreciating habit. Yours derive it from the character-world building relation and put it in a real world social political context
I still have to watch that, sounds like I'd get a lot out of it! And thanks for watching
I’ve watched so many Signalis videos and yours is the best! I would’ve never found this one except for a Reddit post that linked it.
As a harpist, I’m obviously a huge Tchaikovsky fan :) None of the other videos I saw even talked about the Swan Lake connections. I loved how you pulled in the music into the analysis-- but I’m in a video game orchestra which biases me.
TLDR; thank you for focusing on the power of music to underline narrative. This is the coolest.
Aw thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it
NIce analysis! :)
So I've never played Signalis, but after hearing this brief synopsis, and it's influence, (and hey, someone said Sapphic?). I guess I'll go and play it now, and I'll probably be back when I've completed it. Can't wait to see the video now. :D
Great video! I must have missed this during my initial period of signalis obsession, but I'm glad I did because I can hop back into the brainrot once more 😅
the best video essay ive seen covering the game fantastic job
Thank you so much, that's very kind!
My theory involves tthe non-linear nature of time. In a quantum level, time is a landscape that is already laid out but we can only walk the path one step, one moment at a time. Thus we experience time in a linear fashion with the appearance of cause and effect in the same way a movie is a series of frames that are arranged in an order that creates a narrative. In Signalis, the bioresonance of the dying Ariane is shredding the fabric of time and space and everyone is experiencing bit and pieces stitched together randomly in a slowly declining spiral that is shrinking into a singular moment. Past, present, future, dreams, memories are all collapsing into a singularity symbolized by the tesseract, a fourth dimensional cube that represents the structure of time. This singularity is revealed in the Artifact ending as Ariane's wish, to be in that single moment with Elster forever. After all the common meaning of artifact might be an old object, but it also means a defect or a distortion in an image caused by interference from another source. Such as the image or reality being distorted by a powerful bioresonance signal. Or Signalis.
In this interpretation, the promise Elster and Ariane made was likely to be together forever.
I think one thing I've figured out about Signalis is that it's psychedelic. Meaning "mind revealing." All of the good Jungian archetypal stuff is on full display.
Unfortunately, while that tells you what's going on psychologically, it does not tell you what's going on _in context._
What's happening in context appears to be the end of the world brought about by man's hubris. It's the book of revelation if Ariane were Christ and everyone now wishes they were nicer to her. Or something.
I found this game randomly on Game Pass, and was hooked when the cursed book The King in Yellow appeared on an alien planet xD I've been scared of that book ever since True Detective!
My interpretation is that the 4 endings were simultaneously canon, but they were all leading to the 4th ending, and the resolution of the game ceased to be contextual, but instead is transformed into a meta-textual one. The game has a very heavy pool of inspiration from romantic art and literature, and one of the the great thinkers on the subject, Nietzsche (himself also obsessed with the idea of cycles and suffering and the need for both to become self-becoming) was heavily invested into the work of Greek Tragedy. His Birth of Tragedy defines tragedy as an exercise in disguising the chaos and emotion and unfairness of life in a wrapping of rational logic and story telling, only to release that anxiety in an explosive end, a "violent" destruction of comforting rationalism with a raw appeal to pessimistic or bittersweet emotion. In this moment a rationalistic interpretation of the play is supplanted with an "intuitive" one, and the audience comes to a deeper understanding of the themes and characters as the mental barriers between the play and audience is broken and we allow ourselves to feel. In this way the 4th ending is entirely meta and is wholly given through sight and sound and imagery, the in-story timeline and its mechanics cease and we, the dutiful audience who made it through the game and poured over every piece and ending, are finally able to achieve catharsis with a potential realization of the promise and a final end to the story.
There are so many themes and different angles to examine in Signalis (be they political, ethical, metaphysical or otherwise), and I loved how this video got past all of that to the very heart of the game. An abiding anxiety about the nature of our own reality is an interpretation that really resonates with me, and I enjoyed Schubert trivia, as well as the neat parallels with how one might approach the game's multiple endings. Thank you!
Thank you for watching and this kind comment!
My feelings on the 'true narrative' waffle a lot. I normally don't go in for narratives where it's all a dream of a main character who is really in a hospital bed, yet still believe that's probably that's probably the 'real' circumstances of Signalis, and Ariane's bioresonant abilities broadcast the vision to Elster. But it's still an immensely compelling setting and story despite this possibility.
Ariane's projection is populated by the real people she knew, places she lived, and things she found significant. Ship 512, room 512, post box 512; the first keypad code is 0451--is it the developers being funny, or did Ariane play System Shock and it influenced her projection of the world? If The King in Yellow is a real book in her world then maybe System Shock is as well; the computers look at least advanced enough to play it. Why would Ariane create a 'game' for Elster to find her through? For the same reason Rose Engine did.
was looking for an analysis or this game earlier today and couldn't find one and searched again and this appeared just in time, thank you it is the best by far ive seen and really tackles every seemingly nonsensical aspect of the game
Thank you so much!
Thank you! Glad you liked it
Signalis has really burrowed itself into my skull since I played it a couple months ago, and it just won't let go. I love that everyone who plays it pulls in their own cultural subtexts, and somehow they are all different from each-other. "facts might be elusive but you can always find truths"
Also, as a trans woman in the US you've really hit the nail on the head. I feel that connection between the game's female characters and themes of circuity/hopelessness, and how they relate to the current state of affairs so acutely. You do such an excellent job here, and now I need to go through your backlog :)
Aww am glad it resonated, thank you for watching!
This is such a great video analysis!
Thank you so much for this ❤
Thanks for the video, this is one of the best looks I've seen into what was also my game of the year. It's been months and I still can't stop thinking about it. To me some of the ideas that I felt most strongly were that of how far even one meaningful connection can carry you and the value of treasuring happiness, even after acknowledging it is ultimately fleeting. Token enough ideas at face value, but sometimes it's all about set and setting (to borrow a term) and Signalis really succeeds in breaking through mental barriers to make it's various messages hit home. If the player is willing to put some thought into it at least. After watching your video I feel like I will have even more to think about now whenever my mind inevitably circles back round to Signalis again.
Aww thank you! And thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree that how a theme is delivered really matters and Signalis really threads a needle with its plot structure
I just want to say this essay on this beautiful game is probably my favorite out of the many I've watched since playing it a month ago or so.
Aw thank you so much!
One character I believe might be important, but is also one of the least mentioned would be Lilith Itou with the possibility of her being the original base for Elster. After all, it seems like Lilith knew Alina Seo and that get's mixed into Elsters own memories leading to the whole segment at the start.
Yeah, absolutely! Sadly I just can't get everything into one video even tho I'd really like to. So I just focus on what makes the most sense for the video and its thesis
Great video! And thanks for convincing me to play Signalis in the first place
Eeey thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
For me, the game doesn't want to be understoode in a logical way, but it wants to be understoode by using fellings and the emotions that you fell by playing it.
one of the best youtube essays on a game out there, i still haven't played beyond the first couple of hours of Signalis but don't mind spoilers so i watched anyway to motivate myself to get back to it and the amount of layers deep it goes looks incredible!
Thank you, that's very kind!
Well, seems like it's time for me to actually start playing Signalis. Looking forward to returning here when that's done.
Excellent exploration of the themes and motifs of Signalis. Just to be clear: the Penrose interpretation is a type of objective collapse theory. This suggests that there is, in fact, a sort of canonical ending, depending on the gravity of your emotional and interpretive resonance with the game (pun intended, sorry).
Well I can't really argue with an intended pun, thank you!
Converging realities would explain the references to LSTR-2301.
However, I personally prefer a non-temporal loop: Ariane keeps resetting the actors back to their places, hoping to get another outcome from the same input. The time doesn't stop, or reset - and decay is slowly accumulating. A literal interpretation, if you will.
The reason I prefer this, is because it is more horrific.
(they are definitely dancing and alive at the end, and are definitely alive, as much as it means anything by that point)
I think this is closest explanation to the Developer original idea, good job!
Just wanted to say thanks for this. I've not played Signalis but I may have to pick it up, it sounds beautiful. I also really hope you can keep going with this sort of deep analysis, I love it
Thank you! Fully intend to keep making these videos if I can
@@SamMGreer glad to hear it :)
This is by far one of my favorite video essays on Signalis… this makes me want to make my own video essay one day… That ending connection bodied me and I’m glad to see others following that same line of thought
Aww thank you! And I hope you do, always room for more perspective and analysis!
some say the promise that Elster and Ariane had was to kill each other, is that true?
I came here for answers but left with more questions
This reminds me of the description of what one of those keys (needed for the ARTIFACT ending) says:
_"Are you still looking for answers where there are only questions?"_
...
Man, this game shook me to my core
what a freaking good video .... wake up
Thank you!
a perfect space communism society
if everybody hear you run hallways we will take you to a room where nobody hear you screams
and remember: only 6 items, sweetie
Wew I need to stop playing games like this on stream. Once per week for a few hours at a time meant I just did NOT get on to a lot of themes or even overt text. Because frankly by the time I came to play again I'd forgotten a lot of details! I just assumed the entire game was an psychic dream pushed onto Elster.
It's a lot to play one week at a time!
I really wanted to watch this video but............. I just couldn't get over the horrible audio quality for your voice. Sorry! I don't know if it's your mic or something but, it's hard for me to follow. There are many other videos on Signalis that can communicate so clearly so I think I'll stick with those. Good luck in your future content creation though!