.....the end is near.....
As a Spiritual Successor to Signal Simulator, this game too excels at creepy atmosphere and long stretches of Nothing Is Scarier. However this game also has its own tricks to scare the player.
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Signals
- "The End/Evil" signal (pictured) sequence is one of the more blatant scary moments. Very occasionally, the player might stumble upon a signal from an ominous looking red planet. There are other red planets that can give safe signals but the major clue that said signal is dangerous is if it is 6.66 Megabytes in size. Fully decoded the signal flashes then slowly displays a picture of a red skull with the message "...The....End...Is...Near...". Following this the player suddenly receives a cryptic email that is mostly garbled but what can be made out of it basically tells the player to destroy the tape immediately. It is not kidding. Should the player send the tape in or wait sufficient time after decoding the signal without destroying it there is a Jump Scare where the textures get replaced by a a repeating red texture that vaguely resembles a face before turning to black where a text message (implied to be communication from one of the aliens) describes Kel as terminated and Earth as 'converted' before giving an order to abandon the mission and follow an object, presumably the one behind The End signal. Even better, there is a separate signal the player can come across that alludes to one of The End's victims, where they describe that everything has gone red and everyone is dead over and over again.
- One of the objects you can find out in space is a free-floating space suit. The only response from IGP after uploading the signal is "That poor fucking guy", but the sounds emitted from it alongside the filename make it hard to tell if it's an astronaut, or something pretending to be an Astronaut.
Events (Story / Signals / Random)
- The "Bad Sun" event is also unexplained and terrifying. Very occasionally when the sun rises in game, which seems to be tied to certain real world dates, a blaring alarm occurs (which implies that not only has this happened before, it happens regularly enough that the people who manned the station set up a detection system linked to the alarms just for this). The sun itself is covered by a black bar, almost as if the game itself is censoring it from affecting the player, and the light around it is brighter than usual and flickering, and only grows brighter as the day drags on, to an almost blinding degree. In addition the player's camera is automatically focused on the sun and if they should make direct eye contact with it Kel spurts blood and a piece of flesh actually lands on the floor. Should Kel keep looking at the sun they will eventually die from blood loss leading to another text message describing to abandon the mission, destroy the sun, and capture the remaining light. This gives the implication that not even the aliens know how to deal with the Bad Sun except to just destroy it completely.
- One of the last signals you'll get on your 20th in-game day depicts an aerial view of your research station. Every two in-game hours after that, you get more images from the station of something that is lurking around your base taking photos of you. Real-time photos that more than likely all the decor you chose in them. This "looker" as its called in the files is seemingly invisible, as you can never quite catch it in the act until the next-to-last signal, where you get notification pop-up on the right side of the screen - in the same feed that generally tells you genuine survival tips - that very plainly says, "Do not look into the locker." If you don't heed that warning and find the locker this looker is in, you catch a glimpse of a black void inside the locker, and the game crashes. If you let the signal process, sure enough, the image is from that exact locker. The final signal will be a picture taken from directly behind you, no matter where in the complex you are, and gets saved automatically. Or more likely, your guest saved it for you.
- Towards the end of the normal campaign mode, the entire area is shaken by an orbital entry and crash landing of a mysterious object nearby. Said object displays an eight-panel visual aid for something that will be coming the next night, and will be a problem for the remaining few days; The Yellow Wisps. A set of floating, sentient lights that will patrol the area, visible plainly at night but still active during the day. Running into one doesn't mean instant death, but only because they will slowly, and very painfully kill you. Whereas previous entities either didn't directly attack you, or simply punched you across the room, the Yellow Wisp lifts you into the air, systematically rips you limb from limb and then leaves you to bleed out like a budding serial killer that tears the limbs off of insects, either in an effort to see how humans work, or because it's simply how they entertain themselves.
- The "Big Pyramid" event is a signal of a pyramid-like object that when decoded spawns an alien construct resembling a pyramid with gigantic tripod-like legs and claws in the distance and with a giant light for an eye that can shoot lasers. Interestingly enough though it never attacks the player, only watching them and the base, and actually hunts other threat entities in the area before it despawns. Still with its sheer size, the blaring klaxon accompanying it, and unexplained nature can make it terrifying for blind players.
Misc.
- "Rufus", an easter egg based on a dream about the game that the artist Gooseworx had about a weird, harmless-looking but incredibly violent red creature that was added to the game. Upon activation, Rufus spawns in a corner of the map and makes a beeline towards you as a droning noise permeates the area (this droning noise is the same one from Five Nights at Freddy's. Knowing this may or may not make the sense of dread worse). As it gets closer, the noise gets louder, and a large red overlay simply saying "HIDE" appears onscreen. You can try to do that, but the moment you see Rufus, he will see you. And after that point, he knows exactly where you are, has its eyes on you at all times, will force any door open and break any barrier set before it, and instantly kills on contact you no matter what settings you had enabled. You are, however, spared the detail of the dream that involved Rufus visibly disemboweling you.
- While the Alpen Space Observatorium is your home and base, some things hidden within can make it feel significantly less homely and safe...
- The basement contains a meat storage room, with animal carcasses hanging on hooks. Already a weird thing to have in a space signal observatory base, but you can't even access it because whoever was here last has barred the door shut with a metal chair, implying something about it is dangerous. If the player enters the basement at 3:33, a red glowing light is briefly seen from the door's window and peering inside shows the carcasses swinging around...
- Also in the basement, if one takes the time to break the supply boxes down there, you can discover a pile of bones laying in a pool of blood hidden behind two of them! Not only that, but there's also what can be best described as a pile of gore lying on the roof of the base, poorly covered up with a wooden pallet. How many people have died here?
- The main room has a vent that is half opened. If you manage to get the vent cover off and climb inside the ventilation system, you can find a secret room filled with dead cockroaches, crumpled paper and a chair. Hidden under all the roaches is a note detailing someone who saw a figure standing by a pole, which eventually devolves into rambling about how they want out of here. Just who or what did they see?
- The base contains loads of mannequins in practically every room. Unnerving, but easy to ignore after awhile... Until suddenly they all disappear, and then begin to show up outside, posed like they're walking towards you. Creepy but harmless and the player can get rid of them by smashing them with an object or chucking them into a woodchipper. However, the last thing the player should do is set one of them on fire. Doing so will cause the mannequin to become fully animate and start chasing and hitting the player till either of them die.
- All throughout the map, you can find several human remains with varying guesses as to how they ended up dying. This is pretty bad on its own given how it confirms just how unsafe the environment is, but is far from the end of it. There's a section of the map that's fenced off, with a stone-henge like monument in the middle and a corpse sitting in a conspicuous patch of burnt ground in the center of the monument. If you gather six other skulls from different spots in the map, bring them to the monument, and lay them there alongside the seventh skull... nothing happens. At first. Then you see the skulls start to rock back and forth, as if trying to gain momentum. Then they roll around in a circle. Then they begin to levitate in a ring, eventually opening into a black hole that proceeds to suck in the skulls, anything present on the ground, and the player. You then fall into a pool of red, in an inescapable cave. Welcome to Hell.
- A random event will have the base suddenly emptied out, and everything beyond the base being ripped away as well, leaving you in a pitch black void. The only way to end the event is to jump off the base and into the darkness, which will respawn you at the gate as if nothing ever happened...
- Should the player fail to get proper sleep, they run the risk of encountering the
Sleep Demon, a thin, Gangly creature whose full form remains invisible save for two massive, unblinking eyes until it grabs and kills the player.
