Signal Hill
The world went to shit long before you were born- what happened, nobody's sure. Whatever it was, it left a mess. The horrors of the blasted wasteland, the things that roam outside of city walls, the static that buzzes in your ear like an old TV... not to mention the violent fuckers out there who'd rather they have what you've got.
But a job with a caravan travelling across the wastes means you can finally start a new life in the neon-lit utopia of Signal Hill. That is, until you're ambushed outside the city, your cargo stolen and your guards dead. The bright lights and the ever-present hum of the radio are starting to feel like more of a nightmare than a dream...
Signal Hill is a post apocalyptic interactive fiction RPG set in an off-kilter world brimming with personality. Heavily inspired by Apocalypse World, Fallout: New Vegas, and Disco Elysium, it places the player into a rich text-based open world full of people to meet, things to do, and leads to follow. Authored, choice-based quests will guide you along a non-linear story as you decide who to stick with and who you're going to be.
EXPLORE THE APOCALYPSE |
MAKE YOUR PLACE |
PLAY WITH IDENTITY |
|---|---|---|
Roam the richly detailed world of Signal Hill, learning about the place you are and the place you come from. Each area is a snapshot of city life, from the luxury of The Heights to the poverty-stricken slums of Skid Row. |
Meet a colourful cast of freaks with their own agendas, all eager to use you to further them. Decide which of three factions to align yourself with and find your place in the conflict brewing at the heart of Signal Hill. |
Beyond just skills, explore what makes your character unique and choose their identity. Become a hedonist, worship a mysterious Northern death saint, take up arms as a mercenary. Shape your past and future. |
This is a demo, meaning it's a representative portion of the final game at only about 150,000 words. Things will change, some of them a lot. The world will gain more nooks and crannies to explore, you'll be able to follow every lead down long and winding paths, and you'll gain access to even more abilities and items. The game will be receiving constant support and frequent updates for the foreseeable future.
Content Warnings
The demo contains mature content that may not be appropriate for all audiences, including: Violence and minor gore, sexual themes, kidnapping, poisoning, sex work, alcohol use, recreational drug use, drug addiction, and references to religious abuse.
Bug Reports
The nature of an early preview release is that there may be bugs, typos, or errors that beta testers simply haven't spotted yet. If you encounter a bug, please send me an email at signalhilldev@gmail.com with "Bug Report" in the subject line. If you have feedback, you can send it to that email or send an ask over on my blog, signalhill-if.tumblr.com.
UPDATES
The latest version is v1.2.0 (+27.5k words of story content).
- DRESS UP GAMES (8.5k). As you embark on your quest to become Yvette's little helper, you'll need to do some dirty work for him- but before you can do that, you've got to look the part. Meet up with him at Darling's Boutique to play dress up with a number of cheeky, route-exclusive clothing items to disguise yourself in an underground genderfuck club.
- CROSSROADS (7.5k). The local cult leader wants to meet with you- how could you say no? With tensions high, learn about Levi, the beliefs of him and his followers, and the strange living god they follow.
- WHISPERING STREETS (8k). You've been tasked with figuring out who stole that precious cargo from the caravan- who shot you. Ask around, push, prod, and put the pieces together to figure out what the word on the street is. Ask the right people, and you might just learn a thing or two about the twisted web of politics going on behind the scenes.
- DEBRIEF (3.5k). Collect your thoughts, share your info, and make a plan for what comes next. This scene has two variations, one featuring Doc and one featuring Levi.
CREDITS
- Special thanks to my beta testers, Ash, Jay, Kiana, Lee, Marss, Nikki, and Mercury Neon.
- Twine was created by Chris Klimas
- The Sugarcube format and Tweego was created by T. M. Edwards
- Various macros created by ChapelR, HiEv, cyrusfirheir, and SjoerdHekking
- The template that I frankensteined was originally created by manonamora
- If a text-based interactive fiction game can be Powered By The Apocalypse, this one would be it. Apocalypse World was made by D. Vincent and Meguey Baker
- Clothing icons were created by Blair Adams from Noun Project
KEYBOARD CONTROLS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-9 | Select links on screen |
L |
Open the leads menu |
| Space | Roll the dice |
I | Open the ID menu |
| S | Open the save menu |
G | Open the gear menu |
| C | Open the config menu |
? | Open the help menu |
Development log
- Signal Hill Update 1.2.0 is LiveMay 03, 2024
- v1.1.1 - THE CHECKUP UPDATEJun 07, 2023
- v1.1.0 - THE TEST RUN UPDATE IS OUT NOWMay 08, 2023
- Signal Hill Patreon LaunchMar 23, 2023
- Signal Hill's Demo is OUT!Mar 12, 2023
Comments
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This section here has a typo:
He turned to walk back across the room, close to the door. Now that you were sitting up a little, you could see it more properly- a small space, about as sterile as it could be in a world like this. Three walls were cheap white plaster, with only a plain blue curtain shielding you from the rest of the clinic. The floor was plain concrete marked from years of foot traffic. Close to the curtain. a large metal locker with the door open, revealing your clothing hanging inside.
After "close to the curtain," there's a period, where there should be a comma.Enjoying the experience so far - although it's clear I'm hardly into it, yet.
is there a download link for this, or is it browser only?
hey, don't know if you'll be able to see this... i've loved the game so far! the mechanics are really nice and the way you can explore the city and go off on those little "side" quests is amazing. unfortunately, i got an error message and now i can't go back and continue with the game. i also only had the autosave saved, so i can't go back to a time before the error message to resolve the situation...
Sorry about this! If you let me know where you encountered the error, I can fix it!
oh my god, thank you so much for replying, and sorry for bothering you with this problem!
i was talking with doc at the clinic and i clicked an option in red (alright, my fault, the curiosity killed the cat) and then i got the error message that said "Error: the passage "Debreif Doc Militia" does not exist"
This has been fixed now, sorry about the wait. Of course it was a typo, haha
Are donating zines and adding things to the alter content that’s not available yet? I’m having trouble doing those actions. Awsome game looking forward to an update!
I read the title as the sigma kill
SIGNAL HILL TRADING CO 3
I get this error when I enter the store and select “Buy Something.” I think I’ve already bought everything in there but my save is a long time ongoing, so I’m not 100% certain.
Eventually, Yvette spoke up. "You know, you do have this... ineffable queer energy about you. Even if the outfit isn't quite right."
"Yes, I think
Error: <<print>>: bad evaluation: Can't find variable: pro
might pass even without the right clothes."
this game is awesome but im anxious looking around for stuff to put on the altar.. i dont want her to smite me lol
Finally got round to trying the game with the new update, and I love it! The whole identity system is pretty fun, and I love how vivid the different characters and dialogue options are.
It's always great when a game lets my character be a reckless flirt, even if Doc's going to have an aneurysm at them eyeing up Yvette and Levi, lol.
download when?
I know it's a text based game but I'd love it of we could get ro see some images of the areas we are exploring along with the description, as well as maybe some character images
You're in luck! Maybe! It's going to take a while but my goal for Signal Hill is to convert it into a more traditional video game format taking inspiration from visual novels, with 3D or 2D character portraits and environments.
do you plan on adding a combat mechanic? that would be pretty cool to see
While I like the overall design, please consider a way to play without it being on a TV screen. It's difficult for me to read on a tiny box in the middle of my already small laptop screen 😞
actually so sick you have no idea (well i guess you do you made it)
Why 'R.I.P Jared' achievement can to acquire multiple times? like bug from casino
This will be fixed in the next update, thank you!
yooo i got the socialist identify
Are identities like Merc supposed to be possible to acquire multiple times?
Oh my! No, there should be code that prevents that. I'll do a pass over those to make sure they're all working correctly for the next update. This won't mess up your save at all, it'll just look a little silly.
Thank you for letting me know!
> Spoiler (maybe?)
" if you ever get a chance to kiss a rich girl, you'll see, those fancy tinctures they put on their lips taste like candy..." ...Ma'am how did you know that? 🤨
Oh wow. Oh WOW OKAY IM. very excited for this. super awesome. played through three / five times, and. MMM. i love all the options. good luck w the rest!
Very well done! Excited to see the finished product.
Just tested out the demo! it was great, and I enjoyed the storyline and the customization options so far! I only have one issue... there's still a few errors here and there while playing that can be frustrating but I'm sure it'll be fixed in the future with more updates. Keep up the good work! I look forward to the full game!
This is amazing! Aside from getting stuck at one point, I love the atmosphere and vibe. I can't wait for the full version!!!
Hey for some reason I get an error when I try to save and I was wondering if you know anything. I really love the game and I can't save my progress.
Hey! Without knowing the exact error I'm not sure exactly what the problem is, but Twine saves your progress using your browser's cache, so things that block that (like some ad blockers or cookie blockers) will prevent it from saving properly. If you have any extensions, try disbling them temporarily to see if that's the issue. You can also save to disk, which will save the data as a file on your computer instead. If using the itch.io app, try enabling autoname.
Hey! Congrats on the game demo coming out, it looks great!
A little side note, I've been looking to getting into making a Text adventure leaning on the RPG side of things mechanic wise, and was thinking of using Twine?
I was wondering if you could give me any tips, hint or recommendations you've learnt along the development road, I know a bit of programming but would probably have to learn the Sugarcube format syntax (I'd prefer the more flexibility with making mechanics such as your dice rolling!)
This was a bit of a monologue so thank you for sticking with it! Any help would be incredible, so thank you!
Hey! I'd love to help you out! It can be a little intimidating at first, but once you've gotten the hang of it you can do pretty much anything with Twine!
My biggest general advice is to figure out what you want to do first, and then work backwards. For example, I didn't know how to accomplish the clothing system, I just decided what I wanted it to be like and figured out how to do it from there. You learn more from needing to do something to accomplish a goal than from reading about how to do something in the abstract.
My two other big pieces of advice are to find and use other people's macros (there's no point reinventing the wheel, if somebody's already made a superior inventory system, go with that!) and use widgets very liberally. The widget macro basically lets you run the same big block of Twine code using just one line, and with a big RPG style thing like this, it really comes in handy. When a scene ends, instead of manually typing in or copy and pasting all of the necessary code, I can just slap in "<<completelead>>" and all of that is done for me. Be thrifty, conserve your time.
If you ever need any specific help, please feel free to send me a message or an ask over on my tumblr!
Thank you ever so much! All of this will be suppperrr helpful, and I might ping you a message on Tumblr at somepoint if I do get really stuck with anything hehe
It looks not that bad from the outside, but I think learning the lingo and mechanics might take a while.
But yeah, all of this is great advice! Again, thank you!
Glad to be of help!
this is so cool!
love it can't wait to see whats next
This is so interesting ✨ I'm quite excited for more!!
This is really, really cool! Hope to see more<3
Thank you so much!
I loved this, can't wait to see this flourish
So glad you liked it! Thank you!
love it. can't wait for more
Thank you! More is in the works... hopefully soon! 👀
This is looking good, interesting story
Thank you!!