Video Game / Voices of the Void

Voices of the Void (or VotV for short) is an indie game created by MrDrNose, otherwise known as EternityDev. It is a Spiritual Successor to Signal Simulator, and bears an extremely similar premise: the player takes control of Dr. Kel, a researcher manning an array of SETI scanners, with the objective of locating, downloading, decoding, and interpreting various radio signals from space.

Despite the similar premise, there are many key differences between the two; for starters, Voices of the Void - despite being on the Unreal Engine - uses a presentation that deliberately calls back to classic Source games, such as Half-Life and Garry's Mod. Instead of an array spread through the barren New Mexico desert, this time the player manages an array station set amongst a thick Swiss forest in the mountains. Though the core gameplay remains the same, the specifics of tracking and downloading signals works a little differently, and there is now an additional system for decoding, converting, and denoising signals to make sense of any text that might be in them. The self-care system is also present and more pronounced, as hunger and sleep are now tracked stats that the researcher needs to monitor and maintain to stay in top efficiency. Finally, while Signal Simulator was more freeform in allowing the player to seek out and download signals at their leisure, VotV gives the player daily tasks to complete, requiring them to download and decode a certain number of signals, obtain daily reports from specific satellites, and more. Completing these tasks reward additional points that can be spent upgrading the facility, or used to purchase a variety of useful (and not-so-useful) items.

Warning: Just like Signal Simulator, this is a game all about discovery, exploration, and experiencing the unknown. Being aware of what exists and what can happen may spoil the experience for a new player. You are strongly encouraged to try the game and see what it has to offer for yourself before reading. There will be SPOILERS below!

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Voices of the Void provides examples of the following tropes:

• Alliance Meter: The Arirals have their own reputation system, with Kel being able to increase or decrease it through his actions. Leaving out shrimp at the campsite, returning lost items like the gun to the treehouse or deleting The End signal increases your reputation while stealing objects or trying to set up a camera near their camp causes you to lose reputation.
• Alliterative Title: Just like its inspiration.
• Anti-Frustration Features: After getting some complaints about how hard Maxwell is to find the cat was later patched to emit meows when the player is near them, as well as increasing the range of his music.
• Arrange Mode: Outside of the standard Story Mode and tutorial, there are a few game modes that change up the game in certain aspects:
  • Infinite: All Story Mode events are disabled, but random events, signals and unique locations are still prevalent.
  • Ambience: Same as Infinite, but all random events, unique locations and "scary" signals are removed.
  • Sandbox: All Story Mode events are disabled, and the player is given the ability to noclip, spawn items and entities from a menu ala Garry's Mod, and has an extra cheat menu which can allow you to trigger certain events or give you infinite credits. Must be unlocked by completing Story Mode.
  • Solar: The Bad Sun always appears during the day, and the yellow wisps will spawn during the night. Survive as long as you can.
• April Fools' Day: Playing the game on April 1st will set any custom posters and paintings you have to the Trollface.
• Ascended Meme: "Check the bathroom" ^note A nod to Vinesauce Joel's streams of Signal Simulator, during which Joel was taunted to Hell and back by his chat to check the base's bathroom, something Joel was terrified of doing after deducing that there would be an alien jumpscare in it is written verbatim in the in-game manual.
• Catapult Nightmare: "Dying" in a nightmare has the player ragdoll aggressively out of bed.
• Cat Girl: What the Arirals really look like.
• Easter Egg: Several, mostly related to the console.
  • Typing in "alien" spawns a cardboard cutout of a gray behind the player. This was later removed in the 0.6 update. Except not really, it actually spawns the cutout(s) behind any closed doors on the map, including the radio stations and the locked bunker.
  • Typing in "ariral" spawns an invisible alien making a beeline for the player's base.
  • Typing in "maxwell" spawns the titular black cat somewhere in the map, and tasks the player with finding them before they despawn.
  • Going behind the mysterious locked bunker in front of the garage entrance and peeking at a gap between the rocks reveals a Trollface.
• Expository Gameplay Limitation: Events disable the Pause button for their whole duration to prevent players from reloading.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The game enforces Do Not Adjust Your Set by disabling both pausing and keybind saving during major events, and in the Bad Sun event specifically by forcing Dr. Kel to look directly at the Sun if there is nothing between it and him.
  • The Bad Sun event will always happen every 24th of the month.
• Hand Cannon: The Ariral camp's emergency rifle. Seeing as its made for creatures roughly twice as strong as a human at minimum, its no surprise the recoil is enough to floor Dr. Kel just being near it if it discharges, let alone holding it to pull the trigger.
• Humongous Mecha: The "Big Pyramid", a massive pyramid-shaped mech on three legs that towers over everything else on the map and can shake the base with its footsteps. It's not hostile, however.
• Innocent Aliens: The Arirals usually mind their own business, happily setting up a picnic and a treehouse far from the base, only pursuing Kel if you steal something from them. And even then, they'll just knock Kel down a few times and take their items back.
  • The Rozitals, who are mechanical Starfish Aliens, also qualify. Despite their unsettling appearance they seem wholly disinterested in the player, and will even send them a warning when hostile and deadly yellow lights begin spawning, before sending a Humongous Mecha to capture them.
• The Insomniac: The player may randomly find themselves unable to sleep, no matter the time or their tiredness. This is usually a sign that an event is occurring.
• Joke Level: The Gray Edition, a build specially made for Vinesauce Joel full of his stream memes, made as a thank you for frequently streaming the game despite his fear of aliens.
• Karmic Jackpot: Attaining a high reputation with the Arirals by giving them food and returning lost items causes them to start actively trusting you. As long as you maintain the reputation, you'll be fed some of their yogurt in your sleep, cutting down on the need to order food, and offered assorted gifts from their campsite.
• Made of Explodium: Gas cans in the 0.6 update will explode violently if tossed around too much.
  • Kerfus can be repeatedly pet, but will explode if pet too much.
  • Puffball mushrooms in the 0.7 update can spontaneously explode by either being thrown, eaten, or even randomly blowing up in the background.
• I'm Melting!: If the player exposes themselves to sunlight during the Bad Sun event, their flesh will slowly melt off in chunks until they die.
• Infernal Retaliation: Setting the Mannequins on fire when they come to life and begin stalking you will cause them to avert Can't Move While Being Watched and start damaging you on contact.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The player has this currently, due to the lack of any kind of health mechanic. Being damaged by hostile entities, fall damage or even hunger will simply cause you to ragdoll for a few seconds. A later patch subverts this by making damage a toggleable option. However, certain actions by the player like downloading The End Is Near signal, touching rufus, or being caught outside during the Bad Sun event will still end your game if it's turned off.
• Nightmare Sequence: Invoked; there is a chance when sleeping that one of several of these may play. Time is frozen while they run, the game can't be paused while they're active, and most end automatically after a certain period of time. These can actually be beneficial because if the player meets a hidden goal in each dream they will awake completely rested. If the Sleep Deprivation Demon catches the player, they will forcibly subject them to one, as well.
• Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: Subverted. The research team doesn't seem to think anything particularly odd has been happening at the research site that then becomes privy to a variety of alien encounters. However, things have been strange here for a good long while, and even the aliens seem freaked out by it.
• Ragdoll Physics: The player is subject to this whenever they fall from a great height, crash into something, or fall in an awkward way. There's even a dedicated button to do it on command.
• Red Herring: Like in Signal Simulator, the doors to the facility and satellite stations are equipped with player-controlled keypads that can be locked or unlocked at will. Subverted as, unlike Signal Simulator, there ARE entities that can come after the player, and locked doors are effective at keeping them out. ...Then Double Subverted as there are certain entities that can simply force open locked doors anyway.
• Right on the Tick: Performing certain actions or being in certain locations at exactly 3:33 can trigger numerous strange happenings.
  • Flushing the toilet in your base causes Furfur to appear for a split second to look at you.
  • Being inside the Romeo cave spawns an Antibreather plushie and if Wolfgang has already been coaxed out with a pumpkin, you can properly enter the cave system.
  • Entering the basement causes a red light to briefly flash in the meat storage room, followed by all the hanging carcasses swinging side to side.
  • Being inside the shed will reveal a portal inside the red bush you can enter. This is one of the steps to complete the rune easter egg.
• Shout-Out: The game's design and aesthetics, from the graphics to the sounds to even the physics, are a deliberate throwback to "Golden Age" Source like Half-Life 2 and Garry's Mod.
  • The Space Core is one of the space entities the scanner can pick up.
  • Several of the creatures roaming the forest alongside the Arirals come from EternityDev's older games.
  • The fridge's freezer door has an assortment of stickers on it. They are incredibly pixelated, but seen among them are the Vineshroom, Jerma's logo, PaRappa, and Stolas.
  • The ingame store sells plushies based around the mascots of some of the more prolific streamers/YouTubers to play the game, including "cool funny sweden man" (Vinesauce Joel's Vargshroom) and "cool funy banana moth" (Spazmatic Banana's moth character)
  • The Bad Sun event, which causes the player's flesh to melt off their body if they are exposed to the sun for the remainder of that day coupled with a censor bar covering the sun is quite similar to the "When Day Breaks" SCP-001 proposal.
  • The main menu theme is a MIDI arrangement of Henry Purcell's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary", which is well known for being featured in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange (courtesy of Wendy Carlos).
  • A small statue of The Lamb can be obtained by completing an Easter Egg sidequest involving finding various runes scattered around the map, a portal hidden inside the cabin and stabbing yourself with a sacrifical dagger on a pentagram.
  • One of the rarer signals comes from an exoplanet resembling Earth shaped like a cube, named "calm4" that plays a chiptune song. The signal also has text that reads "M O J A N G S P E C I F I C A T I O N S ".
  • Another rare signal's text is a piece of direct dialogue from The Neverhood: "Hoborg thought this world would make him happy. But it make him - sad. Walking around his big, *beautiful* new world make him feel all alone."
• Sinister Geometry: Ariral ships are tetrahedron-shaped.
• Sinister Sentient Sun: The Bad Sun event, which occurs on the 24th of every real-life month and causes the sun to grow to an enormous size. Being caught out in the daylight during this event will kill you.
• Spiritual Successor: Invoked; the game is intentionally meant to act as a successor game to Signal Simulator, building upon its concept and fleshing out many of its mechanics.
• Stylistic Suck: Prior to the 0.6 update, Dr. Kel's player model was a white peg with no limbs topped by a featureless sphere wearing a cat smile. Which could only be seen by setting a camera or drone to watch the workstation, then viewing it through the laptop. When the 0.6 update granted Kel a proper model, the placeholder one was kept in the game in the form of a plushie named "Keljoy".
  • The game, despite using the Unreal engine, is styled as if it's a very extensive Garry's Mod map, complete with the AI node graph allegedly being out of date and needing to be rebuilt when you load into the game, and even a few of the more long-standing clipping errors.
• Take That, Audience!: If you send the keycard in the bunker out of reach while trying to hook it, the game will give you two special notifications: "rip bozo" and "skill issue". It will then respawn the keycard on top of the bunker.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: When you arrive at the station, you expect the maintenance of the satellites and signal decryption to be pretty granular. What you might not expect is to spend a lot of downtime and resources doing anything else to keep yourself busy, such as cleaning up the mountains of trash and stains littering the main complex, trying to maintain a stable level of cleanliness after that, and buying little amenities to stave off boredom.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: The only way to genuinely anger the Arirals is to put an Argemia plushie in the microwave and burn it, which you really have no reason to do unless you're actively trying to piss them off. This will prompt multiple of them to storm your facility and beat the crap out of you.
• Wendigo: Finding and microwaving the hidden deer skull in the forest shack summons a version of the wendigo that takes the form of a tall and gangly humanoid with a deer skull for a head. Despite its menacing appearance and the eerie lore behind the original myth (being a human that was turned into a cannibalistic monster), it doesn't actually pose a threat to the player and only exists to unnerve them, leaving behind bone totems whenever it despawns.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: Downplayed; starving or never going to bed will not kill Kel, but they won't be able to do anything and hallucinate burgers if they're too hungry. And trigger the Sleep Deprivation Demon if they're too tired.
• Video Game Caring Potential: An Ariral will eventually trip outside your base, leaving a gun behind. While you can keep it without any consequence, if you make the effort to take it back to their campsite, they will be immensely grateful and increase your reputation with them significantly.

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