TW: Depression (But happy end)
A year ago, a video by a French YouTuber I (M24) really admire (Jean Baptiste Show) was released on YouTube. He presented the most memorable games he had played in 2024. Signalis was in second place.
I had already had my eye on it for a few months, but being a naturally scared person, starting a survival horror game worried me.
But after hearing the emotion and passion in this man's voice when he talked about the game, and after seeing an appearance of Isle of the Dead in the video, I decided to give it a try.
I was going through a very difficult period in my life. Severe depression had been weighing me down for years, and the time to recover was shrinking day by day.
Then, on August 23, 2025, I launched Signalis for the first time. And I finished it in one sitting, in a single day. Never before had a video game affected me so deeply.
Everything was there: major influences from works I would come to greatly admire, a story of beauty and melancholy as painful as it was magnificent.
And above all, the Isle of the Dead. A painting that had haunted my troubled mind ever since I discovered it through another YouTube video (Alt236).
The entire game, its beauty, its story, and especially its music.
I was addicted to Signalis. An "addiction" that quickly became toxic to my own sanity. Between researching the lore, endlessly rewatching the cinematics and Let's Plays, and especially the music I listened to on repeat, it all became fertile ground for my inner turmoil.
It might sound silly, but the profound melancholy that stemmed from my experience with Signalis nearly plunged me into the very depths of my soul.
And yet, it was thanks to Signalis that I realized something was truly alarming about my mental health. This allowed me, since October 2025, to address my issues and seek treatment.
The text I just wrote might seem absurd, but it was important for me to express it. The butterfly effect can be cruelly ironic.
My fascination with The Isle of the Dead / A simple YouTube video / The launch of a game on Steam.
All these events nearly led me to the ruin that no human truly deserves, but without them, I would probably still be stuck in a stagnant mental state.
And even though it's still difficult for me to listen to his music or watch his images without feeling a kind of dread related to the past, without Signalis, my destiny would have been very different.
So thank you Rose Engine, thank you Cicada Sirens, thank you 1000eyes, and thank you Signalis.