Game

Press multiple buttons to operate an array of radio telescopes in the demo of this weird indie game


Do you like first-person games where you operate complex machinery by entering manual commands into the computer and fiddling with buttons, switches, and widgets? Check out the demo for Voices Of The Void, an upcoming game about running space radio telescope arrays. Alone. In the woods. It has an interesting manual process to find, target and analyze signals, and a whole bunch of servers and machines to maintain. Plus, you know, the whole creepy feeling of looking into space and wondering if anyone is looking back.

Voices Of The Void sends you to work at a radio telescope site in Switzerland, a fairy-tale necklace of treats growing up in the trees. Your job is to find, record, and analyze intergalactic objects, then sell the data, while keeping the whole site running. It’s good and slow but very engaged.

I could have made a compelling high-speed highlight video, but the fun is in the speed and the process

The basics of your job involve a bank of four computer terminals and a laptop, each with its own role, screen, and controls. Most of the controls are physical buttons, pressed and tweaked and adjusted. Data is also stored on physical drives, shuffled between stations by ejecting the drive and putting it in another slot (after remembering to export, obvs).

The individual computers in your server bank can crash, reducing processing power and slowing down the system until you rerun them in a mini-game with basic math puzzles. Worse still, the computer inside the dishes could cut out and you’ll need to get it running again (or hop on your old quad bike) to reconnect it to the network. You will also perform a lot of maintenance work by manually entering commands into the terminal to analyze and recalibrate the system. And if you really want to optimize your workflow, you can power it up by shutting down unused systems at the breaker; I absolutely refuse to go without lights.

As a known fan of naughty with objects, I enjoyed the many processes of pressing physical buttons on the computer, entering commands into the terminal, throwing switches, dragging around the drive, refueling from the box, etc. There was a Half-Life 2 feeling. -ish, especially since it currently uses some pleasant familiar HL sounds. After the tutorial, the game removes all support and is happy to let you dig in and figure things out for yourself, which I like. It’s been exciting to master this work, make the process a habit, know how to find and fix problems, and learn the layout of the valley I live in.


Plan your shopping in the Voices of the Void screenshot.
Can’t believe I had to buy my own coffee maker to boost The Man’s productivity

It’s also a light-hearted everyday life simulator, with day and night cycles plus hunger and fatigue to manage. And every day, your boss will e-mail tasks with an opportunity to earn extra money. You are also responsible for upgrading all individual systems, using the money you earn. And while you get daily drone delivery with a new drive and a bag of crisps, you’ll also want to shop for extra supplies and handy luxuries. It’s a big job for one person. Alone. In the woods.

Voices Of The Void is a suspenseful game. The setup immediately reminded me of Five Nights At Freddy’s and Slender Man in the woods jumping up and taking care of them, but it wasn’t (though I had a really hard time finding the mannequin inside). its base). It’s a slow and uncomfortable focus on an otherworldly quest, alone, at night, hoping you won’t see something out of the corner of your eye. Every time I watch the dishes rotate out the window, I try to avoid looking between the trees, just in case.

This stress can also be fun. Every peach-colored dawn is a relief. And when a shower coincided with a meteor shower, I jumped out of bed and ran into the night to look up and reel in surprise. But more and more I come across moments … not exactly horror, not quite, but definitely horrifying. I fear the worse will happen as I progress through the days of the story mode.


Dishes growing on trees in a valley at night in Voices of the Void screenshot.

I hate that my command center has a radar panel pinging in the corner. And I hate that the control panel has a button to reset the alarm. Scanner for what, game? Why does the alarm sound? That’s what’s so good in the game: revealing a system to you before you need it, creating anticipation/curiosity/fear about when and how it might work. Maybe it never will. I hope it never will.

I like when the games are unique enough that I never feel like I can handle them. Without a comfortable knowledge of genre conventions, it could be anything, so I tie myself in knots of anxiety imagining things. It feels like I played the great infrastructure test game infrared. And now my brain is spinning imagining what Voices Of The Void can do. I’ll pop the lid if the daily drone delivery happens, you know, just casually hand me a gun for no reason, don’t worry about it, just a the gun in my grocery store. I have no reason to believe it has guns or is going to turn violent. But what if it drops the gun for me. Oh no.

Voices Of The Void is still a work in progress. The controls are rather odd, with some keystrokes and input commands often causing me to fumble and throw items. The riffing guide on Portal seems odd, setting expectations for a tone that the rest of the game doesn’t seem to have. It feels wrong to start without unlocking every computer terminal, which requires you to do a bit of work to purchase the final step of the standard signal process. I don’t like the HUD, especially with the black outlines enabled by default (you can turn them off). But it’s not worth so much quibble at this stage of development. I’m excited to see what this game will turn out to be, and I’m scared to experience it all.

You can download the latest paid demo build you want (no minimum amount) from Itch.io. The developer, MrDrNose is supporting funding through a Patreon.

Oh and only when I finished writing this post did I know an older game with a similar premise, Signal Simulator. Looks shinier and more high-tech, and a lot more complicated. I quite like that Voices feels like Half-Life 2. But I’ll have to check it out, too.

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