The Signal State

When it gets good

Share of positive reviews by how many hours the reviewer had played when writing the review.

before it gets good opening up fully opened up

Based on all 713 Steam reviews in every language. Median playtime in a sample of 299 reviews: 6.2h for positive, 4.3h for negative. Almost every game is rated lower in the first 2–3 hours: that window includes refunds and quick first impressions. What matters is how deep the dip is and how fast the game recovers.

Where players quit

Share of players who started the game and reached each story milestone. 100% is the most common achievement (76.5% of owners), so people who bought the game and never launched it don't count.

Story milestones aren't labeled yet; all achievements are listed below.

All achievements (15)

• Work Begins Complete the tutorial. 100%
• Broadcast Finish Act 1. 59%
• Turing Complete Create an infinite loop. 38%
• Outsiders Finish Act 2. 25%
• Open Source Record a GIF. 19%
• Extreme Efficiency Solve Optimized Signal Repeater in an extremely efficient manner. 11%
• Future Finish the story. 11%
• Will This Short Circuit? Solve Power Regulator using a maximum of 1 VCA. 8.2%
• Elite Engineer Complete all required and all optional puzzles. 5.8%
• "Conditional Logic is overrated anyway" Solve Radio Amplification Circuit without using any logic modules. 4.7%
• JIT Compilation Solve Drone Processor without using any Signal Delays. 4.2%
• Does Not Compute Solve Logic Test without any logic modules. 4.2%
• That's Just Lazy Solve Min and Max Redesign trivially. 4.1%
• That's Just Lazy 2 Solve Signal Delay Implementation trivially. 3.8%
• Hofstadter's Law Solve Drone Pathfinder without using any Signal Delays. 3.7%