Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2021
The Signal State
Developer Reckoner Industries
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, The Signal State puts your logic skills to the test with complex puzzles inspired by modular synthesizers. Repair machines, rebuild an abandoned farm, and be part of a revolution that will change the fate of agriculture once and for all. From the Steam store page
187 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Oct 2, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
81
LovedLoved
145 positive · 35 negative
95% range 74–86%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 145 | 35 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
7 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
608 of 701 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 187 · most liked firstThe Signal State takes a similar approach to the Zachtronic programming games by trying to make a game out of modular synthesis. While it almost hits the mark, it sadly goes to show what a delicate balance there is between maths themed games, and game themed maths. I would love to give this a positive review, but it presents itself as more of a musical puzzle game and then leans into being firmly maths focused and educational. That and the game design mistakes put me off completely. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this because I've played a lock of zachtronics games, enjoyed them, and it looked like an interesting zachtronics like puzzler. If you've played a lot of games like this, I don't think you'll enjoy this one. I only managed to get through act 1 before the tedium got to me. I couldn't figure out how to skip dialog, most of the puzzles are straightforward tutorials, and those that actually require thinking a little bit are still really easy. That, and none of the puzzles I'd encountered…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →as someone with electronic degree: don't get this game the beginning is fun, you can play around and do stuff but damn first things first: it's very slow, the loading times are awful, the forced story is so weird and has pretty much nothing to do with the actualy gameplay in the end theres only one way to do it and you have to know your ♥♥♥♥ and have perfect understanding of everything if you're just a bit off and cant figure it out: you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥ not a fun game, felt more like a test in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lovely news to start the week: SOLAS 128, my game about redirecting rhythmic pulses of light, is in a Programming Puzzles Bundle alongside 6 other awesome programming-esque puzzle games. I'm a huge fan of The Signal State and Retro Gadgets looks really cool 💜 www.humblebundle.com/games/progra...
unlabelledView post →This is SHENZHEN I/O but worse. That said, it's fine. It does what it sets out to be competently, but it borrows far too heavily from SHENZHEN I/O to avoid comparisons, and it does very poorly in such a comparison. Weaker story, weaker characters and dialog, shallower puzzles, the puzzles noticeably do not fit their themes near as well, and the difficulty ramp is far weaker. It makes it a little difficult to imagine a person to recommend this to. If you like Zachlikes, play SHENZHEN I/O…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is fine, I'm probably being overly rude by giving it a no (but there isn't a neutral option sadly) But it's just. The challenge feels more like frustration than anything else. A few of the levels are quite cool, but just as many end up being super frustrating. I think the biggest problem (for me at least) is that so much of the game is built around wire management, but the tools for managing the wires just aren't great. Having to add in a new split module if you use a signal 5 times…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would give this game a 7 out of 10. I have been using this game as a way to get my brain working again in preparation for learning new stuff and finding a new job in tech after quitting my existing one. It is intriguing and mildly challenging for someone coming from a software, hardware, DSP and algorithms background. I definitely believe it makes for a good brain exercise and I'd love to see how it fares in the mind of engineers, junior, senior or just total hobbyists. Having said that, I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i like this game, i love modular synths. i wish the game background music synced up tempo wise with the puzzle playback. it's literally insane that it doesn't just do that. i just turned the music off. wow. i wish there was a like "0.75x recommend"
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Poor translation or inconsistent wording makes puzzles impossible. On tutorial puzzle3 it says to halve line out 2s "intensity", whereas what you actually needed was a +50% on the "attenuator". The game made no mention of what an attenuator actually is. I bought the game to learn something, but it isn't good at teaching anything.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A valiant Zachtronics derivative puzzler with a very steep difficulty curve, could scratch that Zach itch if you have enough patience. You probably ended up here because after the closure of Zachtronics you've been looking for something to fill that void. Maybe you're still a little sad about the closure. Maybe you sort of blame yourself for letting that candle go out on your Zach shrine and that's why they shut down. No, of course you don't. That's... that would be crazy. Where was I?…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This reminds me of a Zachtronics game, Shenzhen I/O, as many other reviewers have said. I was a Computer Engineering student for 3 years before my undiagnosed learning disability caused me to have to drop my chose majors and I had to leave that field behind as a career choice. This game makes me want to go back to school and keep going at it. There is signal processing, discrete math, and who knows what else in here. If you play this and enjoyed it, especially if you are looking at what to do…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An extraordinary logic puzzle simulation game with a story set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world, in which you repair abandoned technology and machinery in order for a community to rise again and regain the life they have lost. The graphics fit the broken world, which is not meant in a negative way, the rusty and slightly yellow-brownish look just fits the story, period. The interface is very well organized and you find your way around very quickly, I was also impressed by the gameplay,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →RIP Zachtronics. Hail the Zach-like!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game makes me feel like an idiot.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I appreciate the modular synthesis love. But some of these puzzles *really* struggle with having the difficulty stem from poor instructions rather than a genuinely hard problem. Could use a little more polish overall.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →(Обзор на русском [url=https://dtf.ru/id590518/4739149]> тут <) A puzzle game about programming by combining analog modules. 29 required and 12 optional levels. + It feels very tactile to move and connect modules. + Levels introduce new modules and increase task complexity. + Some levels require to think, but never stuck. + In-game multistep help. + Sandbox with more modules. + Achievement-friendly: you can earn all achievements after completing the campaign. = Community puzzles — if you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is not very fun compared to zachtronics games. Main issues are: 1) there is only 1 way to solve any given puzzle as opposed to zachs games where there are infinite valid ways (this is in part due to rigid timings) 2) instructions are unclear in many parts 3) the game expects weird timings not explained in the task definition. ex: in the puzzle where you need to switch to the alternate signal for N cycles depending on control, what the output should be on the tick of control signal is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is one if these puzzle games that getting more and more complex just for the sake of puzzling. That means you are not in front of a situation you need to solve with the full toolset. You never ask yourself: "Do I use this? Or that? Maybe it's more efficient if I..." .. because there is only one way to solve the puzzle. The whole game flow is also disturbed by extremely annoying babbeling of some post-apocalyptic nonsense that has litteraly NOTHING to do with the game just to set up…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Did like the game, just was really short on the main quest (without extra's, just the main storyline). The game is also not really (atleast for me) suitable to play for a long time. When you have had enough puzzels your mind just becomes really full and puzzels get hard FAST. A lot of times i just got frustrated and stopped playing. If you like signal processing, buy it for a cool puzzle experience and thats fun. I must imagine that with all the extra levels you will have a longer experience,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I expected this to be fun, but it's really tedious. The puzzles are very simple with one obvious solution (if you know anything about modular synths or signal processing) and on some levels there'll be a counter-intuitive fewer-modules solution that comes from ignoring the actual problem and recreating the intended output signal through some combination of factors that just happens to produce the correct output signal for this particular instance of inputs, but would immediately break with a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is very pretty when it comes to the components and modules used and they all fit together very well, the gameplay part is fun at times but it's just lazy most of the time. It's definetly not like zachtronics games, the score is calculated behind the scenes and is very ambiguous while in zachtronics games it's always clear what the scores mean and there is a different leaderboard for wire length, modules used etc..but in this game it's all just added together in the background without…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wouldn't recommend it as a game. It's more like a synthesizer simulator — a software. I don't have an actual synthesizer, but I've always been interested in experimenting with one. This game allows me to do just that and learn the basics, and I'm really liking it. The story is presented in the form of text-based dialogues, but I don't find it engaging. It feels slightly bland and generic. Doesn't ruin the gameplay though; just doesn't really add much to it. You can skip the dialogues if you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wish I could recommend it, but the difficulty curve is just completely screwed up. Starting a couple of hours in, the game just bounces back and forth between "put the wires where we tell you to" tutorial puzzles and "this is harder than even the hardest SpaceChem puzzles" with no inbetween. Thus, it's either completely boring or completely frustrating at all times past the very beginning.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"meh" I can't sum it up in a better way. It's not terrible, just a bit boring, and surprisingly short. I was done in under 7 hours, and that includes all optional puzzles and achievements. The concept itself is interesting but the game doesn't really do much with it. At least half the puzzles are tutorials, or so trivial they might as well be. Only 2 or 3 puzzles (including optional ones) actually felt like puzzles that made me think a bit. That's not a brag; I am by no means great at these…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I just couldn't get into this game. I really wanted to like it but I couldn't force myself through the tedious cut scenes and "tutorials", and there is a lot of them. For starters, before/after each level, there is an extremely tedious text exchange with a character in the game. It tries to add context around the puzzle but really... I don't care. Just get me to the puzzles. When opening a puzzle, not sure if it's my screen/PC setup, but it sort of flashes my desktop each time I open a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a competent puzzler from a small team on their first outing, but a more nuanced review would say "recommended with reservations." I really want to see the next game from this team, because this one's an ambitious near-miss. This game has a lot of visual appeal. The modular-synth-inspired interface is fun to poke at. The audio cue of hearing your output data as you run it is charming. Unfortunately, there are a few subtle ways it misses: For most of the game, puzzles have an…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is reminiscent of the Zachtronics games, and does a good job with the style. The premise of analog modules can make for interesting puzzles, but the campaign is quite easy. There are a few interesting, optional puzzles, but it feels like not all the mechanics are done the justice they deserve. However this issue is balanced out by the great workshop support, that easily makes the game worth it. 8/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun but short game that somewhat scratches the Zachtronics itch. IMO its better than a lot of other Zach-likes, but is too short to justify buying at full price. Worth getting if it's on sale. Took about 3 hours to finish the main story, spent a little time solving some of the optional levels too, which I may go back to later. Other than being too short, I didn't like that wire length is counted in the final score. This just motivates you to go back and shuffle components arbitrarily after…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a huge Zachtronics fan, and someone who wants to learn more about music synthesis, this game has a lot of appeal. Playing through I alternated between getting *really* high scores and being completely stuck. It definitely felt to me that there were intermediary puzzles missing. There was no introduction of hard concepts, simply "use a hard concept to solve this puzzle". As a developer, I encounter this type of thing all the time. The difference is that normally your not programming with…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This...is not a very good zachlike. For one - mess of wires makes it very confusing to navigate. Contrasting it with turing complete- doing same tasks but with patchcording becomes just pure tedium rather than any sort of problem solving.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As someone who enjoys modular synths and zach-like puzzle games, Signal State is a bit conflicting to me. A lot of the difficulty in this game isn't from the puzzles themselves or some clever obstruction but rather unnecessary limitations and meaningless metrics. For example, not having stackable plugs as you would in a real rack forces you to waste a lot of space on unnecessary splitter modules and messy wiring. Now I could overlook the first issue but the latter is quite frustrating as the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →bad translation, bad instructions
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Arghh, why?? Just an absolutely, insanely fantastic concept, that slips on a banana peel and falls down the stairs before you can say "Zachtronics". It's shameless. An absolutely naked rip-off of those _other_ puzzle games. And you know what? GOOD! Good for them. Nothing is sacred; start from an established formula that works and do something fresh with it. Build on the shoulders of giants. I'm legitimately celebrating this part of the game. The devs knew what they wanted and they…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’m glad I ignored the lower Steam scores compared to the Zachtronics titles and played this game. The Signal State offers a cool modular building system for creative puzzle solving. There seem to be many solutions for each puzzle. My first designs usually used significantly more modules than the optimal solution. The campaign offers a nice difficulty progression if one does the optional puzzles in the given order. In my opinion, they were more difficult than the mandatory puzzles, which often…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the game could seriously use some more tutorials
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is fantastic. Has a really fun approach to understanding programming basics, logic gates, all while using an innovative wire and rack system. The challenge gap between the story and optional tasks can be really wide, and the hints aren't perfect (they encourage you to go to the Discord), so be prepared to grind it out unless you want to chat with others. Some of the nuances about how the game calculates numbers, especially in loops, is not explained well - so make sure to watch…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Broadly, it's a programming game. Except what you program is the function of a signal using modules. You have a scaler, an offset, an adder and a few logical operators. So far the game has been easy. I have two minor complaints. _ The levels are timed. Which means that anyone wanting an high score will do it once and then re-do it with the solution in mind. That's not logic anymore, that's a psychomotor test. I'm playing this laying on a sofa using a K400+ (tiny keyboard + trackpad) on my lap.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a fan of Zachtronics's games like TIS-100 and EXAPUNKS I did not found in this one the same interesting puzzle or story. The puzzles oscillate between too easy and too hard, and have about zero link with the story.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A Disappointing Experience with too much Repetition I recently had the opportunity to play "The Signal State", a game that promised an engaging and challenging experience. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met, and I was left feeling frustrated and underwhelmed. First and foremost, the game's controls are clunky and unresponsive. I found myself struggling to navigate the menu and interact with objects in the game world. The camera angles were also a nuisance, often obscuring my view and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →(no spoilers in review) This game is... shall we say... "heavily inspired" by Shenzhen I/O. Quite a few things are maybe too on-the-nose, from the music to the conversations. That said, its hook is different enough that this is worth playing. Shenzhen I/O, despite being "board design" and somewhat mixed signal still relies heavily on writing firmware. There's none of that here, it's a lot more on the analog side of mixed-signal design and has some interesting hardware that works…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the lesser Zach-likes available, but still worth a playthrough. Could really use better documentation.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is great. Challenging, but doable. I assumed at first this would be a cheap rip-off of another Zachtronics game but it's full featured and interesting puzzles. (Last Call BBS has a very similar interface but actually came out a year after this.) The interface really makes or breaks games like these and this could have been done so much sloppier. A lot of nice features like you can set breakpoints in the timeline. Music and art is good. Writing is okay but doesn't get in the way.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Entertaining game. The puzzles are pretty engaging. My main critique is that in sandbox mode, there are some missing modules such as an Envelope.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Puzzles were great, a lot of unique challenges just from connecting wires and using different modules, no coding. If the game is not enough, I saw a lot of really challenging puzzles in the steam workshop, some people are just crazy. Completed solutions can also be satisfying to listen to. The sandbox mode has a crazy amount of synth modules to mess with. I'm sure you could create some kind of masterpiece song using it. Noticed some similarities and it could have served as an inspiration for…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →VCV Rack - The Game (and I mean that in the best possible way). It is like if you took a Zachtronics game and made it about music/audio signals.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I mostly enjoyed The Signal State, but I have to admit that puzzle fans would not be missing much by skipping it. Honestly, the same may even be true for people who would otherwise enjoy this kind of game. The puzzles are decent, but the experience is undermined by a number of rough edges: * UI transitions that should be instantaneous—such as entering or leaving a puzzle—often take two or three seconds. * When entering a puzzle, I sometimes see my previous solution for a single frame before…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I didn't notice the optional puzzles at first, and breezed through the entire game in under two hours. Puzzles were extremely easy, the entire game felt like an extended tutorial. Howerver, right at the end I noticed that there were these "optional" puzzles. These were significantly more difficult and a lot more interesting.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Neat little game about signal processing with no frills and especially entertaining in sandbox mode, even if that doesn't attract me personally. The puzzles go from very easy to absolutely insane quite frequently. In fact, you might want to skip the optional ones until you want to spend a lot of time on them. It definately would have benefitted from more puzzles that ramp up the difficulty. However, anything outside the pure puzzle gameplay is barebones. Music is inspired but by the third…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →class from not human, for not human, i like it i polite
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Rocksmith for Modular Synthesizers I paid A LOT more (factor of 10 or even 100) for less educative tools/courses about modular sound synthesis.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The puzzles are fun and the mechanic is unique. An interesting mix of analog and digital thinking. However, the devs inexplicably chose to embed the puzzles into a plot about base building while not actually including any base building gameplay. For those who enjoy base building, this is a source of constant irritation and a huge missed opportunity. Also, some basic QoL features like being able to label your modules to keep track of what you're doing are either glaringly absent or they…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Oh man, I am LOVING this game. I'm not that far along yet, but I can see taking these concepts directly into synthesizers like Cherry Audio's Voltage Modular or Native Instruments' Reaktor, and to physical synthesizers as well. Really cool stuff.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Haven't finished the game yet, but it's pretty fun if you have zero experience with logic circuit design (me) and you're curious about it. I like how the game throws you into the deep end and teaches you how to use the modules without too much handholding, and I get ethereal amounts of joy when I find a way to decrease my cable length on a puzzle by 3. pros: + runs surprisingly well on mac + puzzles are fun to solve and find optimal solutions for + (could be a con) hints are helpful but…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very interesting puzzles that largely went way over my head. Doing more research about what I'm supposed to be doing rather than playing a game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Maybe the best Zach-like that's not by Zachtronics
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wanted to like this game, I even played it through to the end just to get the full picture for this Steam review. The puzzle constraints seem very arbitrary to me: modules are missing from the catalogue without any in-game justification. If you want to say that you used them all in previous puzzles, the fact that you can fill the entire rack with a single module doesn't exactly sell that. There is no difficulty curve: I solved the final puzzle in five minutes. The Signal State feels like…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →From the bottom of my heart 20th Century Food Court is a lot more fun and challenging than this game, it's still pretty good though. I hope they add more levels/modules. It takes some time to get used to, but as you learn more about the modules, the later levels are not really difficult anymore. They are actually quite simple. Also NG+ made every level extremely easy. The biggest problem of the game is it's extremely short (I spent ~4 hours moving stuffs around so that they look better, not…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Solid Zach-like foundation of puzzles and tools, all themed around modular synthesis. UI is very expressive for learning and debugging, though it's missing some niceties I've come to expect from Zachtronics. (e.g., Max simulation speed is too slow, no infinite undo, and uneven difficulty progression.) Later modules like the Sequencer are *very* complicated and underdocumented. Overall 8/10.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The tutorial is quite poor and the descriptions of the modules or even the objectives of each puzzle are sometimes really confusing, not to mention the plot or story of the game... so convoluted and difficult to follow.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's easier than shenzhen i/o, but still interesting. You will fix machines by using the simple modules in this game. Try to solve the puzzle with your wisdom. If you are a fan of Zachtronics, you should play this game and get your fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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