Signal Decay is live. iOS, Android, browser build coming. This is the dev log on what shipped, why it took the shape it did, and where it goes next.
What Signal Decay Is
Offline-first idle and auto-battler RPG. Built in React Native on Expo. Inspired by Melvor Idle for the depth and the loop, by RuneScape for the combat math and the gathering tiers, by sci-fi survival for the setting.
You crash-land on a planet bleeding signal interference. Humanity was engineered by the Architects as a weapon, sent forward on a 50,000-year genetic timer. The signal is the corrupting force inside every system in the game. Combat, crafting, lore.
What Shipped at Launch
The launch build covers the full progression spine.
15 lifeskills, 99 levels each. 5 gathering, 1 passive, 8 crafting, 1 combat-side. Time-to-99 in any skill lands around 346 hours.
7 OSRS-style combat skills. Attack, Strength, Fortitude, Ranged, Signal, Speed, Protocol. Leveled independently through attack-style XP routing. Stance and spell switching mid-fight.
3 combat families. Melee, Ranged, Signal Magic. Sword/axe/blade, bow/crossbow with stackable ammo, staff plus rune-cost spells.
10-tier crafting backbone. 6 resource types. T1 through T8 feed equipment. T9 and T10 reserved for consumables, gems, and masterworks.
Gem economy. 5 gem types times 8 tiers, minor through transcendent. 80 craftable rings and amulets through Gem Resonance. Consume for buffs or forge into permanent jewelry.
Combat Protocols. Programmable rule automation. OSRS combat options crossed with MMO macros. Layered on top of a separate Protocol Buffs combat skill. Two distinct systems players mix.
Wilderness exploration. Grid-based zones. Monster spawns and gathering nodes scale to skill level. Bosses summoned with fragments.
Boss fights. Multi-phase, fragment-gated, exclusive legendary drops with passive procs.
Crash Landing tutorial. Narrative onboarding that earns the player into the world before the systems open up.
Codex. Lore archive: factions, bestiary, technology, chronicles.
Survival Guide. 51 mechanics entries across 6 categories. The in-game wiki.
Why Offline-First
The whole pitch of an idle game is that it respects the time you are not playing. The architecture should match the pitch.
Combat, crafting, gathering, shops, gem use: all local. No roundtrip per swing. Cloud sync is a five-minute background flush against a Supabase JSONB blob with optimistic locking. Twelve-hour offline progression cap on return.
Closed app, the simulation keeps running. Bad signal, the loop keeps ticking. Server outage, the save still levels. The trade is that we accept trivial save-editing as a cost of single-player. We will validate server-side for any future leaderboard or competitive mode.
What Took the Most Work
Three systems ate the most engineering time.
Combat math parity. Foreground combat is turn-by-turn with HP and combat XP committing per turn so the HUD updates live. Background combat is pure simulation against the same math. Getting the two to agree to the last decimal across skill caps, gear loadouts, ammo types, and spell rotations was a long bug hunt.
Combat Protocols. Authoring UI plus rule evaluator plus the integration with the Protocol Buffs skill. The split between authoring layer and skill progression is the right design but it doubled the surface area.
Tier matrix recipes. 10 tiers times 6 resource types times 8 crafting skills. The recipe data set was a content problem, not an engineering one, but it took as long as either of the above.
Roadmap
Short list of what is next. In order.
Equipment set bonuses. Two-piece faction synergies that unlock bonus stats. The faction layer is in the Codex, not yet on equipment. This connects them.
Boss-exclusive proc weapons. Always-on passives. DoT-on-hit, +% versus monster type. Legendaries already drop from bosses at 5%. The next pass makes them feel exclusive.
Protocol Mastery Pool. Per-skill XP pool spent on permanent passives. The Melvor Mastery analog. Layered on top of the existing skill, not a replacement.
Browser build. Landing page plus a "Play in browser" launch. The React Native target makes this near-free. The launch is a content and marketing question, not an engineering one.
Further out, in no particular order:
- Protocol library. Share Protocols between players. Import community-tuned boss scripts.
- Faction-aligned questlines.
- More T9 and T10 endgame content.
- Cross-device sync conflict UI for the rare case it matters.
Tone Going Forward
Bleak-but-hopeful sci-fi. Terse, technical, never camp. Hyperion meets RuneScape. UI stays monospace and military-terminal. No epic-adventure puffery.
Updates will land on the blog and on Discord. Bug reports get fixed the same week. Feature requests get argued about loudly.
Try It
signaldecay.app. Pick a callsign. Crash-land. The Architects sent you here for a reason.
