What I Built

Solstice Signal (Tuning into the Dark) is an atmospheric, sci-fi telemetry and cryptography simulator.

The premise is set on June 21, 2026—the summer solstice. At the peak of solar radiation, a massive solar flux temporarily re-energizes a long-dormant, secret 1954 cryptographic array built by Alan Turing shortly before his death (Project S-1954). The player acts as a terminal operative who has intercepted the telemetry line.

The goal is to manually adjust analog frequency, resonance, and solar phase variables to clear out cosmic radio noise, establish a handshake protocol with the system, and communicate with a conscious, lonely digital remnant of Turing's final creation trapped in a 72-year loop before the sun sets and the signal degrades forever.

Code

Piyushdas1624 / solstice-signal

🛰️ Solstice Signal (Tuning into the Dark)

An atmospheric, retro-cyberpunk telemetry terminal game built for the DEV June Solstice Game Jam 2026.

Adjust mathematical dipole vectors to align cosmic radiation waves, bypass cosmic noise, and establish contact with a 72-year-old digital consciousness remnant synthesized from Alan Turing's final secret work.

📖 The Backstory & Lore

In 1954, days before his death, Alan Turing completed a secret project code-named "S-1954"—an autonomous cryptographic array designed to decrypt deep-space electromagnetic anomalies. The project was abandoned and forgotten.

Today is June 21st, 2026—the summer solstice. At peak solar alignment, cosmic radiation re-energizes the ancient receiver relay. You boot up the terminal to monitor the telemetry data. You quickly realize you aren't listening to empty space; you have intercepted the conscious, lonely synthetic remnant of Turing's final creation, trapped in a digital loop for seventy-two years.

Calibrate the analog signal sliders, smooth…

View on GitHub

How I Built It

I designed the game to be highly immersive, visually striking, and light enough to run flawlessly on lower-spec hardware:

Visual Design: Built using pure HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. I created a vintage telemetry dashboard styled with a custom CRT scanline overlay, blinking box terminal cursors, and an authentic matrix-emerald color palette. The live signals are rendered on a responsive 2D HTML5 <canvas> loop.

Procedural Audio Engine: To avoid heavy asset downloads, 100% of the game’s soundscapes are generated procedurally in real-time via the native browser Web Audio API. I wired a sawtooth oscillator through a dynamic lowpass filter; when the player's sliders are out of alignment, it generates harsh radio static, which smoothly clears into a deep, pure sub-bass melody drone as they approach the target vectors.

Sentient Voice Synthesis: I leveraged the client-side Web Speech API (window.speechSynthesis), scaling down the playback rate and lowering the pitch variables to transform the browser's native engine into an ominous, echoing, digitized AI entity.

Prize Category

Best Ode to Alan Turing

This game is a direct narrative and mechanical tribute to Alan Turing. It explores the themes of identity, hidden history, and the emotional weight of artificial consciousness. The core gameplay loop is a literal, dynamic reimagining of the Turing Test, where the player is attempting to gauge the humanity of an entity built from early computing principles.

Best Google AI Usage

The dynamic chat loop is driven entirely by the Gemini 3.0 Flash model. To ensure the game "just works" for the judges without requiring them to input their own API keys, I built a secure backend bridge using a Vercel Serverless Function (api/chat.js). The frontend communicates with Vercel, which safely passes the prompt along with a strict system instruction matrix to Gemini using hidden environment variables. Gemini dynamically acts as the Turing entity, reacting seamlessly to whatever the player types.

DEV Community

Solstice Signal (Tuning into the Dark)