The message is a question. Your job is to hear it.
A signal arrives on 1420 MHz, the hydrogen line that SETI researchers consider the most probable channel for interstellar contact. The NSA receives it and quietly assembles a team of outside specialists.
You are Dr. Sophia Estrella Delmar. You've spent your career decoding the calls of whales: communication systems that evolved entirely independently of human language. You're the closest thing the planet has to an expert in non-human languages. You work alongside an astrophysicist, a hacker, a cuttlefish communications biologist, a linguist, and a mathematician, each with their own perspective on what the signal means.
1420MHz is a language-deciphering puzzle game built on real SETI research. Your task: extract the transmission from deep space, reverse-engineer the language it's written in, and figure out what it means. No combat. No timers. Just the signal and the question of what it says.
Process the Signal
Source → Filter → FFT → Sink. Build digital signal processing chains on a visual flowgraph interface. Drag in source nodes, bandpass filters, frequency analysis blocks, and constellation displays modeled on real DSP tooling. Track carrier drift, lock onto the wave, and pull a clean transmission out of the noise. The tools are yours to construct.
Translate the Language
Morpheme → Word → Syntax. The extracted symbols mean nothing yet. Find repeating patterns in the cleaned signal, assign symbol values, segment word boundaries, and reconstruct syntax from first principles. Most deciphering games hand you a cipher over English. The alien language here was built as a complete linguistic system before the game existed, and the message you're decoding was written in it natively.
Interpret the Meaning
Math → Physics → Meaning. The message was designed to be understood. It starts with mathematics, then physics, building a shared vocabulary from first principles. Each decoded layer unlocks the next. Every breakthrough is earned.
A Parallel Mystery
You're not the only one watching the signal. An unidentified party is reaching Delmar directly, leaving puzzles hidden inside her virtual workstation. Who they are, and what they already know, is a second question that runs alongside the main deciphering throughout the game.
Real Science, No PhD Required
Every system in 1420MHz covers real science: the signal processing, the linguistics, the mathematics, and the physics. Each layer of technical knowledge is built through play before the next is introduced. The challenge isn't the tools. It's what the message says.