Not For Broadcast Prologue First Impressions

I’ve noticed that it’s something of an exceedingly rare occurrence for me to learn of a game and immediately thereafter find myself compelled to play said game, because not doing so would be an affront to my personal constitution. It’s even more uncommon for games which fall into that category to exist only in demo form when I become compelled to seek them out and experience them firsthand.

Usually, when I first learn about a game I find interesting, I’ll add it to my Steam wishlist and wait for it to be sufficiently discounted during a sale of some description; that is, assuming the game has at least reached Early Access if not released entirely. This process often takes quite some time, and I’ve most assuredly been known to lose interest in games for which I was once quite excited because I can’t justify paying their normal asking prices.

In the case of the game demo I’ll be covering today, however, I was so intrigued by what this particular demo and its surrounding promotional material had to offer that I strongly believe I’ll be buying the full game at the exact second it reaches Early Access in late January. That’s definitely a huge point in the game’s favor in my personal opinion.

The game in question is none other than Not For Broadcast, developed by NotGames and published by tinyBuild. The currently-available demo version of the game is referred to as “Not For Broadcast Prologue.” The general idea of the game, as far as I’ve been able to gather from reading its Steam store page and absorbing as much detail as possible from the approximately twenty-minute-long demo, is that you’re tasked with essentially controlling an unnamed country’s evening news broadcast in various ways.

I’ll cover the processes by which you go about your duties in more detail shortly. Firstly, though, I’m compelled to discuss what tantalizingly little the prologue contains of the game’s plot. You see, you coincidentally happen to acquire your job maintaining the news broadcast on the same night that a considerably more radical government, at least compared to the government to which the aforementioned unnamed nation was previously accustomed, is voted into power.

As the primary controller of everything that’s seen and heard during the country’s evening news broadcast, you decide what gets censored and what doesn’t during each segment of the program. Therefore, it certainly appears to me as though you’re able to use your control of the broadcast to do one (or possibly any combination) of a certain three things.

By that, I mean to say you could be completely impartial and air the news exactly as it’s meant to be aired, making only the necessary alterations (such as censoring expletives); alternatively, I suspect that you could potentially censor and otherwise change stories where you see fit to either promote or decry the new government for any number of reasons.

It’s precisely this concept that intrigued me so much and has me as interested in Not For Broadcast as I am, regardless of whether my speculation about the gameplay ultimately proves accurate or not. Unfortunately, yet understandably, the prologue doesn’t allow you to so much as dip your toe into the more political aspects of the full game. Instead, the demo provides just enough of a hint at the potential that those game mechanics might possess to keep you interested, at least in my case.

When I first looked up Not For Broadcast’s Steam store page after learning of the game’s existence, it told me that Not For Broadcast is very similar to two games I’ve played previously and happen to hold in very high regard, namely Papers, Please and Orwell: Ignorance is Strength. That’s definitely another significant reason I immediately wanted to give the demo a try; if Steam thinks a game is similar to any two games I enjoy as much as those two, I’m much more likely to give the game in question a fair shot to impress me.

Based on my experiences with Not For Broadcast Prologue, it’s quite apparent to me that the currently-unavailable political aspects of the gameplay likely constitute the reason why Steam told me the game is similar to Ignorance is Strength; similarly, the gameplay methods by which you actually go about doing your job controlling the news broadcast can easily be compared to certain gameplay aspects within Papers, Please. Allow me to elaborate.

When you first enter your “broadcast control booth,” for lack of a better description, you’ll receive a phone call from a gruff-sounding man who coincidentally also happens to be named Dave. That scored the game a couple of points based purely on my personal biases. You see, Dave is normally in charge of controlling the broadcast, but passes the job to you because he’s unexpectedly found himself “a bit caught up.”

However, Dave is a proper gentleman who refuses to abandon you; in order to avoid both throwing you into the deep end of the metaphorical pool and expecting you to learn to swim, as well as tanking the TV station’s ratings, he offers to stay on the phone and walk you through your first broadcast.

Even considering how relatively well-acquainted I am with the gameplay of Papers, Please, I found Dave’s tutorial to be vital due to the comparatively expanded gameplay requirements. Based on certain hints throughout the tutorial and the entire prologue, I suspect that the full version of Not For Broadcast will take a crucial page from Papers, Please’s playbook.

By that, I mean the game may gradually increase the number of things you’ll need to look out for as you go about each broadcast’s workload, although you’ll certainly have no shortage of screens and other various things to keep your eye on and maintain during the prologue.

The primary gameplay aspect you’ll encounter in the prologue demands that you keep a close eye on two screens; you can see the events taking place on the so-called “master screen” about two seconds before the nation’s viewers do, on the “broadcast screen.” Essentially, you’ll have to use some minor controls near the master screen (e.g. switching between various camera feeds and, when necessary, censoring speech to remove the aforementioned expletives) in order to make sure that the broadcast looks and sounds to its audience exactly like a typical news broadcast does to us.

That’s basically the gist of the demo version of Not For Broadcast, but there’s one more thing I simply have to mention before I conclude this article. Despite the darker, more ominous tones of its hinted forthcoming political aspects, the game also has what I consider to be quite an enjoyable sense of humor in certain ways.

For instance, you have an exclusive behind-the-scenes view of the strained working relationship of the country’s nightly news anchor and his colleagues; this has served as a very reliable source of amusement for me, though I doubt I could do it justice within this article.

There you have it, folks! As I mentioned near the beginning of this article, Not For Broadcast will reach Steam Early Access in order to release in a fuller form on January 30th, 2020. Around that point, I daresay you can reliably expect to see more coverage of the game right here on Phenixx Gaming, whether that coverage is from me or from one of my esteemed colleagues who also happens to be interested in what the game might entail. Of course, if you want to ensure you’re reminded when the game reaches Early Access, you can always add it to your Steam wishlist via its store page.