Not For Broadcast Episode 1 Early Access Review

This past December, I wrote at some length about the demo version of Not For Broadcast; a game that managed to immediately intrigue me enough to make me want to seek it out and play it after I simply read an article about the demo in question. As I’ve stated before, that happens exceedingly rarely in my case. That’s why I considered it one of my top priorities to purchase the game I wrote about back then and will be covering again today as soon as it reached Steam Early Access at the end of January.

The game to which I’m referring is known as Not For Broadcast, developed by NotGames and published by tinyBuild. Within the context of the game, you’re in charge of controlling various aspects of an unnamed country’s evening news broadcast. As part of your occupation, you have the ability to, over time, subtly shape this unnamed country’s perspectives and opinions so that the public either favors or opposes their new government. This new government was coincidentally voted into power on the same night you stumbled into your new job.

Rest assured that I’ll be detailing exactly how you go about that process and why you might choose to take advantage of certain aspects of the game’s rather decision-dependent story throughout this article. Before I get to any of that, though, there are a few basic facts about Not For Broadcast that I’d like to establish first to clear up any potential ambiguity and provide a bit of insight as to why I elected to cover the game.

I shall begin by explaining that Not For Broadcast is in Early Access, and will likely remain so for quite some time according to the development “road map” that was recently provided. Only the first of the game’s planned “episodes” is currently playable. As such, that episode and the content present therein are what I’ll be discussing today. I’m quite certain at this point that I’ll revisit Not For Broadcast in the future and review every planned additional episode as they become available.

Additionally, the main reason I elected to cover the game’s demo back in December is the fact that Steam assured me the prologue version of Not For Broadcast is at least somewhat similar to two games I’ve long held in high regard. Namely, those two games are Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please and Osmotic Studios’ Orwell: Ignorance is Strength. Personally, I’d say Not For Broadcast gets the vast majority of its controls from the former of those two and its heavily political undertones from both of the aforementioned titles in equal measure.

Based on how greatly I enjoyed my time with the tantalizingly-short demo of Not For Broadcast a few months ago, the game’s similarities to Papers, Please and Orwell: Ignorance is Strength sealed the deal for me. It seems to me that NotGames knew exactly where to end the game’s demo to leave me wanting more; now that the game has reached Early Access, I feel they’ve repeated that success with the game’s first full episode. Allow me to spend awhile elaborating upon exactly why that is.

I feel that the best place to begin would be with the first events that take place within Not For Broadcast’s world, where these events lead, and how you get caught up in the middle of them. To begin, the entire reason you initially enter what I call the “broadcast control booth” at the National Nightly News is to “clean the place up,” according to a voice on a nearby telephone, which belongs to a man named Dave.

Dave is apparently the man who’s normally in charge of controlling and editing each evening’s broadcast. However, as he claims to have found himself “a bit caught up,” he pawns the job off on you. Even so, despite how suspicious those circumstances may sound, Dave is a man of honor; as such, he offers to stay on the phone with you and explain how to control your first broadcast as it happens. This first broadcast and the subsequent help you get from Dave constitute the game’s tutorial.

I was personally quite grateful for Dave’s help when I first started playing Not For Broadcast, as there’s quite a lot to take in when you get your first glimpse at every mechanism you’ll be in charge of controlling the show during each nightly broadcast. The screenshot below displays most of what you’ll have to contend with while each playable broadcast is taking place. Allow me to do my best to explain each aspect of the game’s controls.

The first thing Dave explains during the tutorial is that you’re in charge of controlling what’s called the “master screen,” which is the large screen directly in the center of your field of view. There’s a delay of about two seconds between what you see on the master screen and what the audience at home sees. The broadcast that’s being sent to the audience is displayed on the screen to the right. That means you’ve got two seconds to make any necessary edits (such as censoring any expletives) before what you see and hear is broadcast to the nation.

Your main duty while controlling any given broadcast is to make timely edits by switching between four different camera feeds when appropriate. Dave explains that to accomplish your ultimate goals of continuously increasing the size of the news broadcast’s audience and keeping the said audience entertained, you’ll need to switch between these camera feeds somewhat often so as not to make things boring.

For example, suppose you’re controlling a broadcast while an interview with a celebrity is taking place. During the tutorial, Dave mentions that the vast majority of the time, you want to primarily keep the camera focused on whoever is speaking, but don’t necessarily keep them in focus for too long. To go about that, you’ll want to do such things as periodically switching the camera to a “reaction shot” of the interviewer while the interviewee is still talking.

Dave kindly provides you with his three rules of thumb for editing broadcasts, especially during interviews. Namely, as aforementioned, his first rule is to keep the camera focused on the current speaker; however, his second rule also dictates that it’s best to avoid keeping the camera focused on one shot for more than ten seconds. Additionally, Dave’s third rule emphasizes that the “reaction shots” to which I alluded a moment ago should last no longer than three seconds.

So, having said all that, allow me to provide a more in-depth example to help me illustrate what I’ve described thus far. One segment (one-third) of your first broadcast is filled by an interview between Channel 1’s “culture correspondent” Megan Wolfe and (supposedly) renowned actor Laurence Blunderclatch. I think you’ll find that the interview itself is a standard affair; keep the camera on Megan while she’s asking questions, then switch it to Blunderclatch while he’s providing responses with the occasional reaction shot thrown in where necessary.

Finally, to conclude the interview, you’ll switch to the first camera feed when appropriate to play a clip from Blunderclatch’s newest film. The four camera feeds you can switch between during this interview are fairly straightforward in this instance. As a result of that, playing through this interview will likely help you get the hang of things. So long as you follow Dave’s three rules of thumb as best you can, you’ll get through this and nearly every news segment with relative ease.

However, describing the Blunderclatch interview brings me to two somewhat minor, yet still important gameplay aspects with which you’ll have to remember to contend. Namely, these aspects are commercial breaks and censoring. Let’s start with the former of these, as it’s somewhat easier to explain in detail. You see, I mentioned a moment ago that each segment of a news broadcast is one-third of the entire program.

That’s important to note as between segments, you’ll need to use the “A,” “B,” and “C” buttons below the broadcast screen to play one of three pre-recorded ads. Before each broadcast begins, if you press your down arrow while you’re facing the screens, your field-of-view will shift and you’ll see three VCRs, as well as a selection of these taped ads. Unless you’re told otherwise by your boss, as you will during one broadcast later in the first episode, you can play any three of these tapes in any order you’d like; just choose which three and load them beforehand.

The topmost VCR and the commercial you load within it correspond to the “A” button I mentioned, whereas the middle and bottom VCRs and their tapes correspond to the “B” and “C” buttons, respectively. As I stated earlier, Dave mentions that you can play these commercials in any order you desire. He does, however, suggest that you play the first one during the first ad break and so on, just to help keep things simple.

That brings me to the process of censoring, also known as “bleeping.” You’ll undoubtedly note that the aforementioned Laurence Blunderclatch will swear twice during the interview. As far as I can tell, however, it seems that you won’t get penalized for not censoring these expletives because Dave doesn’t tell you how to do that until after the fact. Thankfully, the process is quite simple in my experience, though mastering it can take a fair amount of practice.

You see, above the huge red button marked “CENSOR” on your broadcast control panel, there’s a continuous feed of audio waveforms that correspond to the speech of whoever is talking. When a word or phrase is said that needs to be bleeped, that audio feed will turn red; once that happens, you simply need to hold down the censor button (or your space bar) while the vertical red line in the audio feed is over the red portion of the speech.

The process of bleeping out expletives effortlessly without keeping your eye on that audio feed can take some practice, as I alluded to earlier. What I mean by that is, as Dave explains, you want to eventually reach the point where you’ll hear a swear word on the master screen, count two seconds, then censor that audio for its precise duration without taking your eyes off the master screen. I know I certainly haven’t mastered that yet, though; I implore you not to feel bad if it takes a while to nail down that particular mechanic or to get the hang of things in general.

I think I’ve spent quite long enough discussing many of the various gameplay mechanics present within Not For Broadcast. There are still gameplay aspects I haven’t mentioned, but I’d prefer to leave at least a few things for you to discover yourselves, dear readers. At this point, I’d like to switch gears and spend awhile transcribing my thoughts on the story that begins to unfold within the game’s first episode, and it’s occasional dark undertones.

The events of Not For Broadcast begin on the night that a new and comparatively more radical government is voted into power. As I mentioned at the beginning, that vote happens to take place on the night you wander into your newfound job controlling the nation’s Nightly News. As you might expect, then, developments regarding the new government’s apparent landslide victory at the polls take up certain portions of your first few broadcasts.

Before I really get into the game’s story, though, I feel I should pause for a moment to clarify that you won’t be playing through a broadcast during each in-game evening. That is, at least not in the episode that’s currently playable. In fact, on a few occasions during my time with the first episode of the game, significantly large amounts of time passed between playable broadcasts.

To give you an example of what I mean by that, I seem to recall there being a point at which I played through a broadcast on about day sixty since the election of the new government, and subsequently didn’t control another broadcast until day 120 or so. It seems that nothing exciting happens on the days during which you don’t personally control the evening news broadcast, except for the occasions wherein the game tells you something has happened.

These occasions usually require you to make a decision on some matter based on context provided by the game. For example, on day three under the new government, you find a form from the said government in your mail, which you’re required to fill out and return. The form simply asks for information on all citizens in your character’s household, notably without telling you why it requests such information. That notion leads me back to the game’s particularly gripping story; without further ado, then, let’s dive into that a bit.

The unnamed nation’s new government is composed of members of a political party known as Advance, which is ultimately led by dual Prime Ministers Julia Salisbury and Peter Clement. I don’t remember much about either of them, admittedly, but I do distinctly recall having to use my “CENSOR” button frequently whenever Peter participates in a joint address alongside Julia. That is to say, he seems to curse often, especially after he’s had a few “celebratory pints.”

Advance was likely voted into power as a result of their proposed broad social reforms. These reforms especially target those individuals whom many citizens reportedly felt possessed too much money and, therefore, too much say in the national political process. On Advance’s first day in control of the nation, one of their initial acts was to subsequently confiscate thousands of passports belonging to various citizens of the nation.

This mass confiscation was marketed by Advance and its supporters as a way to keep the rich and powerful from fleeing the nation, presumably to one of their offshore tax havens. However, there is most assuredly a resistance movement against Advance within Not For Broadcast which, throughout the game’s first episode, seems to be gaining quite a bit of notoriety.

I don’t want to say too much on that subject so as to avoid the risk of venturing into spoiler territory. I will mention, though, that one of the aspects of Not For Broadcast which I suspected might be present in the full game is, in fact, definitely present. That is to say, as the controller and editor of the nation’s six o’clock news broadcast, you have the ability to play a role in shaping the public perception of life under Advance and the new ruling party’s governance… should you choose to.

I think I’ve said just about all I can say regarding the first episode of Not For Broadcast, folks! I assure you that, assuming the rest of the game’s development follows the road map provided by NotGames a short while ago, you can expect coverage of each of the game’s following episodes right here on Phenixx Gaming once I’ve had the opportunity to spend some quality time with each episode’s new content. Until we meet again, dear readers, to quote National Nightly News anchor Jeremy Donaldson, have a peaceful night.