If I were to describe what this game is, I'd probably call it a chimera of mostly Papers Please with a healthy dollop of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, all presented in full FMV. And if that sounds like a bizarre mix of things, well... yeah, it is. But y'know what? It works... I think.

Not for Broadcast is undeniably shaky around the edges. It has all the shakiness you would expect from an FMV game. The comedy, writing and acting is all pretty hit and miss, but I'd definitely say it leans more towards good than bad, and the actors for the main cast at least are consistently decent. Most of the time, Not for Broadcast is a very silly game which doesn't take itself seriously at all, and you can tell everyone involved is having an absolute blast making it; the passion really shows here and absolutely helps sell the weird game concept. And overall I have no issue with the game being a bit silly; at it's best, Not for Broadcast comes off like 90s / 00s British satire like Brasseye or Not the Nine o'Clock News, and I love that kinda stuff.

But Not for Broadcast shines the best in the moments when that silliness drops. Some pretty brutal and shocking things happen in this game; at times, these moments even managed to give me irl chills at what I was seeing, and the acting and writing in these more serious parts is much more solid and consistent. The story on paper isn't anything all that special. It's a fairly standard 1984-type affair and yet it was an incredibly immersive experience, and I pin this success on the framing and gameplay.

The gameplay in Not for Broadcast is, much like many other aspects of this game, just kinda fine? There's a lot of little tasks you have to manage all at once, and it can be quite overwhelming and stressful at times in a way I don't think was intentional. But of course, during all this time, the news broadcast is on on your screens. And something about the fact you're absorbing the show subconsciously while your true focus is elsewhere just makes everything feel so... real. You get to know all the anchors, behind-the-scenes staff, public figures and regular guests, and they all feel like real people. You see them bicker and banter behind the scenes, you see them struggle with what they are being asked to do, and you really grow to care about them. And when shit hits the fan, it really helps sell the world when you get to see how these people react and deal with what is going on in the world around them. I think Not for Broadcast ends up going in the same bucket as something like Unpacking; it's a video game which explores things that only video games can do, and I'm totally here for it.

There are some low points though too, which do deserve a mention. A lot of the side characters are obvious parodies of specific real-world celebrities (David Beckham, Gordon Ramsey, etc), and it can get pretty cringey at times when they're on-screen. Also, in between gameplay segments, there are sections with long text to read and decisions for you to make regarding your home life. I don't think these are bad or anything, and they help establish the player character as a presence in the world and show another viewpoint as to how world events affect the everyman. But I always found these bits to be quite a tonal jolt, especially in the early game when the gameplay is more silly and the home sections are pretty serious, and they undid just a little bit of the great immersion set up by the rest of the game.

But overall, Not for Broadcast is a game with a strong vision for what it wants to be, and I think it hits that vision extremely well. I had a very good time with this one overall, and think it's a very good example of what more experimental games can achieve.

Acting is spectacular, FMV is awesome and the cast nailed it. There were some moments that took my breath away. controls and gameplay are wonderful. It just goes really really hard on centrism which is so so so disappointing. I thought they were gearing up to say something a little more revolutionary, maybe, since the enemies were kind of ultra liberals, not entirely left wing, but that... seemed to be the devs' idea of a left wing run dystopia and we just need more centrism and we'll all be better. like, okay. I thought we were criticising liberalism in a fun way from a farther left perspective. Left a bad taste in my mouth. Well, i loved it up until that point, so there's that!

In a world that feels to me to be oversaturated with Papers, Please-like political sims, in which the player controls an ordinary person influencing the government through player choices, Not For Broadcast manages to stand out to me, thanks in no small part to its commitment to the world it builds, just a little off-kilter from our own.

It's a flawed game, to be sure. In addition to bugs, some of them game-breaking, it's politics are muddled, which isn't necessarily what you want to hear about a political sim. It tries to commit to neutrality in the name of letting the choice between rival factions truly belong to the player, but ends up emphasizing the bad of these factions so heavily that supporting either in any way makes me feel like a heel. Additionally, the visual novel segments which elaborate on the life of the player character do succeed in their goal of forging a more personal connection between player and story, they are infinitely less fun than the broadcast sequences and often I find myself skimming the text in hopes of getting back to the core game quicker.

Still, I love when stories feel to me like they were made with care, and even with branching paths that reveal new FMV footage in each playthrough, episodes feel connected to one another, rarely contradicting facts set up by earlier episodes. You're granted the voyeuristic pleasure of watching back footage outside of the broadcast room to listen in on behind the scenes conversations you missed while you were running the news, and finding footage I haven't yet seen is as thrilling to me as digging out a chunk of cookie dough in cookie dough ice cream. It's easy to become invested in the characters, as superbly-acted as they are well-written, and that investment is ultimately what makes the story land. And though I see that others don't agree, I find the gameplay of the broadcast sections extremely satisfying.

It's a game that, if you give yourself the chance to care about it, is all at once bizarre and heart-rending, as genuinely terrifying as it is darkly humorous. And hell if that isn't my kind of game.