Not For Broadcast is a hectic dystopian TV simulator

I imagine that running the switchboards for a live television show is difficult but I must not have imagined hard enough because Not For Broadcast makes it look even more hectic. The silly dystopian setting of an alternate 1980s is made up of a bunch of fake live action news sequences that remind me of the full-motion game scenes of yore like Tim Curry in Red Alert 3.

I played Not For Broadcast for approximately three minutes at PAX West last autumn before quickly realizing "oh no, I am bad at this." You have to actually attune to all the video and audio at once, you see. As the new gameplay trailer below explains, you press different buttons to send each of your available video feeds to the broadcast. Oh and of course you'll need to slap that "censor" button over top of the bad words that are apparently all too common.

Things start easy enough with only a couple feeds to manage. Your broadcaster lessons are simply remembering to keep the camera on the active speaker. Eventually there are more feeds to manage, more speakers, sillier situations, and a lot more cursing. You've got to keep the viewing public docile by hiding all that pesky rebellion behind the news curtain of course.

You can try out Not For Broadcast yourself in the free prologue. You can also wishlist Not For Broadcast on Steam before the first three chapters enter Early Access on January 30th.

Correction: This post originally listed Not For Broadcast fully launching on Steam on January 30th. It is actually entering Steam's Early Access on that date.