Handling dystopian news in NotGames' Not For Broadcast
This interview is part of our Road to the IGF series. The IGF (Independent Games Festival) aims to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize independent game developers advancing the medium. Every year, Game Developer sits down with the finalists for the IGF ahead of GDC to explore the themes, design decisions, and tools behind each entry.Not For Broadcast is about handling the nightly news as it's broadcast live. Players will be bleeping out cussing, making sure the camera angles are right, and using censorship to keep your government overlords happy. Or not.
Game Developer sat down with Alex Paterson, Director for the project, to chat about putting the studio's backgrounds in theatre and television to work on a game project, the way they drew on a simplified version of 70's broadcasting equipment for the player's controls, and how they hope the game makes players think more on the agendas that fuel the media they see.
Who are you, and what was your role in developing Not For Broadcast?
I'm Alex Paterson, the Director, Designer, and Writer of Not For Broadcast.
What's your background in making games?
My background is as an actor and voice actor for theater, TV, and comedy before founding NotGames as a hobby studio. We began making parody and comedy games for charity which led to more success than we were expecting.
How did you come up with the concept for Not For Broadcast?
Our team all have a background in TV and film, so I was looking for a way to incorporate that unique skill set into our games. Her Story by Sam Barlow was a big inspiration. I especially liked how he used the live action video diegetically—the player character is watching videos as part of their job—as this felt like a way to use video in an
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