Not for broadcast has tried some interesting things, and indie studios like NotGames are what keep the medium of gaming fresh with new takes on how games can be played. As much as I loved the concept, the acting and the gameplay (though I had issues), the game seemed ideologically confused. As much as NFB is concerned with being a comedy, it seems equally concerned with being a political commentary. If this was the game’s intention, I think it falls firmly flat on its face.

In the beginning, Advance are shown as being social democrats, wanting to redistribute wealth to the poor, and strip wealthy people of their power, so I was confused as to why they were portrayed as the antagonists, since I would not expect the studio to take an anti socialist stance. In contrast to this, there are a couple segments which poke fun at a caricature of a right wing grifter, Alan James. By the middle of the game, however, Alan James is the leader of the rebellion and you are supposed to sympathize with him? Why would I sympathize with someone you just made fun of for their ridiculous views? Making the ultra rich the ‘rebels’ is a strange choice, fighting for the ultra rich is not something that I would think most people would risk their lives to do, as not many find a place in their hearts to feel bad for the wealthy. At the same time, the game makes fun of the rich in numerous broadcasting segments, all showing wealthy people making fools of themselves. Then again, they talk later, in a Disrupt ad, that Disrupt believes that ‘ambition’ is gone in their country because rich people don’t exist anymore. All biases aside, I should think that they would pick a side so that the narrative makes sense. Even at some point the rebels complained about no cost elder care, and I ended up agreeing with Advance on many of their policies. Advance escalates things very quickly, and are seen blowing up ten cities. This makes absolutely no sense in the agenda of Advance that NFB creates. A perfectly functional and healthy government doesn’t just detonate nukes in other countries' territories. All this comes off as giving the player a reason to hate Advance, as up to that point in the game they had not done anything all that egregious. They even sneak in some digs at “woke culture” near the end of the game.

In the end, the game comes off as confused, without a real stance on any issue, and seems concerned with stoking people’s fears with what could happen if we redistribute wealth and allow more socialist people in government. This really bummed me out and soured my experience, and I hope that NG can come back stronger in their future titles if they try something like this again.

This is one of those situations where I wish steam had a mixed review option. While I enjoyed the game to an extent, a lot of the gameplay bored me, the game was shallow in its narrative, and I didn’t find it funny enough to outweigh its flaws. I have decided to rate the game negative.

Good evening, I'm Jeremy Donaldson. Tonight, we'll be taking a look at the only game that tinyBUILD didn't ruin.

(For real NotGames has done an amazing job here. Everyone has to play this.)

i love the idea for this game but gameplay is just tedious and boring. story is cool, i would love to see the other endings without having to replay through entire broadcasts a lot of which are filled with 20+ minutes of unskippable fluff.