Ministry of Broadcast, the new pixel-based action/puzzle game from Ministry of Broadcast Studios out of the Czech Republic and published by Hitcents, puts you in the shoes of a soul-less ginger (their words, not ours!) who’s stuck in a sort of existential Eastern bloc totalitarian nightmare game show. You play Orange, a nameless redhead who is confused, not very bright, and competing in a game show that everyone loses at for the sake of a government that exploits its citizens. Your goal is to survive and rejoin your family, a tall order to be sure.
The design of Ministry of Broadcast perfectly emulates the ideas we’ve all seen popularized of violent, fascist cultures, those of books like George Orwell’s 1984, and the work that may have inspired it, the lesser known 1921 novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin, We. Being stuck in a game show is another well-known style of narrative often combined with the totalitarian regime, and it has been used in The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Running Man by Stephen King, and even The Killing Game Show (aka Fatal Rewind) for the Commodore Amiga. In short, we’ve seen all this before.
The great thing about Ministry of Broadcast is that it absolutely knows its source material and embraces it in a way that’s fresh, entertaining, and well-written. Orange is completely oblivious to his plight and pleasant and happy, the perfect rube for a military dictatorship, and his trials through the game show him slowly learning the horror of his surroundings, but it’s very subtle. Humor is everywhere as this is one of the bleakest games around, with death, suffering, hatred, and bias everywhere. It’s all thankfully in a well-designed pixel-based atmosphere too, since in full HD, this might be too violent of a game for most people to handle.
As you play, Orange goes through a variety of trials, from bureaucracy to the sacrifice of innocents, all while completing various complex puzzles, moving boxes, pulling levers, and jumping from place to place. He’s accompanied by a very sassy crow which berates him at every turn, gives him clues, and even teaches him the history of his government. And Orange dies. A lot. In fact, one of the key points in Ministry of Broadcast is that there’s no penalty for dying and the myriad of ways you die are meant to both entertain and inform. Starting back at the last checkpoint is as easy as simply pressing the minus button on the Switch, and that works at any time, not just when you die. Stuck? Made a mistake? Just move back to the checkpoint. But your progress is automatically saved, so if you make it far enough, you’re good. Don’t worry, there’s no collectibles to miss or anything like that. Just Orange’s shoes, and you definitely won’t find those.
Puzzles are quite challenging, requiring you specifically to make hard moral choices and sacrifice others to proceed. Everyone hates Orange, everyone is out to get him, and he has absolutely no idea whatsoever. Push the boxes to the right spot, jump to the right area, plug the right hole, and you’re good. But it’s not as easy as all that. Ministry of Broadcast is designed in a purposely retro manner, with a slight bit of lag between button presses and Orange’s reaction. Timing is everything and a large number of events require precision. At first, this is frustrating, but as you play, you get the hang of timing everything to the point that you stop even thinking about it and get more daring with jumps and running. It’s a challenge, but it’s not particularly hard if you’re patient and ignore the repeated deaths. It’s easy to die ten or twenty times just figuring out what to do, and with every death the crow mocks you mercilessly.
Even on the Switch, the controls are tight and responsive and the game has absolutely no issues whatsoever. It’s smooth, it loads fast, and everything about it is well-crafted. The storyline is minimalist but still captivating as well. Orange is entertaining and the supporting cast is hilarious. The language might throw a few players off at first though, as it seems like there are tons of typos and grammatical errors, but there actually aren’t. Ministry of Broadcast is designed to represent an eastern bloc country and that includes the broken and erroneous way in which English is spoken in those countries. Reading the text out loud sounds like a movie from the 80s where Russians speak English. The intentional crafting of the script makes for an even more immersive experience and it’s absolutely hilarious, distancing you a bit more from the oppressive violence of the game itself.
The puzzles in Ministry of Broadcast generally won’t stump the average player too much. It’s not meant to be outrageously impossible, just difficult and disturbing, and it manages that well. By the end of the game, you’ll have been traumatized in more ways than you can imagine, and it feels like you’ve also gained a bit of insight into the way that fascist societies manipulate and control their citizens. The whole time you’re playing, subtle music in the background reaffirms the feel of Eastern Europe, humming along and fading pleasantly into the background, accompanied by the occasional squish of a body being stepped on or the chomp of a particularly unpleasant alligator. Sound design is excellent in Ministry of Broadcast, with just as much care taken here even in the smallest details as it has been everywhere else.
Looking at the Switch version, the game plays cleanly in both handheld and docked modes. Some pixel games look a bit small on the undocked Switch, but the aspect ratio and graphic design of Ministry of Broadcast manage to shine just as well on the small screen as they do on a full HDTV and the transition is seamless. Controls are equally playable on the Joycons as they are on a Switch Controller Pro, and the experience is only enhanced on headphones in undocked mode, with the disturbing ambience permeating your brain.
One thing to remember about Ministry of Broadcast is that it’s subtle. There’s no glaring narrative preaching a moral lesson. There’s no big exposition explaining the government. There are incremental hints and bits of speech that slowly weave an environment rather than a tale, more like explaining something by showing how everything feels than by writing it out. It’s an excellent way to emulate the world without using a blunt instrument, but not everyone will get it. Invariably, some people will be confused by the lack of a complex storyline and misjudge the skill of the writers and graphic designers here.
Similarly, the controls are purposely built with a slight lag, forcing you to compensate by playing more like a vintage game from the late 80s, a concept that seems to evade many players. There are no mistakes here, controls are precise and designed to feel specifically like you’re struggling to get away with your escape from a situation hinging entirely on the last second you could possibly have to succeed. This is entirely on purpose and is absolutely excellent game design! It is supposed to frustrate you that you missed the jump and died, or ran off the edge and broke your legs, or took an icicle to the skull. That’s the purpose of designing a game this way. Once you understand that, Ministry of Broadcast becomes much more of an artistic creation, one that successfully conveys the futility, frustration, confusion, and bureaucracy of its medium in an effective and unique way.
While Ministry of Broadcast won’t be for everyone with its methodical progress, frequent deaths, and vintage style control design, it’s an absolute work of art. For players it appeals to, it will immerse for hours, making them think in unexpected ways to solve challenging puzzles and guide Orange back to his wife (probably). With somewhere around six or seven hours of gameplay, this isn’t an incredibly long game, and there’s not a lot of replay value once you’ve finished, but it’s an excellent journey for $15! This is definitely a game that’s not to be missed and a unique, fantastic, and politically timely offering for today’s gamers!
This review was based on a digital copy of Ministry of Broadcast provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes. Ministry of Broadcast is also available for Steam, PS4, and MacOS. Don’t mistake the lessons that this game teaches, because those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it! Ministry of Broadcast is a reminder that fascism could only be a quick fall away!
