Ministry of Broadcast (Switch)

In a work of Orwellian fiction you can usually expect the oppressive police state to have an incredibly invasive degree of surveillance, but in Ministry of Broadcast, the dystopian government shares that footage with its citizens in the form of a reality T.V. show called “The Wall Show”. The particular regime in charge is surprisingly self-aware about people wanting to get out from under its thumb, the prize it’s offering being to cross the huge harsh wall it uses to sequester its people from the rest of the world. Still though, they manage to make this game show a means of nailing in propaganda that also emphasizes the necessity of the wall, and the particular approach to this familiar genre of fiction feels like what truly sets Ministry of Broadcast apart, the game embracing humor and unexpected angles for the oppressive government to approach hosting such a reality show.

 

The Wall Show’s star for the season the game covers actually isn’t referred to by their name, people instead calling him things like the Protagonist or coming up with nicknames like Redhead or Shoeless for when they wish to address him. Our hero does a good job of immediately showing the game will be throwing in comedy into its harsh story of a totalitarian government as he jumps out of the truck delivering him and strikes a dramatic pose. The humor does carry on throughout much of the game, either just from the protagonist’s quirkier persona rubbing up against more serious individuals the wrong way or by the game poking fun at the tropes of the type of government it has established. It doesn’t get too caught up in being self-aware but it presents some of the police state functions liked a rigged psychology assessment as punchlines without undermining its role in the setting as a way of controlling how people’s thoughts are contextualized.

 

One of the more interesting things about The Wall Show is how Ministry of Broadcast at first presents something that looks harsh and even cruel and then quickly pulls back the curtain on what’s going on. In the first episode of the show the hero is asked to do what seems like a despicable act as he has other people impale themselves on a bed of spikes so he can use them as a bridge… but then after the episode is over you can see those people standing around mumbling about how they didn’t like being walked over. In what seems like an interesting twist on the usual government apathy to its people, the regime running this reality show have these supposed sacrificial lambs outfitted in protective gear so that if you do something like use them as bait for an angry dog you’ll later see them just fine. In fact, the game even makes a running joke of a particular woman named Sanja being the specific person picked for many of these not-truly-violent puzzle solutions, her growing irritation an amusing effect from this non-standard narrative direction.

Things do eventually begin to buckle down and explore darker topics, this is not a parody of Orwellian fiction so much as it is one that tries to have a little fun before it starts truly addressing the harsh elements of the reality it created. While early portions can be chipper they certainly aren’t completely lacking the darker implications either so the shift doesn’t come out of nowhere either, but since the game also leaves certain elements unexplained it can be hard to figure out if you are experiencing the authentic Wall Show experience or if a monkey wrench has thrown it off course. In fact, the whole idea your life is being recorded and broadcast by a government seemingly obsessed with producing this show leads to some interesting moments where you feel like you’re starting to break from the intended path they set up for you… only to see the same little hints and signs the production uses to nudge the protagonist in the right direction hanging in a seemingly disconnected area. While a crow who gives you advice and explores some of the game’s thematic subjects more does seem truly separate, the idea you can’t tell what’s part of the show and what isn’t does begin to raise fascinating questions on where the story’s path may lead.

 

The plot is told mostly by way of text boxes appearing above characters and unfortunately this can let the game down in a few ways. They progress at their own speed and you can trigger someone speaking just by having them appear on screen so if you walk away before you notice them talking you might miss some dialogue. Worse though are the scientists who run the show that all have a bright yellow background for their dialogue boxes but borderless white text on top of it, meaning you’ll have to strain your eyes if you want to read things before they disappear. Holding back some details on the world to add to a sense of mystery is one thing, but when the information is simply inconvenient to read it can harm both the world-building and comedy.

 

Ministry of Broadcast is what is often referred to as a cinematic platformer, this meaning that navigating the world often involves well spaced jumps and climbing but an attempt is being made to root it in more realistic physics. To get your character to leap over a pit he needs to have a running start and you can’t control him while he’s in the air. He can jump higher when standing still before the jump, allowing him to climb up onto ledges that would otherwise be out of reach, and doing so is a touch slow since he needs the time to pull his weight up. There is some leniency to avoid this deliberate rigidness from impeding you too much, the protagonist adjusting his standing position automatically if he was a little off when you leaped up for a ledge for example. The narrative does feel like the main focus, but the platforming is frequently tested throughout the adventure and its built-in limitations is often how it is made challenging, but the successes within this system are unfortunately joined by a fair bit of frustration.

 

There are many points where you’ll asked to do some time-sensitive platforming, outrunning dangers and timers often requiring some fairly pinpoint movement to overcome the challenge. While the other people on The Wall Show seem to have protections against lethal situations, the hero does not and you will die if you fall from a decently high platform or get caught by cops, dogs, or area hazards. Failure is likely to be frequent even when you have a good understanding of the movement just because of tight success windows, but after a death you can quickly respawn and are often fairly close to where you perished. This doesn’t completely absolve the game of some of the issues with the platforming, it sometimes feeling like you will need to die to really understand where you’re meant to be heading and it feels hard to get a good feel for how far you can drop safely. Needing to slowly shuffle on ice instead of run to avoid slipping can also slow down moments where you need to replay particularly icy areas, but while the platforming doesn’t really have many merits besides grounding the game as something closer to life, the puzzles do fare a bit better.

While some of the puzzles along the journey in Ministry of Broadcast do have some trial and error aspects where you’ll die learning the ropes, figuring them out does do more to engage the player than simply trying to be fast and reflexive with rigid jumping parameters. Figuring out how to place people in ways to assist your navigation like using them to invalidate dangers you can’t handle is a frequent feature and they do start to grow more suspicious of you so you have to figure out new ways to trick them, social manipulation perhaps the most prominent feature of the puzzle solving even if other aspects of it might involve changing water levels, activating switches, or moving parts of the environment around. It’s a fairly fitting approach considering the tone and perhaps it was softened so you aren’t morally repulsed by the demands frequently made of you.

 

Changing settings also bring in new challenge concepts, The Wall Show reasonably wanting to keep up its own variety so one episode might be a fairly plain industrial complex but you’ll get segments themed after a strictly performative voting day, a segment themed like a prison escape, and the final episode you participate in actually might be the most creative for how it recontextualizes so much of the trappings you got used to in the other sets made for the show. It does feel like you end up seeing some of the same ingredients for puzzles and platforming challenges a bit too much though, and as they begin to get more demanding it isn’t quite so interesting to keep dying to a mild reworking of a familiar setup. Ministry of Broadcast doesn’t retread so much ground that it ever feels like it is out of ideas, but it does seem like it wanted to keep its elements limited which in terms limits some of its potential. Throw in some little gotchas like crumbling planks that will usually kill you if you fall through and sometimes the game seems too eager to kill you.

 

To complicate the puzzles a little is the emergence of water as a factor, the protagonist not able to swim but able to wade at about the same speed he tiptoes across ice. This can be an important puzzle component in the same way as the ice walking, the player at times needing to avoid piranhas or making sure not be caught in shifting water levels, but an issue seemingly unique to the Switch port is the odd problem where the surface of the water doesn’t always render properly. You might see a little of it, but comparing screenshots to other versions and they have a clear dividing area for their water while the Switch you are sometimes left relying on one visible block of the surface since the water is otherwise entirely clear. For the most part I was able to manage and it seems elsewhere the game realizes itself fairly well visually, the characters certainly simplified but the oppressive government regime having its marks on most everything to nail in its degree of control over the situation. Repeated failure might be a decent fit for a tone about how hard life is under this totalitarian regime, but that doesn’t make it easier to actually endure repeated deaths to small slip-ups.

THE VERDICT: Able to both satirize itself and present itself with proper seriousness, Ministry of Broadcast manages its concept of an Orwellian state running a reality show rather well. Comedic self-awareness doesn’t detract from the moments where darker subjects enter the picture, the balance working together well as you are often left wondering where government control ends and true freedom begins. The platforming, while intentionally limited and easy enough to adjust to, is tested perhaps a bit too much, the tight demands leading to frequent retries as you fail slightly within a movement system that can often be deliberately slow. The social manipulation aspect in many of the puzzles is a remarkably thematic approach for many of them even if Ministry of Broadcast likes to trot out similar ideas frequently, but usually some variables were shifted to lessen the impact of the repetition. Experiencing the story does require working through some irritating aspects, but it can still be worth if it if the concept appeals to you.

 

And so, I give Ministry of Broadcast for Nintendo Switch…

An OKAY rating. Ministry of Broadcast can occasionally get on a hot streak with a series of novel puzzles and decent platforming challenges and the story’s progress remains eventful but rooted in some enticing mysteries to keep you pushing forward, but then it feels like it pulls back and starts treading on familiar ideas a bit too much or you are left repeating a segment since its requirements mean that a small slip up means you’ll have to do things over again. The respawning being pretty merciful definitely prevents Ministry of Broadcast from sabotaging the whole experience, but needing to do some strict jumps under a tight time limit doesn’t get more interesting through repetition when the gap between success and failure can be so small. No truly egregious moment stands out thanks to the checkpoints and while there is some learning through trial and error you can usually wrap a puzzle up easily enough once you fully understand it. Perhaps appropriately for its genre though you shouldn’t come to Ministry of Broadcast for the platforming but the story that is assisted by the deliberate rigidity. Ministry of Broadcast’s imagined government is harsh but unexpectedly forgiving at times, your boundaries certainly felt but success is preferred and so it is encouraged in design.

 

The whole idea that The Wall Show is part of some glorious mission to produce a spectacular show under authoritarian ideals is a captivating hook and it intertwines well with the play even if that partially means the player feels some of the sting of being restrained by these strict boundaries. With the comedy there to avoid things becoming dreary it is possible to look past the gameplay’s burden on the plot and world-building. Some of the failings of the platforming are direct manifestations of ideas in the plot even if they weren’t necessary for the storytelling, but Ministry of Broadcast does seed ideas in the player’s head they’ll want to explore, and while the game doesn’t do so with enough force to truly justify how restrictive the gameplay can feel, you still get a story of a totalitarian yet self-aware surveillance state that plays with its premise well enough to make participating in The Wall Show possibly worthwhile.