pale broadcast

pale broadcast is a short, surreal and a little creepy puzzle/walking sim, where your only tool is a radio receiver. Search the frequencies, decode messages, and take the steps given to you. Made in my after-work hours over 20 days for Game Off 2025!

Heavily inspired by real-world numbers stations and mystery radio frequencies. I wanted to shoot for that strange, unsettling feeling that stations like the Buzzer and EAS alarms give you- hopefully it worked out well lol

I've wanted to make a game with the radio system since I built it, and Game Off 2025's prompt (and the creative license the jam applies to it) gave me a perfect opportunity- hence I have gone for the option of radio waves! I haven't made anything particularly creepy or surreal before, nor put this much time into the sound design of one project, so this is a bit out of my normal zone- though I'm pretty happy with how it ended up :))))

Final note, I tried desperately for a week to get a web build working for this game, but unfortunately I just couldn't pull it off in the end- thanks WebGL's limited audio capabilities!!!!

Controls

Q and E to tune the radio, hold SHIFT to tune faster and CTRL to tune slower

H to show a hint

In the second part, WASD to move and LEFTCLICK to interact.

and ESC to show the volume options

The solution to the first puzzle is in the README of the GitHub repo if you get decidedly stuck !!

Credits

• Audio, programming, art, design and all the other things by me (ryle-e) (Ryley) :))
• This project uses my open-source Unity package Ryle Radio, so you can try it yourself if you like
• Thank you to Mark, Rory, Ben, Jeht, Jaiden, and Emma for beta testing and feedback during development :)))))