Static Hour is not for the faint at heart or those who don’t work well under pressure, but the story and gameplay will make you work through that to uncover the terrifying mystery befalling the town.

Developer Barkbyte Interactive just announced their debut game Static Hour, a thriller set in the 1980s where you play as a newsroom editor. Being the only editor in the office, every choice to make this shift is solely up to you; you control what the public is exposed to. As if in itself isn’t difficult enough, your normal office day spirals out of control when you begin receiving an onslaught of phone calls that are out of the ordinary. Civilians are showing up in droves at emergency rooms, all with wounds from violent attacks against their own families. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the government even issued a lockdown to protect the ones who haven’t come across this. With everyone stuck in their homes and no one aware of the full story, they look to you for answers.

Every phone call and every piece of evidence that turns up on your desk has to be analyzed carefully; not everything that is reported is true, and not everything that is true has to be shared. You, much like the residents, are unsure of what is truly unfolding. This only gets worse when your only mode of piecing the story together is by listening; you aren’t able to see the chaos outside, only hear the fearfull voices of those around you. By using analog technology and old-fashion reporting, you will “Answer incoming phone calls, scan emergency channels, dig through notes, follow leads, and listen carefully for strange audio signals buried in the static.”

What you discover is solely your choice to share with citizens. Depending on what you publish, the town will either get closer to finding out the truth or be pushed deeper into panic.

Static Hour is available to wishlist on Steam now.