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News@11 is a recursive storytelling game in which the players are anchors at a news desk or on assignment in a world going weird. The game is played in three rounds — Morning News, News at Noon and Evening Edition — in which the players take turns making up news stories, using elements from the previous rounds, as well as bringing new items in. They have to think on their feet and adapt their news stories to different newscaster roles.
Each round, the players need to adapt the story elements they are given to the news segment they have been assigned. Being assigned a segment helps players build a starting story and in future rounds causes stories to blend and change in interesting ways.
The three recursive rounds are at the core of the experience. Seeing the same news item start out as a relatively simple Home and Beauty segment, then in Sportsball a bit more odd and unbelievable, and finally as a Political where the hilarious chaos peaks adds to the zany nature of the recursion.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I don't look at games and go this is too complex we couldn't do it it's more about do I think it's the right fit is a game I'm excited about and energized about
- I have some sort of a weird feeling of Purity in a game so let's say I was playing the path finder Adventure game um anytime that I was going to play the game again I'd be very careful to try to weed out anything extra that had get stuck in until certain points
- I love small Skirmish style games so
- I love that open world just getting to explore everything and just doing nonsense things for hours on end have nothing to do with the main quest and thoroughly enjoying it
- I'm so excited to see Spider-Man done by Marvel and not by Sony that I'm I'm just I'm over the moon
- superheroes are weapons of mass destruction yeah right so so some of them having them regulated probably makes sense
References (from this video)
- No scoring keeps the focus on humor and conversation
- The premise supports party/social play
- Accessible and quick to learn
- Satirical, cyclical storytelling about news anchors
- Newsroom / broadcast environment
- dialogue-driven, improv-focused, non-linear rounds
- Sagata
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Compound Scoring — The game does not use points; emphasis on humor and storytelling.
- improv — Players improvise headlines and segments around given topics.
- no_scoring — The game does not use points; emphasis on humor and storytelling.
- role_play — Players assume roles of news anchors within a broadcast.
- Storytelling — Players collaboratively tell a news story using prompts and Q-cards.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "News at 11 is a cyclical storytelling game for 4 to 11 news anchors who are ready to fill in Q cards and incorporate the topics on them into their segment as they build a story"
- "There's no points there's no scoring just a hilarious time telling the news"
- "the most brilliant idea that I've ever had"
- "you can call this game whatever you like whether you win it or not"
- "moving bloopers to a separate video might reward watch time"