This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 19, September 2025

Ah, the switchboard. One of history’s most important and unsung political tools.

If legend is to be believed, total nuclear annihilation was narrowly avoided by a single telephone operator routing international calls.

That may not be strictly true, but in Cold Calling, Can’t Get Enough Games’ upcoming tower defense puzzle game, it could be.

Players physically manipulate the wires on a switchboard to manage simultaneous phone calls, all while Cold War political drama is taking place in visual novel-like narrative segments.

The switchboard may be hectic, but luckily a benevolent force has provided your hapless operator with gadgets to help – though the true utility of a pirate cannon on a switchboard is anyone’s guess.

Thom Cote, the project’s programmer, writer, and composer, has been working on this project alongside his team for seven years.

“I’ve been working on Cold Calling alongside my entire professional career,” Cote said. “It and other games I’ve worked on with that group [Can’t Get Enough] are my most creatively fulfilling work.”

High praise for a game that began as a way to keep in touch with friends after graduating from college, but this project more than lives up to it.

Each member of the remote, five-person team has made steady progress since work began. Their work is all on an unpaid basis and the game has no stated deadline, factors that Cote said have led to massive scope creep and the sheer length of the development cycle.

“The biggest challenge is just the sheer amount of free time it eats up,” he said. “But being so close to finishing such a large, story-rich game is something we’re very proud of.”

And that story really is worth writing (or calling) home about. Inspired by “Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” the satire is sharp and well-presented.

Cold Calling is a wonderful example of how hindsight can help, rather than hinder, political satire. While McCarthy may not be running rampant with his army of nondescript men in black today, his legacy looms long in global politics.

Being able to point and laugh at the ridiculous political maneuvering of politicos past is not only fun, but necessary.

Wishlist Cold Calling on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2627660/Cold_Calling/