November, 1962: The height of the Cold War. Mere weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a new international entanglement is about to go nuclear. As the new White House switchboard operator, it’s your job to make sure long-distance negotiations don’t go south. Get ready to phone it in.

In Cold Calling, you take control of a telephone switchboard and are tasked with routing diplomatic calls between the United States and the Soviet Union, meeting the game’s cast of caricatured world leaders along the way. Using loose wires on the switchboard and a collection of wacky gadgets, you will have to juggle oncoming waves of calls and guide them safely from caller to recipient. The fast-paced puzzle gameplay is punctuated with hilarious exchanges between characters in a globetrotting adventure where your choices affect the outcome of the story.

GAMEPLAY

Master the switchboard to keep calls on the line:

• Fast paced real-time call routing. Drag wires around to create paths for "call dots" as they travel across the board. Juggle up to 4 calls at once using a limited set of wires.

• An arsenal of wacky gadgets. Choose from 25 unique gadgets to make your job easier. Effects range from simple speed modifiers to absurd themed gadgets like a pirate cannon, a UFO, or...a slice of cheese?

• Catch a break and enjoy the hilarious story. Each wave ends with a short story beat featuring the antics of dozens of caricatured historical figures.

• Harness the mysterious Time Phone. This secret government technology will put you in contact with historical characters from before and after the 1960s. Surely the wisdom of the past will save us...

• Listen in on secret conversations. Choose a character to spy on in each of the 3 chapters, and unlock a bonus level themed around that character at the end.

• Solve point and click puzzles to unravel a conspiracy. Between each chapter a mysterious masked stranger sets up adventure game-style puzzles to test your wit. What could his true aim (and identity) be?

PLAY COLD CALLING IF YOU LIKE...

• ...Fast-paced, multitasking based challenges under time pressure. (Or not! You can play with no penalties if you're mainly interested in the story.)

• ...Tower defense games. Cold Calling plays similarly in some ways, though with much more active interaction during each wave.

• ...Political satire and alternate history stories like Dr. Strangelove and In the Loop.

• ...Absurdist humor and a story that could fly off the rails at any moment.