Cable TV simulation game Blippo+ will launch for Switch and PC via Steam this fall, developer Panic announced. The Switch version is newly announced.
“When Panic first showed us a Playdate prototype almost 10 years ago, we just knew we had to make something that no one would expect and that pushed this incredibly special device to its limits,” said Blippo+ writer Claire L. Evans and game director Jona Bechtolt of YACHT in a press release. “For us, that was streaming video—which, on a 1-bit handheld game system, is nothing short of miraculous.
“But once we started capturing the footage, we knew that Blippo’s out-of-this-world fashion, makeup, and graphics could no longer be contained on a black and white screen. We had no choice but to beg Panic to help us get Blippo+ on as many screens as possible—in color. Thankfully, they immediately agreed. Our collective mantra has been: Another TV is possible.”
Panic director of publishing Nick Suttner added, “I’ve been a big fan of Claire and Jona’s music and performance for 20-plus years. They’ve always been amazing at creating an extended world and culture around their art, and toeing a line between making it feel welcoming and inclusive but also boldly and excitingly alien, like they’re tuning into a wavelength that only they can see. Blippo+ is their most literal expression of that yet, and honestly it involves so many amazing people and ideas and gags that it’s kind of hard to believe it exists. And yet it does, and we were lucky enough that they wanted to collaborate to debut it on Playdate—and now with PC / Switch, even more people will be able to enjoy this totally unique experience.”
Get the latest details below.
FMV, ARG, VOD, WTF? No acronyms can describe the truly new delivery method, style, and lore of Blippo+. It’s so out of this world that early viewers seem only to be able to describe it as “weird.”
First teased during last December’s Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Edition showcase, Blippo+ is a wholly original channel-surfing experience filled with soaps, sitcoms, news, weather, and talk shows—all painstakingly made with vintage analog broadcast equipment and an intergenerational cast of over 100 actors, comedians, performers, and artists. Television newcomers and nostalgics alike will delight in flipping through Blippo+‘s linear broadcast, browsing the robust Electronic Program Guide, tinkering with TV menu settings, and lurking the Femtofax videotext forums to unravel the planet-shaking narrative unfolding over the airwaves of Planet Blip.
Blippo+ is already making a splash with Playdate owners since a first installment of the experience landed as a surprise extra in the first week of Playdate’s Season 2 of games on May 29. Broadcast in glorious, 1-bit dithered video, the made-for-Playdate version of Blippo+ is appointment television just for Season 2 owners, with an entirely new slate of video replacing itself every Thursday at 10AM PT for eleven weeks. Buy Season 2 now to share this collective experience for the first time, in real-time, or catch the next broadcast cycle after the signal repeats—in perpetuity.
Blippo+ on PC and Switch takes the concept further, introducing a time-hopping mechanic so viewers can travel back and forth through weeks of TV programming without losing the magic of “non-demand” linear viewing. It also unveils Blippo+‘s technicolor source material, an unmistakable look that comes thanks to director, producer, and cinematographer JJ Stratford—a video artist who lives works, lives, and dreams in television. Blippo+ was filmed at her fully-analog studio, Telefantasy Studios, in Glendale, California, with a cast drawn from the depths of Los Angeles art underground.
Watch a new trailer below.