Review: Blippo+ (Switch) -Surfing Sim That Perfectly Captures ’90s TV
By If you wish to truly grasp (or recall) what television appeared like prior to the internet, Blippo+ is just the remedy.
This distinctive little time capsule debuted on Panic’s Playdate in May and arrived on Switch and PC in September. Now fully colored, this extraordinary partnership between the band Yacht, Telefantasy Studios, developer Noble Robot, and Panic itself transports you back to an era when television was an arranged hobby and we perceived the world in grainy 4:3.
To start, Blippo+ is not a game, so if ‘play’ is the sole verb that interests you, feel free to hit that Back button or close the browser tab right now. ‘Watch’ is the, ahem, focal point here, and suitable for a TV network simulation and FMV experience like no other.
Presenting clips from a selection of fictional programs encompassing public, cable, and even unauthorized broadcasts on a distant Earth-like world, it captures an alternate ’90s buzzing with the interference generated when older entertainment concepts and formats clash with a rising youth movement eager to broaden the realms of art and technology with television as their medium.
From its displayed culture, Planet Blip is all bright hues and Space Channel 5-style vibrancy, instantly recognizable to any Earthlings born in the decades surrounding 1985. Envision Bob Ross settling down at the Double R Diner while Groove Is In The Heart plays endlessly, and you’re not far off the sentiment.
You can switch between channels at will, each broadcasting a series of minute-long snippets that eventually cycle back until a new ‘packette’ is accessible and you tune into a fresh collection. Alongside packette notifications, messages from Blippo+ executive Lisa Duo periodically appear, and interference from a nearby spatial anomaly means you will occasionally need to manually recalibrate the signal. I primarily played with a Pro Controller, but you can detach a single Joy-Con if you prefer remote-like control. You also have options to limit background menu animation, and increase, decrease, or eliminate static effects entirely.
It would be effortless to fill my word count here simply listing allusions. Despite being entirely fictional, the variety of programs accurately captures the sensation of turning on the TV and channel-surfing three-and-a-half decades ago. Werf’s Tavern fuses the corny energy of Star Trek, Dr Who, and ’70s sci-fi with a hint of Cheers; Countertop’s chatty 50s-style waitress embodies equal parts Norma Jennings and Marge Simpson; trivia show Quizzards incorporates elements of Crystal Maze and D&D; the Boredome studio is filled with attitude-laden teens lounging about, discussing timely youth issues, and generally shooting the breeze.
Further afield, there are talk shows, cooking segments, children’s claymation, antiques assessments, soap operas, news broadcasts, psychic weather predictions, and a Teletext-style Femtofax application featuring personal ads, review columns, and assorted opinions and message-board insights. There’s much more as well, and the authenticity of the audio-visual experience is remarkable.
Amid all the detritus in this channel surfing, it’s challenging to think of anything lacking from the Electronic Program Guide. Perhaps something with a puppet? There’s no live sports broadcasts. Were a clip reminiscent of the Italia ’90 qualifiers, the Malaysian Grand Prix, or something more tranquil — darts or snooker — to emerge, you’d swear you were seated on a worryingly flammable family sofa back in 1990. But aside from including clips from The Simpsons, they’ve nearly covered it all.
Stylistic traits from earlier eras permeate into the subsequent decade(s), a reality present in several shows; the brilliantly choreographed music videos, in particular, feel like genuine relics from early ’80s Top of the Pops, with soft focus and light bloom aplenty. After encountering many disappointing CRT filters in retro-themed games over the years, the precision of the signal distortion, static, and degradation of an analogue broadcast here is immensely impressive.
This attention to detail carries through to every aspect of the production: the calibration UI that appears when your signal has issues; the early greenscreen compositing with noticeable ghosting; the spot-on music, voice, and sound effect work; the collage-like, mismatched logo design; the editing and how the minute-long clips automatically switch channels mid-sentence. Pressing ‘Y’ toggles to a 1-bit-style screen, presumably mimicking how the image appears on a Playdate, and ‘X’ activates authentically styled captions which I kept on most of the time. Every detail is lovingly crafted and (re)created.
Tying all these diverse elements together is a gently humorous narrative involving the discovery of a distant Blip-like planet situated on the far side of the galaxy. As you observe, topics and even cast members from one show begin appearing on others, with inter-show references intricately woven in, igniting curiosity as you look for new details and reactions to ‘The Bend’.
Constructing a game around an activity born from ennui comes with the risk of being too authentic, but the developers achieve a nice equilibrium between embedding narrative details and nuanced world-building while retaining that bizarre, non-linear energy of channel-hopping.
My Switch indicates I’ve spent ‘9 hours or more’ with Blippo+ before the credits rolled, and only in brief intervals towards the conclusion did my focus begin to wander. I likely didn’t need to watch every cycle of every channel — including those with poor signals or others scrambled due to their ‘adult’ nature — but I didn’t want to miss anything, such was the allure of those narrative threads.
If it’s not apparent by now, I adore Blippo+, likely because it feels custom-fit for someone born in 1984. For anyone who hasn’t manually retuned a television — those who didn’t grow up prior to the World Wide Web’s arrival and the subsequent fragmentation into online communities, who have always viewed the world in 16:9 and are unaware of what Ceefax or Bamboozle are — I wonder if they’ll have the context to appreciate it.
Your agency is akin to watching TV with a remote in hand (slightly less so, given the looping
The essence of the clips) as you deplete each channel set and Femtofax refresh until it’s time to obtain the next packet. I found myself transfixed by the clips, merely nudging the analogue stick to shift once the loop concluded, but would younger gamers without my reference points possess the perseverance to remain engaged?
Ingeniously crafted ‘filler’ channels here reflect the content supply dilemma broadcasters faced in the past as the number of channels surged. The affectionate, lower-budget parodies here assist in transforming a negative into a significant (Blippo) positive and enhance the flawless presentation, but of course, some individuals just won’t ‘understand it’. It’s not my responsibility to dwell on that, but I believe it’s vital to highlight in a review. Perhaps inevitably, this whole initiative feels like a remarkable jest that, by virtue of my age alone, I’m fortunate to be in on.
I genuinely made an effort to engage with Blippo+ on its own conditions, too. I treated it like television, turning it on in the morning for 20, 30 minutes while I savored breakfast with my cup of brew. You undoubtedly need to unwind and appreciate it in brief intervals, returning to the shows, cultivating a preference for your favorites, and yes, even bypassing the ones you’re less enthusiastic about.
Conclusion
For individuals who matured watching Gamesmaster, early MTV, Hartbeat, ‘80s soap operas, Bill Nye, or Open University broadcasts, and scanning the higher channels past midnight for a glimpse of something risqué, Blippo+ is an absolute must-play must-watch. It truly is a masterpiece, capturing the vibe of early-’90s television and eerily embodying a time and place in the way a melody or a scent conjures a memory – in a manner that feels almost intimate.
You must approach it like classic television, channel surfing a bit each day and absorbing the static; do not regard it as a game. And as enjoyable as it is — as wonderfully crafted, expertly executed, and lovingly designed — nostalgia for (or at least intellectual curiosity regarding) the era seems like a requirement. I’m an ‘80s kid, however, so I cherished every moment.