PORTLAND, JUNE 8, 2025 - WHAT IS BLIPPO+? Finally, here are the answers! At today’s PC Gaming Show, Panic, Grammy-nominated artists YACHT, Telefantasy Studios, and Noble Robot revealed that their live-action cable TV simulator Blippo+ is going color and coming to Nintendo Switch and PC this fall. Blippo+ is currently being broadcast weekly in 1-bit black and white video as part of Playdate Season 2.
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.
“When Panic first showed us a Playdate prototype almost ten 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,” explains Blippo+ writer Claire L. Evans and game director Jona Bechtolt of YACHT. “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.”
"I’ve been a big fan of Claire and Jona’s music and performance for 20+ years,” adds Panic's director of publishing, Nick Suttner. “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."
About Blippo+
Congratulations! Blippo+ is now available in your area. Blippo+ is a live-action, new wave, off-cable TV simulator. Channel-surf the stars and discover the staticky, radical world of Planet Blip through its soaps, sitcoms, news, weather, and talk shows. But don’t touch that remote—because everything’s about to get bent. Planet Blip is brought to life through a cast of lovable characters, vibrant costumes and makeup, original music, extensive lore, and writing that pays homage to the offbeat, idiosyncratic, and often-forgotten margins of TV history, from pirate television and cable access to public broadcasting and video art. Whether you’re a punk, new waver, sproinger or a bender: there’s something for you on Blippo+.
FEATURES:
- Channel-surf your way through a wide variety of funny, freaky, and wholly original live-action programs on the Blippo+ Electronic Program Guide!
- Fall in love with a diverse cast of alien TV personalities, from cloned soap opera stars and spooky raconteurs to mad professors, quizmasters, scientists, and action sheroes.
- Immersive yourself in Blippo+ to unlock data packettes, update the Electronic Program Guide with new episodes and messages, and piece together the planet-shaking story unfolding between the channels.
- Expand your knowledge of Blippian culture by lurking the Femtofax “videotext” forums.
- Fiddle with extensive TV settings to personalize your Blippo+ experience.
- Enjoy a genre-spanning original soundtrack by Grammy-nominated composers Rob Kieswetter and Jona Bechtolt of YACHT.
YACHT—Jona Bechtolt, Claire L. Evans, and Rob Kieswetter—is a band that treats the album as a platform for creative experimentation. Since 2002, they’ve released nine albums, two apps, a documentary, a fragrance, a philosophical handbook, and an eyewear collection; they’ve built a 62-foot video installation, reactivated a 6-story sculpture in downtown LA, and presented at museums, universities, festivals, and clubs worldwide. YACHT’s deep catalog of music has been featured in movies, TV, commercials, and games like GTA V, The Sims 3, and Metronomicon. They’ve been nominated for two Webby awards and a Grammy. In addition, Claire is an acclaimed writer whose book Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women who Made the Internet was translated into six languages and named one of the 10 Best Nonfiction Tech Books of all time by The Verge; Rob is a painter who shows internationally and scores film, TV and podcasts.
For more information on YACHT, visit teamyacht.com
Telefantasy Studios is the off-Hollywood creative studio founded by video artist Jennifer Juniper Stratford. The Studio specializes in creating cult television shows, music videos, and experimental films as well as designing sets, props, video graphics packages, and multimedia installations for live performances. JJ Stratford has exhibited, broadcast, and screened her work internationally at MOCA, Palais de Tokyo Paris, The Whitney Museum, The Hammer Museum, LACMA, The Getty, Cinemarfa, Museum of the Moving Image New York, New Beverly Cinema, BAM Cinématek, and on public access channels across the United States. Inspired by a love of video art, outsider cinema, and experimental animation, her work feels like something you might catch on late night cable or on an obscure video cassette. She has created and directed photography campaigns, teleplays, music videos, title sequences, station IDs as well as designed immersive art installations, live performances and stage visuals.
For more information on Telefantasy Studios, visit telefantasystudios.com
Noble Robot is the indie games and media outfit run by multidisciplinary artist Mark LaCroix. Titles include Widget Satchel; the tabletop game Glom; Dreamsettler, the upcoming sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw; and Noble Engine, the li’l open-source game engine for Playdate. Mark’s work in other fields has spanned from international film festivals to municipal utility boxes, and has appeared in multiple Emmy-winning productions. Noble Robot also produces the weekly game development podcast Nice Games Club from its office in Minneapolis, where Mark lives with his wife and three computers. For more information on Noble Robot, visit noblerobot.com
About Panic Inc.
Founded in 1999, Panic is an ancient startup in Portland, Oregon that loves to make nice things and bring people everyday joy. Originally — and still — a Mac app developer, Panic has also become a highly-focused video game publisher that helped release games like Firewatch, Untitled Goose Game, Thank Goodness You're Here! into the world, with much more on the horizon, including Blippo+, Big Walk, Herdling, and Time Flies. And in the ultimate spirit of creating products that bring joy, Panic has also created its very own handheld video game system: Playdate. Visit their website: panic.com