There’s one thing I always like to remind myself: I know where my towel is. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is one of my favourite fictional universes, having grown up listening to the radio shows, reading the novels, watching the TV series and watching the rather mediocre feature film. It’s a comedic science fiction adventure focussed on the misadventures of Arthur Dent, the last human alive, following the demolition of Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. He’s thrust into a world of a faster-than light starship which uses Infinite Improbability Drive, a Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and much much more.
Blippo+ is a game firmly in the mould of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, very much riffing off the style of the 1981 BBC TV series, but more broadly, low-budget TV of the early 1980s and the vaporwave aesthetic. Blippo+ originally released back in May exclusively on the Playdate; the black-and-white, yellow-bodied handheld console with a crank handle created by Panic Inc. and released in 2022. In September, the PC and Switch versions were released, bringing all the content from the Playdate over, now in standard definition, and in glorious colour (although you can still watch all of the monochrome versions, if you wish).
Blippo+ imagines what cable TV from another planet might look like, specifically from Planet Blip, located on the opposite side of the galaxy. The Blippians are human in appearance but everything on their planet is a bit more strange and off-beat than reality, deliberately kitsch. This is not really a game, but more of an interactive video experience; you control the Blippo+ electronic programme guide, allowing you to channel surf between an assortment of different TV stations, watching everything from weather reports (delivered by a psychic with a third eye), to chat shows, music videos, news, children’s TV, and game shows.
Each programme is essentially a brief comedy skit, each show being a minute long, there being 55 shows in total. The channels all continuously loop, meaning eventually you’ll have watched everything available as part of the current data packet. Some, such as CBMR (Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation) show nothing but different arrangements of static, or the “adult” station Zest which has a scrambled signal, but other channels like TDN (Time Dilation Network) and MSTV (MainScreenTV) host real shows with FMV performers. There’s even Femtofax, the Blippo+ version of Teletext for you to browse through.
The way the content was delivered on the Playdate was quite unique, with each week for 11 weeks, a new data packet of shows being available to watch, very gradually unveiling the full experience. The PC/Switch version dispenses with this, granting you access to the next data packet after you’ve watched a majority of content on the current one. You can then go back and reload old packets whenever you fancy. There is actually an overarching story, involving how the TV signal from Planet Blip is being sent through a space-time anomaly known as The Bend, all the way to us humans over on Planet Earth. Various presenters will comment on what’s happening and give their own take on the news, helping to tie the universe together with our own.
The content though is gloriously kitsch, a pitch perfect simulacra of the kind of local TV shows that were regularly broadcasting in the early 1980s. Visually the static, the station idents and logos, the costumes, everything feels like it has dropped out of a time warp from approximately 1983. The music in particular is amazing, a wide assortment of electronic funk and rock, composed and performed by the American electropop band Yacht. All of the FMV performances are expertly silly and wacky, striking the balance between knowingly winking to the camera and playing it completely straight. The visuals expertly recreate 4:3 standard definition TV, the fuzziness of the image being appropriately authentic.
I don’t want to spoil too many of the shows themselves as they’re the central appeal of the experience, but my favourites included Clone Trois, a hospital drama where every character is played by a clone of actress Seemie Simmons; Snacks Come Alive!, a cooking show where various alien recipes are explained; and Quizzards, a fantasy game show which seems to be a mix of Dungeons & Dragons and GamesMaster (British readers will remember this one, which featured Sir Patrick Moore). There are many more though, and part of the fun is just flipping randomly between stations to see what’s on.
Blippo+ doesn’t have any traditional gameplay as all you’re doing is jumping between stations, watching little shows and generally recreating the sensation of channel hopping, something which the modern generations are probably far less familiar with than Gen Xer’s and millennials. For me, it felt like watching TV broadcasts from a hitherto unknown planet in the Hitchhiker’s Guide universe, as both have a similar style of comedy. For the modest asking price there’s plenty to enjoy though and a good deal of laughs, alongside a liberal helping of nostalgia.
