Channel-Surfing Simulator Is the Year’s Strangest Game
▼ Summary
– Blippo Plus is described as the strangest video game release of 2025, functioning more as an alien television simulator than a traditional game.
– Players tune into the alien network Blippo Plus, flipping through short, looped FMV channels to understand the culture without direct gameplay.
– The experience involves minimal interaction, primarily changing channels and adjusting the picture, with data packets that update programming and advance a mysterious story.
– The game features a low-budget, retrofuturistic aesthetic with bizarre channel content like a psychic weather network and a show called “video cola.”
– Despite its initial randomness, the channels eventually reveal connections that form a larger, coherent narrative as players piece the story together.
With the final quarter of the year still ahead, the gaming calendar is packed with anticipated titles. Yet, one release has already carved out a unique space for itself as arguably the most peculiar experience of 2025. Blippo Plus defies conventional categorization, presenting itself less as a traditional game and more as an interactive simulator of extraterrestrial television.
Labeling it a ‘game’ might not be entirely accurate. The core premise involves inexplicably gaining access to Blippo Plus, a television network broadcast from another world. There are no traditional goals or challenges. Instead, you spend your time channel-surfing through a collection of full-motion video shows featuring human actors. These programs range from dramas to cooking segments, all designed to offer a window into an alien society. This project serves as a full-color successor to one of the more unusual titles from the Playdate’s second season.
As you explore the channels, subtle links begin to surface between the seemingly unrelated content. A bizarre phenomenon slowly emerges, one that also ties you, the viewer, directly into the unfolding narrative. Interaction is intentionally minimal, primarily limited to changing the channel. However, the experience periodically requires you to adjust the picture for clarity and to check messages for new “data packets.” These downloads update the channel lineup and push the story forward. An early update, for example, reveals that the aliens have become aware of an external viewer, leading them to launch a new channel dedicated to explaining their culture, covering everything from their cuisine to their language.
The overall atmosphere is deeply strange, amplified by a distinctly low-budget, retrofuturistic aesthetic. The channel offerings are wonderfully bizarre, including a psychic weather network and a channel devoted to sensual computer equipment. You might find a teen chat show named Boredome or a station that simply shows “video cola,” which consists of extended close-ups of fizzing soda. These are not full episodes but short, looping segments, allowing you to catch everything at your own pace. The joy of the experience lies in personal discovery, but there is an undeniable and satisfying nostalgia in the act of flipping through channels, a ritual largely lost to the on-demand era of streaming.
What makes Blippo Plus truly remarkable is how its initial randomness gradually coalesces into a coherent whole. The unappetizing alien meals and the charmingly cheap sci-fi costume designs might seem disjointed at first. By paying closer attention, the hidden connections become apparent, and piecing together the larger narrative proves to be a uniquely rewarding process. It’s an experience that makes you wish it came with a physical remote.
Blippo Plus is available now on Nintendo Switch and Steam.
(Source: The Verge)
