Can’t Miss Shows on Blippo+

Blippo+ has been this mysterious creature ever since it was surprise announced back at Day of the Devs in December 2024. Then it surprise launched as part of Season Two as a free… thing. It’s not really a game. It’s a streaming television service with one-minute long shows made exclusively for Blippo+, updated weekly on a 12-week rotation (eleven weeks of new shows then one recap/countdown week). As I write this, we’re approaching the end of the six-week “game” portion of Season Two, so we’re about halfway through the first programming season of Blippo+ before it starts repeating itself. After this first Playdate-exclusive season ends, it’ll also be coming to Switch and Steam, where it will presumably have the same weekly content across all three platforms for as long as Panic decides to keep the streams up. Which, given that they’re still supporting software they released in the late-’90s, should be a good long while.

The idea of Blippo+ is that a faraway planet not too dissimilar from ours is making their own TV programs, which are very reminiscent of 1990s American cable access shows. After the first week of broadcasts, they realized that their transmissions are being picked up on Earth, so they start broadcasting messages specifically for us. There are many channels, each with five, one-minute shows on loop all day long. There’s a new half hour or so to watch every week, and the range is honestly pretty impressive. Many of the live-action shows feel like local theater troupes having fun, and - just like when you go down to the improv - the quality and ideas can vary wildly. There’s also what is pretending to be a scrambled “adult” channel, and sometimes you’ll just watch the screen fill like a glass of soda for a full 60 seconds.

One thing that’s been rough for me is the actual connectivity prowess of the Playdate. Networking was added in a recent update and it’s doing its best, but it’s not quite there yet. I’m usually trying to watch this in the basement while the wireless modem is on the second floor, and that’s just not strong enough of a WiFi connection to stream to my little yellow console that could. I have to set up my phone as a wireless hotspot each week to consume the latest Blippo+ content, and I still get buffering on most channels. It works a lot better when I’m upstairs and right next to the modem, but if you have weak/faraway internet or low patience for buffering, it’s something you’ll have to work around.

Even so, there are a few shows that stand head-and-shoulders above the rest for me and are must-watch minutes every week. Let’s dive into the otherworldly weirdness that shines brightest!

State of the State

The news program State of the State is the weekly update on the overarching storyline of “The Bend” - the tear in reality that allows the Blippo+ broadcasts to even reach the Earth. You’ll find out what happens when Planet Blip sends their bendonauts (Blip’s version of astronauts) into The Bend to make contact with us, and you’ll hear how normal Blippians are reacting. Keeping up with local affairs is the best way to “get” what is being discussed on all the other channels, since it’s not every day that you get to make contact with another civilization, and the storyline weaves through the entire society and affects every other channel. Well, mostly.

Snacks Come Alive!

I say mostly because, just like if this happened on our planet, there will always be food shows that just keep on keepin’ on. Oh, there’s a tear in the fabric of reality? How about you look at this weird fruit I found. Make it into a gelato with a funny long mushroom garnish. Go nuts. The foods they prepare look like they’re real foods (and I think most/all of them are?), but they’re foods that are unlikely to be on the weekly shopping list of the average Westerner. Shot from a first-person overhead view, they’re chopping up and preparing all sorts of flora you’ve never heard of, while the bird-like host trills about the history and flavors of a society we’ll never truly know. Food shows are, by their nature, already kind of weird, and this takes it to another level.

Cubis!

Starting on week two of the broadcast, after Blip realized that other planets have started receiving their transmissions, Cubis! is a sort of introductory science show about Planet Blip, explaining their society and world to outsiders. It has two suns so the planet always has a temperate climate, and there’s a sister planet that nobody talks about. The best part is that it’s animated in what looks like Pulp (Playdate’s free in-browser development tool), so it feels almost like a kid’s show from the ‘70s, when the animation was limited to what we could do with computers of the time. While some of the live-action shows can get a little blurry on the 1-bit, black-and-white Playdate screen, this one always looks sharp, and it builds out this alien world in a way that’s easy to understand.

Fetch!

This is unique on the entire platform: a claymation show that’s pure entertainment. It’s got some of that “Is this for kids actually or is it too weird in reality?” thing that shows like Gumby had, and there are some very neat indie-animation techniques here that let the creator do things you can’t do with live actors. It reminds me of some of the most interesting things I saw on MUBI, a streaming service that’s specifically for the freaks. I’m going to break the fourth wall a little bit here: the creator Claymie Stratford is on YouTube and has made over 200 short claymation videos but has less than 200 subscribers. I’m hoping that by pointing this out and getting some of the Blippo+ recognition, they get more of the accolades and attention they deserve! I think it’s just one person, working hard and doing interesting things. We need more of that.

Confetti Cowboys

Of all the local-theater-esque things on the platform, Confetti Cowboys stands above them all for me. It’s two old-timey cowboys trapped together in a pod/ship floating in outer space, and it juxtaposes the Old West and what sci-fi felt like in the ‘70s in a way that feels like Brendon Small filmed it in his basement. At first I thought it was a little… dumb (I’m sorry!), but each week these two yahoos endear themselves to me a little bit more. Of all the funny little ideas for live action shows on Blippo+, this is the one that worked the most for me, and I make sure to catch their hijinks each week.

And that’s my top five, in no particular order. But with something like 25 new minutes of otherworldly content each week for eleven solid weeks, there’s sure to be something for everyone, even if that something is Bushwalker. We’ll see how the larger world reacts when it breaks free from the Playdate ecosystem and hits people in FULL COLOR on Steam and Switch soon.