It's ostensibly a video game, I guess. It's more of a vibe than anything.

It's the sort of thing where if you watch the trailer you know more or less whether you will dig it. I'm a smidge too young for the era of TV it is an homage to (I'd call it more of a 70s, early 80s vibe). But I'm old enough that I still caught this kind of TV on re-runs or late at night.

This would have been an interesting thing to experience when it launched on the Playdate, where you would get a new "lineup" of shows every week. Then I could imagine just tuning in to random things at random times.

Random channel surfing is what I did to start, but you quickly realize that in this version you have to unlock each subsequent programming block. I'm not sure if it was a matter of how long I spent watching, or if I had to see certain key videos, or what. But I eventually settled into a routine of methodically watching each channel until it rotates, then moving on. One block's worth of TV takes maybe twenty minutes to get through that way. I'd do one block at a time, then come back a few days or a week later, so as not to burn out.

Some shows were fun, some shows were cute, some got reptitive. To the extent that there is a story, it kind of fizzles out. Like I said, it's more vibes than anything. I probably like this more than I'm rating it, but the ratings are science, you know.

Let's put it this way: I will admit I could not resist checking to see if one particular piece of merch existed, and when I was not disappointed, I could not resist ordering it.

Two Stars.

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Blippo+ is the:

• 14th greatest Video Game of all time.
• 40th greatest Thing of all time.