If you’d told 12-year-old me that I’d someday get to work on a video game that ranked *higher* than Donkey Kong on a list like this I would’ve laughed you right outta the living room

“Blippo+ would have been an extraordinary game in any year, but it felt particularly resonant in this one because it’s just so exuberantly, unabashedly, undeniably human, a collaborative work made by very creative people.” 📡❤️🍾

“Blippo+ is more than just a collection of TV shows, it’s also a fascinating narrative experience that immerses us in a culture on the brink of potentially radical change. A better world is possible, and the revolution just might be televised. “ Thank you @carolynmichelle.bsky.social!

best thing about the current iteration of the Avatar franchise is how Jermaine Clement has to remind viewers who he is by saying “I’m Ian Garvin!” and “I’m a marine biologist!” at least once but preferably twice per film

What does it mean to live with a wild animal? Went long on Konrad Lorenz, zoo-keeping, and the dark side of a Dr. Doolittle lifestyle: clairelevans.substack.com/p/those-curi...

"I can't think of another game that does something so experimental so successfully" 🙏 Thank you @thejenna.bsky.social and @secondwindgroup.com!

joining @theuniverse.bsky.social at the nub-end open.substack.com/pub/clairele...

Here's the origin story of Blippo! (The 2025 video game people will be discovering for months and years to come!)

#6. BLIPPO+ - The experience of watching a news story become so culturally all-consuming that it seeps into all media, captured in an extraordinary work of interactive fiction. "Took my money and bought a TV /TV brings me closer to the world."

My @pioneerwork.bsky.social piece on the history of interactive cinema gets the full print treatment in this glorious third issue of Broadcast, which is consistently an all-killer, no filler publication!

“Passive observation becomes something of a meta puzzle as you try to piece together all the quirks of a foreign culture through news broadcasts and public access shows. Blippo+ recreates that experience in astonishing fashion.”

It's been quite a year for Quanta biology! In this year-end post I highlighted some favorite stories by @yaseminsaplakoglu.bsky.social @theuniverse.bsky.social @peterbrannen.bsky.social @mollyherring.bsky.social and Ariel Bleicher - and I want to share more of our great work from the year below!

Read about this year’s biggest moments in biology.

Oh my gob! Blippo+ was my first foray writing for a new medium, so I'm extremely tickled by this nomination for Best Writing in a Game! Thank you so much for taking a peek into the Bend @nyvgcc.bsky.social!!

First newsletter from my new office, on extinct megafauna, buggy computers, and the dotcom bubble: clairelevans.substack.com/p/feed-the-s...

We can't stop thinking about Blippo+, a "game" that simulates channel surfing cable TV in the '80s and '90s. www.avclub.com/best-blippo-...

“Blippo+ is one of the year’s most original games, so much so that it almost defies explanation.”

📡 ATTENTION EARTHLINGS! You are now free to nominate Blippo+ for the 2025 Steam Awards, from now until December 1st. Stay Tuned, Lisa Duo Your Television Executive store.steampowered.com/steamawards/...

Wrote a short opinion piece for @issuesinst.bsky.social in response to a science fiction story by E.G. Condé about the inescapable heat death of all our data. Can biology help us slow this thermodynamic destiny? Thanks to @imaginationasu.bsky.social for the invitation: issues.org/futuretensef...

This week's #FreeFictionFriday response essay, "Can We Cool Down Data?" by @theuniverse.bsky.social , explores the innovative possibilities of DNA-based digital data storage and reflects on why seeking cooler, more resilient storage alternatives is essential. issues.org/futuretensef...

This book rules

This is very much a thing! I am even less prominent but I still get an email like this every few months. They tend to come with Google Drive folders of lengthy chat transcripts as “evidence”

Making an audiobook of our graphic design sourcebook for @blippo.plus was a real challenge—I had to write detailed descriptions of all the logos and design elements in the game, some of which are pretty oblique. It was a crash course in alt-text. I hope the end result is fun and accessible for all!

infocom, game studio, catalog, back, excerpt (1983) archive.org/details/vgmu...

❤️📡 “It really is a work of art, nailing the aesthetic of early-'90s TV and uncannily capturing a time and place in the way a song or a smell evokes a memory - in a way that feels almost personal.” — 9/10

so cool to see the brilliant @sarahweinman.com get the spotlight her work deserves! happy pub day!! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/b...

had an extremely normal one at the estate sale last week

“What keeps us going, ultimately, is our love for each other, and our refusal to bow our heads, to accept the verdict, however all-powerful it seems. It’s what ordinary people have to do. You have to love each other. You have to defend each other. You have to fight.” —Mike Davis

in case anyone is wondering, yes, you do see Oscar Isaac's butt in the new Frankenstein movie

Oh my Gob, the Playdate Catalog sale starts today! Get in on a fresh Blippo broadcast cycle for the low Earth price of $8 — or pick up all the Playdate Season 2 games for 20% off: play.date/games/blippo/

"there's no need to be quite so ruthless with our own species, folks" www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUu9...

saw Tron: Ares last night. I realize this is the premise of the entire franchise but “inside the computer there is an enormous town filled with little guys in uniforms” is almost irredeemably silly

Blippo+ is a handcrafted TV-channel surfing game from a past that never existed. L.A.-based actors, comedians and artists collaborated to direct and film hours of footage. A joy to interview @theuniverse.bsky.social, one of its creators, whose career is studded with bright jewels like these.

Jona and I are doing a little guided tour of Blippo+ in New York later this month at @metalabel.bsky.social! Come say hello!

And now for something completely different…I went on the @quantamagazine.bsky.social podcast to discuss my recent piece on what cells remember; we got into shifting definitions of memory, forgotten science, and what we might retain from our unicellular forebears: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

wild that a podcast about my dream video game console turned into such a unfiltered confessional about my dorky only childhood. Thank you @simonparkin.bsky.social for the therapeutic opportunity to talk about my tiny toons spec scripts and utter inability to beat a single Donkey Kong boss!

wow, 137 tracks for only ten bucks? folks that’s about 0.07 cents a track. We’re giving this soundtrack away!

This is all such good writing advice, especially: “If a line just arrives in your head like it came from somewhere else, write it down immediately, meditate on it, and make it the foundation of whatever you’re building.”

The strangest game of the year is a channel-surfing simulator

It’s still extremely surreal to that I *wrote a video game* that’s out on Nintendo. Even more surreal is the fact that people seem to (really) like it! www.inverse.com/gaming/blipp...

Blippo+ is out NOW and in FULL COLOR on PC and Switch!!! 📡 Steam blippo.plus/steam 📡 Switch blippo.plus/switch 📺 Tune in and get bent today!! blippo.plus 💫

🗓️ 📡 1 Day until Blippo+ The revolution in television crash-lands tomorrow on Steam and Nintendo Switch. Be ready! blippo.plus

Four days until Planet Blip crash-lands on an unsuspecting Earth 🪐

OH MY GOB! Blippo+ arrives on Steam in less than a week. Wishlist now: blippo.plus/steam

nobody has ever been or looked as cool as Robert Redford in Sneakers

attn: Portland buddies and future buddies!

🚨Announcement: it's been a year since the release of our perpetually-novel album 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒! In August 2024, 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 was 7 years before its time, and although the clock keeps ticking, the good news is you’ll still be ahead of the curve if you get into it now. yacht.bandcamp.com/album/new-re...

Elmer Fudd, desperate to kill the rabbit, racked with grief the moment he thinks he might have succeeded, head over heels in love the moment the rabbit puts on a dress. Now that’s an interesting guy

among other things I am very proud of this little movie theater animation lobby that I drew for @blippo.plus' buffer week

TERRAFORM is a collection of speculative fiction edited by @theuniverse.bsky.social and yours truly, a greatest-hits of the years-spanning project we ran at Vice (RIP). It features stories from some of the very best SF authors, tech journalists, and writers. It's excellent, in my opinion