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VHS-inspired puzzler Small Radios Big Televisions releases in November

Adult Swim Games’ latest, Small Radios Big Televisions, is a surreal puzzler for PC and PS4 full of cassette tape glitches and abandoned factories.

Small Radios Big Televisions is all about VHS tapes. Remember those? If you were born in the era of the compact disc, you may not. But go digging into your attic, or excavating the depths of your basement, and chances are you might find a stash of strange cases with tapes—actual tapes—inside them.

It should perhaps be no surprise, then, that Small Radios Big Televisions has a somewhat mournful tone. It’s a love letter to a tactile video format that many of us were raised on. And that love letter paints vivid pictures of abandoned factories, complete with glitches, jitters and other visual artifacts.

The game itself is a puzzler, and it involves finding cassettes, which will take you into different worlds. Over the course of the game, you also piece together a past, all the while trying to figuring a way out. The trailer below certainly paints a picture of contemplation strongly tinged with nostalgia.

No game with a faux-80s/90s aesthetic can be complete without some sick retro-style music. Small Radios Big Televisions features music by the creator of the game itself, Ottawa-based artist Owen Deery. You can check out one of the songs from the soundtrack here on Bandcamp. And no, it’s not available on cassette. Sorry.

Developed under the banner Fire Face Corporation, Small Radios Big Televisions is scheduled to release on 8 November for PC and PS4. It’s published by Adult Swim Games, who have developed something of a reputation in the indie scene with releases like Jazzpunk, Westerado: Double Barreled, Volgarr the Viking and Headlander.

You can get the game on PC (Windows only) from Steam, while PS4 players can grab it from the PS Store when it goes live there.