SWR Launches Audio Game App Pale Blue

Südwestrundfunk (SWR) continues to be open to the medium of games. The new podcast project 'Hellblau' is accompanied by an audio game app developed in cooperation with Pangolin Park. The topic of the podcast and audio game is the multicrisis.

Hellblau - Der 5 Minuten Padcast zur Multikrise has a total of 13 episodes, which are fittingly available in the ARD Audiothek from today, Friday the 13th. At the same time, Südwestrundfunkn(SWR) is releasing the audio game app Pale Blue, in which players decide how humanity will survive the next 300 years. SWR Kultur, SWR's special interest channel for culture, is accompanying the launch of both formats with a two-part radio feature.

According to SWR, the interactive radio play Pale Blue was created in collaboration with Pangolin Park. The Berlin studio specialises in interactive audio formats and has realised projects such as Marchivum Mannheim, Kleist Museum and the interactive audio drama 1-800 Super. According to SWR, the development of Pale Blue was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. According to the funding database, Pangolin Park received 68,219 euros in funding for a project with the working title ‘A Climate Change Roguelike’. It is unclear whether this is Pale Blue.

In recent years, SWR has repeatedly positioned itself as a pioneer in games among German public broadcasters. In 2023 (in German), SWR published a chat-based ‘Tatort’ spin-off game. The VR experience ‘Blautopf VR’, which was nominated for several awards, was published in 2020 and the episodic game ‘Die Geschichte des Südwestens’ in 2015, to name just a few examples.