Black Mirror - Bandersnatch. SPOILERS INSIDE!!

stickyfiddle

**THERE WILL BE SPOILERS BELOW - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**

Anyone else seen/played yet? 

Some excellent meta stuff, overall enjoyed it. Classic BM-style ending.

Overall I thought very interesting, if slightly lacklustre in the end. I'm not sure whether it's just me putting my "gamer brain" on and seeing how it works from a technical point of view. It didn't feel like branching paths to me - more a case of trial & error, turning back whenever you got a "bad" ending, until you got the right one - I don't *think* you could have got to the intended ending straight through with options offered first time round. 

soma1975

That's exactly what we all used to do with the choose your own adventure books though. If anything it's another level on top of it all. I thought it was a masterpiece of storytelling. Forget the 'cleverness' aspect of it. 

stickyfiddle

Definitely agree it was decent storytelling, even if I'm not convinced the mechanism was any more than a gimmick. 

There's already conspiracies on reddit with people trying to find secret extra endings using different phone numbers... Only 10,000 options, so I'm guessing a chunky group of people will find everything within a week. Unless there's a specific combination of other triggers you also have to hit to get there.

sinbaadi

I liked it.  I thought there was a great story trying to break out of the format and found that frustrating at times.  I just wanted to watch it and the "back to the start" thing got a little tired.

soma1975

stickyfiddle said:

Definitely agree it was decent storytelling, even if I'm not convinced the mechanism was any more than a gimmick. 

There's already conspiracies on reddit with people trying to find secret extra endings using different phone numbers... Only 10,000 options, so I'm guessing a chunky group of people will find everything within a week. Unless there's a specific combination of other triggers you also have to hit to get there.

You're right of course but I hate that sort of bollocks. Completely stops it from being a personal story/journey. Not in the spirit of the medium at all. You got (maybe) a personalised experience of the story. Not everything needs to be gamified and 'clocked'. 

Bezzer

stickyfiddle said:

It didn't feel like branching paths to me - more a case of trial & error, turning back whenever you got a "bad" ending, until you got the right one - I don't *think* you could have got to the intended ending straight through with options offered first time round. 

That was covered I thought though with a comment while discussing building the game "I decided to only apply the illusion of free choice with all decisions made eventually leading to the same conclusion".

I loved it though, thought it was a great experience.

stickyfiddle

Bezzer said:

stickyfiddle said:

It didn't feel like branching paths to me - more a case of trial & error, turning back whenever you got a "bad" ending, until you got the right one - I don't *think* you could have got to the intended ending straight through with options offered first time round. 

That was covered I thought though with a comment while discussing building the game "I decided to only apply the illusion of free choice with all decisions made eventually leading to the same conclusion".

I loved it though, thought it was a great experience.

Yes, I think you're right. Essentially the whole thing is a double-meta thing (possibly triple, depending on your ending). 

It was good fun to go through, but I don't think it's the future of movies or games.

ThePrettyDamned

stickyfiddle said:

Bezzer said:

stickyfiddle said:

It didn't feel like branching paths to me - more a case of trial & error, turning back whenever you got a "bad" ending, until you got the right one - I don't *think* you could have got to the intended ending straight through with options offered first time round. 

That was covered I thought though with a comment while discussing building the game "I decided to only apply the illusion of free choice with all decisions made eventually leading to the same conclusion".

I loved it though, thought it was a great experience.

Yes, I think you're right. Essentially the whole thing is a double-meta thing (possibly triple, depending on your ending). 

It was good fun to go through, but I don't think it's the future of movies or games.

It's a nifty idea, but not sure how useful it truly is. 

It's already in games though - like beyond: two souls, which is more like a movie than a game. Very popular though - I can't stand playing those games, but I quite enjoy watching others play them. 

fields5069

It was meh. I almost didn't believe my daughter at the start, until I made the choice.

So the idea was good, but the execution wasn't that good.

An interesting first step, though.

dafuzz

Generally Brooker seems to get really good inspiration for these bm things, but then just seems to scupper the ideas somehow midway through

Making the game a metaphor for the story, pointing out how difficult it is to do the twisty-turny stuff, then giving itself a lukewarm review at the end made me wince a bit

At least there didn't seem to be a gaping plot hole is this episode

In retrospect I'd rather have spent the time on a game proper, or just watched some telly

not_the_dj

Watched/played it last night. Enjoyed the process, and went back a few times to see various endings. Looking at the flow diagrams that are cropping up online I still missed a couple. 

PolarityMan

The mechansim was a distraction, the clues were all of the place. The prominence of the eye and lock symbol on the book, the whole P.A.C thing. If you use wireshark you can see that during the phone number sequence encrypted packets are transmitted to the following endpoint: https://bit.ly/2CFdqfi

There is also no terms and condition link on this video on netflix, unlike any other program.

octatonic

Very quick post because I am watching it (and avoiding reading the thread)
This is simply excellent and a real leap forward.

octatonic

Oh and this is already a thing:

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3845935-frosties-or-sugar-puffs

stickyfiddle

octatonic said:

Oh and this is already a thing:

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3845935-frosties-or-sugar-puffs

I can see this becoming a meme... 

octatonic

Oh wow, oh wow.... 'Give me a fucking sign'.
This is just killer.

stickyfiddle

octatonic said:

Oh wow, oh wow.... 'Give me a fucking sign'.
This is just killer.

That was the bit I really enjoyed.

octatonic

Yes                       Fuck Yeah

monquixote

I enjoyed it a lot. I missed the chop up ending so I may need to watch it again.

FarleyUK

Really enjoyed it, very cleverly done.

Also - the end scene with him on the bus and the nostalgic noises of the Spectrum game loading? If you run that through an emulator, you actually can play the game.....

(No idea how you get it into an emulator personally, although people have managed to do it).

stickyfiddle

FarleyUK said:

Really enjoyed it, very cleverly done.

Also - the end scene with him on the bus and the nostalgic noises of the Spectrum game loading? If you run that through an emulator, you actually can play the game.....

(No idea how you get it into an emulator personally, although people have managed to do it).

The sound *is* the code - the Spectrum ran code provided on cassette tapes