multipass for the multiverse?

I watched that recent Black Mirror episode called Bandersnatch. It uses the ideas from adventure games, where occasional selections are made to move to the next segment. I recollect some DVDs used a similar technology years ago to provide branching in their storyline.

Before that there were the comics and early games.

I particularly remember Day of the Tentacle, which when first released had above average cartoony graphics. The screen grab above is from the remastered version where the graphics and controls were given a boost.

Set in about 1982, the story telling and characterisations in Bandersnatch are fairly basic. Above all, at various points the same acting has to be able to branch to sometimes completely different forms of next scene. The underlying game in the story appears to be developed on a block graphics 48K memory cassette-based Sinclair Spectrum or similar.

Curiously I found the game aspect of the show a little wearing. Very so often another pair of choices would pop up on the bottom of the screen and I'd be expected to answer within a 10 second timed loop. Frosties of Sugar Puffs? I don't really care - and you are supposed to be telling the story anyway. There was subtlety in the clips though, with sometimes minor changes depending on where it appeared in the timeline. Then later choices seemed to be about the continuation or ending of individual characters (Keep 'em alive or kill 'em off). Not the most finessed approach, shall we say.

The main story also seemed to run with a route similar to IKEA short-cut maps. There's occasional short cuts or parallel paths in the Black Mirror episode, but they all loop and swoop along fundamentally similar paths until near to the end.

Being penned by Charlie Brooker, there was an additional meta-level about the ghosts trapped in the machine, which added some intrigue as well as slightly borrowing from a couple of his other stories. In other words there was a proper 'black Mirror' level of thought introduced.

I'm glad it has been done but sense that, much like that augmented reality episode of Mr Robot, it is also very much an experiment with the format.

Perhaps this version is like an early adaptation of something that will become genuinely clever beyond the mere ability to do it. I'm not sure though. I'll go out to see and participate in, say, a Punchdrunk show with promenade and apparent audience 'free-will'. Less sure that I want my routine entertainment dished up in this manner?


As a quick example, the also new TV series about office cleaners stealing insider trading secrets seems to have more character development and plot-lines in its linear 45 minute episode.

It makes me wonder who will be able to write much more than 1st person shooter style action into these multiverse shows?