If you haven’t yet watched the newest interactive episode of Netflix’s hit show Black Mirror, you will have at least seen everybody raving about it across your social feeds.
The episode, titled ‘Bandersnatch’, dropped on Netflix in December, amidst rumors that the rest of Season 5 will air early this year.
‘Bandersnatch’ is essentially a modern, dystopian twist on ‘choose your own adventure’ style games, as it allows you to make a number of choices throughout the episode, with the ending varying depending on your decisions.
The episode is an hour and a half long, and I was able to get to around five different endings during that time. Without giving anything away, I can confirm all of the endings were pretty depressing, as is characteristic of Black Mirror.
The episode is undoubtedly really cool, but what made it all possible? A free web resource called Twine, designed by Chris Klimas back in 2009.
Charlie Brooker spoke exclusively to magazine Wired, explaining how he was able to create the episode using the tool, stating that he essentially chucked any episode ending ideas into boxes, and was then able to move them around in order to make various chains of events which viewers could follow along.
Available on MacOS, Windows and even just the bog standard world wide web, the software is apparently incredibly easy to use. So maybe the rest of us can get our act together and create our very own ‘Bandersnatch’ style episode, pitch it to Netflix and make millions? We can dream.
Seriously though, it’s pretty cool that Brooker was able to create such an interesting and interactive episode using a free resource that literally any of us can access. I doubt the rest of us have his level of genius when it comes to creating the actual storylines though.
For more in the freaky world of Black Mirror, Miley Cyrus has revealed that she will star in one of the upcoming season’s episodes.
