What do you think about Netflix using Twine for IF video?

Netflix is making interactive videos now (and buying older ones like Minecraft Story Mode). The Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch uses Twine. I haven’t seen it. Is it good?

I had no idea it was made with Twine! That’s fantastic news for IF. I haven’t seen it yet as I’ve spent very little time at home this week, but I can’t wait!

I haven’t watched it yet either, but plan to soon.

Wired has an article with a bit more detail about how it was made:

wired.com/story/black-mirro … e-episode/

From the Daily Mail here’s a piece showing the story structure as a CYOA-style flowchart:

dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a … dings.html

Note both of the above linked articles have spoilers, especially and most obviously the second one. Read at your peril before you watch the episode!

I haven’t watched it either, but Carl Muckenhoupt* has some interesting thoughts on it, with some inside information from working on another Netflix interactive video: http://www.wurb.com/stack/archives/5646.

*aka baf, author of The Gostak and a Cragne Manor room and a bunch of other group projects and stuff.

Folks wanting to watch it may run into problems, depending on what device they use to view Netflix. Eg for us it won’t run on our Apple TV or iPad Netflix apps (both pre iOS 11, so not quite up to date enough). I’m going to try my Mac desktop another day! Meanwhile here is the official Netflix tech specs advice: help.netflix.com/en/node/62526

I just re-joined Netflix to give this a try. Bandersnatch works well on my 2017 iPad 10" (non pro version).

Very interesting. I hope this is a shot in the arm for IF.

I could totally see Her Story adapted for Netflix.

Sam Barlow already works with Eko, another “interactive movie” company, so I’m sure he’s already got plans. :slight_smile:

Emily Short recently linked to an upcoming Eko project called Timeline. youtube.com/watch?v=kyxsIyR7b60

I’ve seen/played it. If you like Black Mirror, it’s very Black Mirrorish. The story suited the interactive format. It wasn’t clear quite which bits were the “endings” but I think I found about four.

Some of the choices felt restricted: you can do Thing A or Thing B, but neither is a choice you’d be likely to make and the choice you probably want isn’t one of them. I’m sure this is by design, though.

Mild spoiler

Some of the endings were incompatible with each other - that is, they couldn’t have branched off from the same universe as a result of a choice made during the episode. I think that’s ok.

I’d have liked it more if I hadn’t got a bit sick of Black Mirror already. It’s not one of its most gratuitously horrible episodes, but by the end I felt like I was unsuccessfully trying to stop it turning into a typical Black Mirror episode.

I watched it this evening and loved it. It could’ve been written for me.

[spoiler]ZX Spectrum games, Brutalist architecture, mid-century modern furniture, analogue synthesiser music, lsd, meditations on the nature of reality, parallel timelines, conspiracy theories, weird sci-fi novels and novelists — has someone been peeking at my Christmas list?

Oh — And Midget Gems! I grew up on those![/spoiler]

via Twine News there’s an interview with Charlie Booker on the Empire Film Podcast.

The interview is a bit shy of half an hour: it runs from about 28:00 through 52:00. They discuss sugary cereals for a couple minutes at the beginning: the discussion of Bandersnatch starts at 30:12, and the whiteboard/flowchart-software/Twine progression is mentioned around 32:00.

Edit: It’s interesting how slapdash this guy is: “I very rarely do any research into what I’m writing about; I just don’t. Because half the time you read things that tell you why the idea you had was rubbish or wouldn’t happen. So I just don’t research things; I’m just lazy.”

Also the bit about "I looked at it [Twine] and I thought “I don’t-- I can’t-- I don’t don’t have the lifespan to learn how to-- I’m no longer young enough to-- I’m gonna die before I learn how to do that.” and then him talking about how he went ahead and learned it anyway, that was interesting.