Some of the programmers of Bandersnatch did release Gift From The Gods from the ashes of Bandersnatch - which I definitely had on my Spectrum! But it was very confusing - https://www.crashonline.org.uk/13/giftgod.htm
This 1984 documentary from the BBC archive covers Imagine's growth & demise, must have been a great visual reference for Brooker making the show, and the top comment has some more detail on Imagine's hiring spree - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buuUZFh_pyk also also check out 4:30 or so, where they show the game and the device that will "eventually be reduced to a small cartridge and sold with the game"!!
Also also the name Ritman is probably a reference to Jon Ritman, programmer of the brilliant Head Over Heels. But he was nothing to do with Imagine. He still gives interviews and seems lovely.
Years later that game was turned into a DVD film by choosing specific story paths. You can find it online at ok.ru, but don't click that link without a really, really strong adblocker. The Russian site tries to install malware. https://ok.ru/video/3334939150907
laserdiscs were a weird 70s/80s analog optical video disc technology where many players had a db-9 serial port for a serial control protocol. dragon's lair was a classic stand up video game cabinet with a laserdisc player and a simple control system that created a "choose your own adventure" interface for the video content.
some of the first computer programs i ever wrote were atari st programs for controlling a laserdisc player. (we had one in elementary school)
If you're a Philip K. Dick-head, you might enjoy the episodes of the podcast Weird Studies which cover his life and work.
The hosts often focus on his Exegesis, mentioned in the article. It feels like a privilege to hear two very smart academics engage in longform discussion - in which they're unconstrained, and clearly having genuine fun - about Dick's work.
More broadly, the non-Dick episodes are also wonderful, and often cover the kind of art I typically see discussed here.
You can dip in for times they cover work you love already, to hear their interesting (and academically, often quite new) perspectives on your favourites, or listen from the start, chronologically, as a kind of curriculum in the weird. Which I found to be an incredibly useful thing.
I visited Psygnosis in the early days, we sold them an Internet connection. Hard to describe the kind of creative energy emanating from their building. Such talent.
I wanted to re-watch this on Netflix but it seems they removed it some time ago and have no plans to bring it back. It seems the interactivity features were obsoleted from their app platform as they were hard to support?
My kid loved that interactive Bear Grylls stuff, still talks about it sometimes (what his wrong choices were etc.) Sometimes I think they kill this stuff before it get mainstream. Also, some way to control via the TV, or Chromecast may have made this more popular.
I remember Bear Grills "You vs. Wild" as one of the most well-known interactive shows. It's strange it's never mentioned in articles about interactive Netflix features.
But surely Netflix could have setup 1 to 3 of the "best" variants of the Bandersnatch and let people watch those? Even a "directors cut" based on how the director chose the path, would suffice.
The content is entirely gone right now. Which is pretty tragic as it was excellent.
It's a pity Brooker didn't have some residual IP control so it could have been republished elsewhere. I honestly think it was a little masterpiece that deserved to be saved.
That was a standalone piece though, rather than some sort of trend. The choose-your-own nature of it was integral to the story and referential to the contemporary books which were CYO.
Your theory fits fine with “We’re not going to make a series like this or turn it into a genre”, but not so well with “we already made this thing and it was really popular, but we’ve decided to take it off the platform”
Probably couldn't find anyone willing to put their job on the line to maintain it. Netflix culture is big on chasing "impact" and other subjective metrics. Putting your hand up to maintain legacy only used by a small group of users is a good way to get yourself absolutely slaughtered even if the thing was liked. IIRC they had a sports quote which summarizes this better.
A shame it can't be viewed anymore, it has all the makings of a cult classic.
The guy who coded the actual Nohzdyve game (that runs on real ZX Spectrum hardware) is Matt Westcott aka Gasman. He's a demoscener and has made some brilliant speccie demos. https://demozoo.org/sceners/5879/
This has the same vibe I get from tech-sphere articles. The number of people who've read The Jabberwocky dwarfs this "interactive feature". Reading this article outside of the context it was written makes it sound tone-deaf
This is such a fascinating & personally inspiring time for me as a programmer.
The real game Bandersnatch (as a business folly) was something else - the "coming soon" advert from just before Imagine's bankruptcy would probably ring an alarm bell now - https://nosher.net/archives/computers/imagine_eugeneevans_yo...
Some of the programmers of Bandersnatch did release Gift From The Gods from the ashes of Bandersnatch - which I definitely had on my Spectrum! But it was very confusing - https://www.crashonline.org.uk/13/giftgod.htm
This 1984 documentary from the BBC archive covers Imagine's growth & demise, must have been a great visual reference for Brooker making the show, and the top comment has some more detail on Imagine's hiring spree - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buuUZFh_pyk also also check out 4:30 or so, where they show the game and the device that will "eventually be reduced to a small cartridge and sold with the game"!!
Also also the name Ritman is probably a reference to Jon Ritman, programmer of the brilliant Head Over Heels. But he was nothing to do with Imagine. He still gives interviews and seems lovely.
How did they miss Night Trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Trap from the list? It was "so terrifying" that Congress had a hearing to ban it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJVnL484jbk
Years later that game was turned into a DVD film by choosing specific story paths. You can find it online at ok.ru, but don't click that link without a really, really strong adblocker. The Russian site tries to install malware. https://ok.ru/video/3334939150907
the classic was dragon's lair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Lair_(1983_video_ga...
laserdiscs were a weird 70s/80s analog optical video disc technology where many players had a db-9 serial port for a serial control protocol. dragon's lair was a classic stand up video game cabinet with a laserdisc player and a simple control system that created a "choose your own adventure" interface for the video content.
some of the first computer programs i ever wrote were atari st programs for controlling a laserdisc player. (we had one in elementary school)
If you're a Philip K. Dick-head, you might enjoy the episodes of the podcast Weird Studies which cover his life and work.
The hosts often focus on his Exegesis, mentioned in the article. It feels like a privilege to hear two very smart academics engage in longform discussion - in which they're unconstrained, and clearly having genuine fun - about Dick's work.
More broadly, the non-Dick episodes are also wonderful, and often cover the kind of art I typically see discussed here.
You can dip in for times they cover work you love already, to hear their interesting (and academically, often quite new) perspectives on your favourites, or listen from the start, chronologically, as a kind of curriculum in the weird. Which I found to be an incredibly useful thing.
I'm not associated in any way, just a fan, and think a lot of users here would enjoy it: https://www.weirdstudies.com/10
I visited Psygnosis in the early days, we sold them an Internet connection. Hard to describe the kind of creative energy emanating from their building. Such talent.
>Hard to describe
But why not try? It is history, and you are a unique witness of it
I'd love to hear stories about Psygnosis or DMA Design. To this day my favorite game of theirs is Walker, followed closely by Infestation.
Fantastically fun when it was released.
I wanted to re-watch this on Netflix but it seems they removed it some time ago and have no plans to bring it back. It seems the interactivity features were obsoleted from their app platform as they were hard to support?
> as they were hard to support?
X to doubt. The tech worked fine. The real issue is that nobody wants choose-your-own-adventure TV, which has been proven again and again.
My kid loved that interactive Bear Grylls stuff, still talks about it sometimes (what his wrong choices were etc.) Sometimes I think they kill this stuff before it get mainstream. Also, some way to control via the TV, or Chromecast may have made this more popular.
I remember Bear Grills "You vs. Wild" as one of the most well-known interactive shows. It's strange it's never mentioned in articles about interactive Netflix features.
I see.
But surely Netflix could have setup 1 to 3 of the "best" variants of the Bandersnatch and let people watch those? Even a "directors cut" based on how the director chose the path, would suffice.
The content is entirely gone right now. Which is pretty tragic as it was excellent.
> The content is entirely gone right now.
It's officially gone, but you can acquire the raw video through other means and plug it into this open source reimplementation of the frontend: https://mehotkhan.github.io/BandersnatchInteractive/
It's a pity Brooker didn't have some residual IP control so it could have been republished elsewhere. I honestly think it was a little masterpiece that deserved to be saved.
That was a standalone piece though, rather than some sort of trend. The choose-your-own nature of it was integral to the story and referential to the contemporary books which were CYO.
Your theory fits fine with “We’re not going to make a series like this or turn it into a genre”, but not so well with “we already made this thing and it was really popular, but we’ve decided to take it off the platform”
Netflix did try to turn it into a genre, they made a few dozen CYOA specials before giving up.
https://www.polygon.com/22286070/netflix-interactive-shows-m...
Probably couldn't find anyone willing to put their job on the line to maintain it. Netflix culture is big on chasing "impact" and other subjective metrics. Putting your hand up to maintain legacy only used by a small group of users is a good way to get yourself absolutely slaughtered even if the thing was liked. IIRC they had a sports quote which summarizes this better.
A shame it can't be viewed anymore, it has all the makings of a cult classic.
The guy who coded the actual Nohzdyve game (that runs on real ZX Spectrum hardware) is Matt Westcott aka Gasman. He's a demoscener and has made some brilliant speccie demos. https://demozoo.org/sceners/5879/
There is a way, if you manage to procure the video file from some shady site
https://mehotkhan.github.io/BandersnatchInteractive/
Copyright in service of commercial interest is such a cancer, rotting away human culture. God bless anyone who disregards it.
Colin Ritman is so Demis Hassabis.
This has the same vibe I get from tech-sphere articles. The number of people who've read The Jabberwocky dwarfs this "interactive feature". Reading this article outside of the context it was written makes it sound tone-deaf