alt Hacker News'Bandersnatch': The Works That Inspired the 'Black Mirror' Interactive Feature (2019)
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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.
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?
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/
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
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.