Stefan is a 19 years old who woke up one day on 9th, July of 1984 reading a narrative called Bandersnatch by Jerome F. Davies, it was his mom’s favorite novel, so he decided to design a game by the same name and idea; when you can choose what will happen to your character, programming different paths and different endings. Through this process, he’s questioning his free of will and control over his destiny, the same reason that led the author Jerome F. Davies to kill his wife and beheaded her. If you ever wondered if Jerome F. was a real person/writer? No, he wasn’t! He’s a fictional character although I’m not sure about the game Bndersnatch. According to some articles I read, they did say it exist back in the eighties in another name or form but it never been released. Now, we must also know that Stefan felt guilty all his life about letting his moms catch a late train that night when he was five years old kid, he believe its because of him she died. You will definitely discover that in the interactive choices that’s given to you, when you choose Yes, to talk a bout it.
I loved watching this, really, its dark and authentic, I told myself oh god I’m stupid because I wasn’t close enough to hear the numbers which lead me to let Stefan die in another timeline with his mom, here I am to my very own first ending. I was shocked at first, is that it? No, It cant be, I’m really dumb because I just missed typing the number when he discovered his father is a bad government agent and Stefan is Program & Control study victim! But later, he was in jail again and that wasn’t really the way or at least a better ending based on my standards. There’s no right or wrong, there’s choices and there’s a better choice indeed. I spent all day long figuring out new paths and what it may leads me to, its a game within a game. You’re choosing what will happen to Stefan, or what he will do and which music he listen to although you really don’t have much of choice over your film/game ending but you can think of a more complex programming or story, how it will look like? it’s really fascinating! Lets back to whats this article about, here’s a diagram stating all the possibilities and endings to this film in the same classic maps that have two possibilities symbol.
I somehow neglect options that didn’t have significant change, for example the cereals choice at the begging it didn’t change something obvious but the one you already choose comes as an advertisement later so technically in programming there’s two different paths from the first choice but it didn’t effect my story, its just a matter of taste. Enjoy and happy Christmas to all of you!
Heimstätte 