The Case for Invisibility: Understanding and Improving Agency in Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch and Other Interactive Digital Narrative Works

Abstract

With the launch and popularity of Bandersnatch (2018), interactive storytelling reached a mass audience in a different way to earlier works. However, as a narrative experience, Bandersnatch belongs to a particular class of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs): highly restrictive, nonlinear, branching structure films that offer limited agency and, in many ways, have less to offer than more sophisticated IDNs. While the simple format is appealing to new audiences, there is clearly scope for improvement. In this paper, Bandersnatch is examined as a representative of its format in an attempt to identify alternative design choices for improved agency, as well as assessing the choices’ suitability for the format. The methodology for the analysis is Hartmut Koenitz’s SPP model as well as its extension, the hermeneutic strip, which is applied to understand and assess the experienced agency. The final reflection on alternative design recommendations for Bandersnatch type works demonstrates that, by implementing features of invisible agency, the overall feeling of control of the player could be improved without losing narrative momentum. The improvements could be achieved by maintaining state of the behavioural tendencies (e.g., risk-taking behaviour) of the audience in their decision-making process and screening plotlines or endings that match their assessed tendencies.