After spending a good amount of time with Choose Love and hearing the class discussion, I wanted to go more into why this piece of interactive media might not feel as satisfying as others. Is it by nature of the medium? The genre? The database? Our agency? Two concepts discussed in class stuck out to me about this kind of piece: the feeling of role-playing and being able to live out your “full toxicity.” When I thought of the question, Is this experience too guided? I was thinking of the limited possibilities of being able to play out your wildest fantasies by virtue of being a film that has to follow certain guidelines. For one, any choice needs to follow the plot and themes. The basic concept behind the film is that our choices impact our relationships, but you can always change decisions you made in the past. So, to follow that narrative, the creative team couldn’t necessarily create options that deviate too far from the general path because, even without hitting the undo button, you should still know that you can change your decisions. For that reason, it felt unnatural to us that there seemed to be no consequences for our actions. We could spend time with one guy and know nothing about the other, but the other random person is still open as an option, and the person we have been building rapport with doesn’t take it too hard and will always take us back. It pulls us out of the role-playing format because there is only a set number of filmed clips that must follow a specific order to make sense in the story. Thus making it easier to interact with as you only have two preset options at each decision point, but you can’t fully embody a character or another version of yourself like you could roleplay with a chatbot like Galatea. Some of the fantasy when playing games lies in being able to be your worst self and get a “bad ending.” Since you are limited by the clips keeping the story in line, you are only allowed to be as toxic as the game permits, which, by nature of the genre, is not that bad because every conclusion is a happy ending where your past faults are forgotten. Thus, by nature of the medium, we are limited by the extent to which we can interact with it, but the genre might not be the most conducive either.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was also brought up a couple of times, as it is virtually the same format as Choose Love, so it makes for a good comparison. Despite having the same limitations in what clips can be shown to you and a lack of agency in decisions, I find Bandersnatch much more satisfying in how the gameplay corresponds to the themes (at the risk of spoilers, I will try to not reveal too much). Choose Love makes it known that you can always change your mind, as Cami tells you during the fourth wall breaks, the nature of the undo button, and the option at the end to go back to the dream sequence, which is the only real decision that matters. All these factors cheapen the narrative because there are no consequences or bad endings. Bandersnatch, by virtue of its genre and themes, not only introduces consequences, but they are central to the outcome of the story. Firstly, Bandersnatch does not have an undo button, so the stakes of your choices feel much higher. Only after you die, reach an ending, or make a really important decision does it give you two options and ask if you’d like to go back and do that differently. And the decisions throughout impact your possible endings, not just one dream sequence. So by interacting, there is a way to get “good,” “bad,” and worse endings based on how you define the ambiguity, making you a much clearer agent in creating that alternate universe with this conclusion.
Not only is Choose Love simple in theme, but it’s also simple in structure. The rom-com genre has never been known to be super complicated and nuanced, so Choose Love does feed into the cheesiness while introducing new understandings of media through its technical capabilities in an approachable way, which has pros and cons for enjoyment. You can just let it play like a regular movie or be really invested in one outcome or guy, but the simplicity of creating limited agency makes viewers less invested and bored. What excited me about Bandersnatch and made me want to play with Choose Love was that the interactive nature was complex. It felt like multiple decisions led you to certain conclusions, and sometimes you were forced into making decisions you didn’t like, but that created high stakes, and as you make more decisions, you can see how that influences the world around you and your character. Similar to Choose Love, you, the spectator, do not have a physical form in this world, but you have influence over it by giving Cami advice and by puppet mastering Stefan in Bandersnatch. Like The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, by how you interact with the choices, in Bandersnatch you can almost see an insanity meter rising and falling as your decisions lead you into worse and worse circumstances, i.e., “bad endings.” We have also discussed how genres and themes of solving mysteries, like in Immortality, are very conducive to an interactive format, likely because they give the user a goal to achieve; as you continue to interact and learn more, your experience changes; and most importantly, there are clear consequences for making bad decisions. These three aspects make a story compelling. Overall, I do believe that Choose Love is an enjoyable piece of media that people should try playing with, but by nature of the genre and themes, it might not feel as satisfying of an experience, in which case I might steer you toward Black Mirror: Bandersnatch to really understand how digital mediums interact with storytelling and what they could be.
– Lia
Intermittent Mechanism 