Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, the interactive Black Mirror film, follows 19-year-old aspiring game programmer Stefan as he creates a game based on a massive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure tome. Along the way, the viewer is prompted to make choices for Stefan. Some of these are trivial (“Frosties or Sugar Puffs!”), while some are key to unlocking the different endings.
As the film moves along, the choices become more dire and desperate, driving the viewer to make some increasingly horrific decisions in Stefan’s life. Naturally, things can get a bit stressful.
With about a trillion permutations of choices out there, which choices actually matter? And which will get you to see all the endings?
Luckily, dedicated Black Mirror fans created flowcharts to help viewers along the path.
[Ed. Note: Some charts contain spoilers for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch]
For those looking for as spoiler-free a flowchart as possible, Reddit user madarasi012 created a barebones guide through all of Bandersnatch. Various resolutions of it can be found on the Reddit post itself, but here’s just a quick glance of all the possible branches.
User kicos018 also created a relatively ending-spoiler free flowchart, though this one does detail the situations in which the choices arrive a little closer.
(Here’s where things get spoiler-y!)
If you don’t mind spoilers, Reddit user scrixie shared a “Not-At-All-Definite, Work-In-Progress” flowchart of all the choices in Bandersnatch, including three choices that not only steer the path of the story, but also unlock further choices ahead.
Reddit user alpine shared another flowchart. Unlike scrixie’s, it does not show choices that are dependent on previous actions, but it does show what the effects of some of the more minute choices (“Frosties or Sugar Puffs?”) have on how the game unfolds.
Almost 4 hours after release and I think I have mapped Bandersnatch. Throw tea over computer. from blackmirror
Taking elements from all these flowcharts, one can navigate to the desired Bandersnatch ending and perhaps uncover little snippets unique to each of the choices. Unfortunately, based on all the evidence collected, it seems that no matter what you do, Stefan’s in for an unhappy ending. Free will, after all, is an illusion.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is currently available on Netflix.