Based on the execution of the five elements of narrative in the film-game Bandersnatch, I would give it a very positive review. I think that the plot was laid out very well from the beginning of the story. Early in the movie we learn that the story is about creating a game, and making decisions on how to do so. It is kept very engaging by incorporating mental health struggles into the plot line, as well as the part about figuring out the situation behind Stefan’s mother’s death.
The main character, Stefan, is also characterized very well throughout the story. Right from the start, we get the sense that he’s quite reserved and distant, both from his father and the world around him. This isolationist attitude stays around throughout the rest of the story, eventually leading him to losing his mind. Based on the way his character was set up, Stefan’s emotional progression made perfect sense.
Building off of characterization, this leads into the theme of the film. What I got out of it the most was the idea that keeping everything inside your own mind is extremely detrimental to your well-being, both physically and emotionally. It shows the importance of taking care of yourself and connecting to those around you to get through tough times. In addition to this theme, it explores the fascinating idea of whether or not we are in charge of our own choices, or if there’s a web of fate that was predetermined for us.
The setting of the film was utilized well in respect to the action occurring in the storyline. The moments from where Stefan is on a bus in the city, to when him and Colin are jumping off of an extremely high balcony work well in advancing the story. It seems that the city setting provides just what is needed to maintain flow and interest.
Finally, the style was maintained very well throughout the story. Right from the start we get that angsty teenager kind of vibe, and this style largely affects the way that we perceive the world through Stefan. The world appears quite dark to him, and his agitation frequently shows through, creating the heavy mood of the film.

Cat Adventure begins when you wake up one morning as a cat, and begin to explore this new perspective of life. You get up and analyze both yourself and your surroundings. Rather than freaking out because you’re a cat, you are instead excited to take on this new form. You’re happy to escape your responsibilities and live it up instead.

Once you get off of your bed, you walk around the room you’re in and have the option to either jump on the sofa, or walk over to the other side of the room. If you jump on the sofa you can look out the window, and yearn for the great outdoors as you admire the beauty of the sunrise. You wish to feel the grass under your feet, and the wind in your fur. Your options afterward are either to go explore the room as could be done earlier, or proceed down a hallway you see. If you choose to go back and explore the room, you notice a cat tree. Here you have a choice of three different options: you can claw at the scratching post, climb to the top and observe the room from new heights, or jump into a carpeted house and take a nap. If you choose to go to the scratching post, you release your energy and find how good it feels to sharpen your claws. If you climb to the top of the tree, you get to feel what it’s like to be the same height as a human again. Finally, if you decide to take a nap, you see just how much sleep the life of a cat entails. Regardless of what option you select, you end up going back to the room, and then making your way over to the hallway.

You walk down the hallway, eventually reaching the kitchen. You walk around and find your food bowl, noticing that it’s empty. Right after this, you hear a noise coming from above you, and you hear footsteps. You draw the conclusion that this house has a second floor, and that your owner is coming downstairs. Your owner comes into the kitchen, and you analyze them, wondering what you should do and how to react. Here you get to choose whether you play with your owner and show affection, or run under the kitchen table and hide. Either way, your owner ends up putting food in your bowl and leaving the room. You go and eat your food, and once you’ve finished, your owner comes back into the kitchen and opens a door leading outside. You see your chance and you make a run for it. Before your owner has the chance to stop you and close the door, you dart out through the crack and into the outdoors. Once you’re outside, you must choose whether to turn left or right, which takes you on two different paths with varying conflicts to face.

If you turn left, your exploration of the streets is interrupted by a big dog. The dog sees you and starts chasing you, and you are again faced with a decision of what the best course of action would be. You can either run straight home and get away relatively easily, or you can run and hide in the nearest bush. From within the bush you would wait out the dog for a couple of hours – just to be safe – and head back home. If you make a right immediately from the doorway, you run into a family on the street: a child and their parents. They are all excited to see you, and the child approaches you to pick you up. You have the option of either scratching the child, or letting them pick you up. If you scratch the child, then your owner hears the screaming and crying coming from outside and comes to bring you back into the house. If you allow the child to pick you up, then they start carrying you away to take you home. After a while of struggling, you squirm your way out of their arms and run off, again returning back to your house. Regardless of which course of action you take, you end up back home in your bed, with the realization that a quiet day in at home beats the craziness of the outside world. You are thankful to be home and enjoying the simple things in life, like admiring the beautiful view out of a giant window from the safety of your own place.

Pitch #1

Plot: You wake up with amnesia and explore the world around you in an attempt to figure out who you are. You go through various items, and talk to people who help you piece things together. As you look through things, you realize you work at a veterinary clinic – and you are late! You rush to work, and find that you were able to drive to work with a GPS. When you arrive, you don’t remember your coworker nor what you did there. Your coworkers ask you to complete a surgery on a pet in need of immediate medical attention. You must make a choice of what to do – attempt to perform the surgery despite not remembering how, or admitting that you forgot everything.

Character: You play the main character who needs to piece their life back together. Besides them, there are family members and friends who you speak to. They may be there just over text conversations or phone calls, or they meet you in person. You also interact with your coworkers as you go about your workplace.

Theme: What does it mean to be human and have relationships with others? If someone were to forget everything about themselves, would they still be them, and would the people in their life be able to maintain a relationship under the circumstances? This game would make the player question what it means to be yourself, and whether simple logical tasks or emotional connections play a role in finding the answer. Additionally, the game concerns itself with moral decision making – under pressure, do you put your pride first or admit your faults?

Setting: The initial location you wake up in will be unknown to you as you have forgotten it. You will find out that it is your house, where multiple clues will be hidden regarding your identity. After that, you head to your job at a veterinary clinic, where you find out what it is you do there.

Style: I would incorporate very casual speech, as all of the conversations occurring will happen either internally or with people close to you (even if you may not remember them).

Pitch #2

Plot: You are a detective who is working with the New York Police Department. You investigate a crime scene where the governor’s daughter has been murdered. You interview all the witnesses and family members, and arrive at the conclusion that something suspicious is going on. As the case continues, you are faced with morally difficult decisions due to the governor’s involvement in his own daughter’s murder. You find out that he killed her due to her behavior ruining his image, and to gain public sympathy. He is a great governor and a man of the people, but incredibly corrupt behind closed doors. You must decide whether to take him down to get justice for the girl, or to let it go for the sake of the people.

Characters: You, the detective, are the main character. You have an assistant, and your boss is the chief of police. Other characters include the interviewees at the scene of the crime: the governor, his secretary, and his son. The governor is well loved by the community and creates good policies, but treats his family terribly. Another important character, despite her death, is his daughter, as she is vital to the plot. She had a negative public image due to her scandalous lifestyle, which made people question what kind of man her father was behind the scenes, harming his campaign to be re-elected. Her brother is a good person who was deeply hurt by the whole situation; he had always hated their family dynamic, but didn’t realize it would go this far.

Theme: This game forces you to question the morality of making decisions for the good of others. It explores what morality and justice really mean, as well as the paradox between true character and appearance.

Setting: The story will take place between the police station, the crime scene, and the governor’s house. The time period will be current, with the same technology available as we have now.

Style: For this storyline, I think a more formal tone would be appropriate as it is a professional matter and involves interviewing strangers in an attempt to get an honest account. It may also contain some informal speech during situations where parties become upset with each other and argue.

Pitch #3

Plot: You wake up one morning, magically having taken over the life of a cat. You spend the day exploring the world from a new perspective. You can interact with your owners, eat cat food, play with toys, etc. After a few hours of this your owner opens the door to leave, and seeing your chance to escape outside through the crack in the doorway, you make a run for it. Once outside you begin to explore, and run into trouble with people and/or other cats. The goal is to make it back home by nightfall, reunite with your owners who were worried about you, and finish the game by curling back up in your bed and falling asleep.

Characters: The main character is the cat, who controls the perspective of the game. The cat is very fun-loving and curious, as cats are often perceived to be. Supporting characters include owners, other people on the street, and other local cats in the area.

Theme: The theme I would like to get across in this game is an appreciation for the little things in life. You could have had a happy, peaceful time playing at home, but could not resist the temptation to run outside when the opportunity arose. Despite being adventurous at first, you come to the realization that the world can be a crazy place. Finding your way back home brings you back to a place of being grateful for what you already have in your everyday life.

Setting: The initial setting of the game would be waking up in a cat bed, and then exploring the house you live in. Later, the setting shifts to the outdoors as you walk through the nearby streets. Overall, however, the setting remains in one small neighborhood. The neighborhood would be suburban; not too packed with activity, but enough to keep things interesting and create room for conflict.

Style: I would make the style of this game very easygoing and light-hearted when exploring something new, keeping the pace relatively slow and relaxed. Additionally, to keep the game exciting, I would incorporate more urgent tones in moments of distress.

An IP that I’ve been super into for nearly 3 years now is BTS, a South Korean k-pop group made up of 7 members, under the a company BigHit Entertainment. They are known mainly for their music, but of course also have an abundance of on-brand merchandise. I think what makes them so compelling is their interaction with their audience, as well as the positive messages that they spread to the world. When they first started off they had a very hip-hop style, with music that focused a lot on the rise of the underdog, and chasing their dreams. Despite still being a rookie group, their songs were quite powerful and refreshing, as they differed from the classic love songs that were, and generally still are, the most popular. Right from the start they would keep logs of their progress and make videos just talking to their fanbase. I think their focus on connecting to their fans is largely what created the kind of unbelievable bond that they have with their ARMYs (the title of their fanbase, which I am proudly a part of). As they continued to grow in popularity, they maintained and even expanded their outreach. 

BTS was the first band/musical artist I ever experienced genuine emotional attachment to, likely because of how consistently they updated their status, and how genuine their interactions with each other and their audience were. I think putting your real self out there is incredibly significant nowadays, as people tend to look up to celebrities for comfort and encouragement. If they have something or someone successful to relate to, I think that can really help people. And with that I come to more present day BTS, who have now released a 4 part album focused entirely on the idea of loving yourself and embracing your individuality. I think their message has really touched many lives, and through their music, people can hear the things that they may have needed to hear the most.

I find this all incredibly fascinating, how in our new age of social media, we take so much comfort from people who we don’t know at all. It feels like we do know them, though, through the constant interaction taking place where we get to keep up with the lives of these 7 men and their inspirational story. I think another aspect that makes them so captivating (at least it definitely captivates me) is their rags to riches storyline. They show people that you can come from nothing, but if you have a true passion and put in the hard work, you can make any dream come true. Millions of people have watched them grow and improve over the years, not only in their performance, but in their character. Seeing them put everything they’ve got into bettering themselves and achieving their dreams has undoubtedly motivated me to want to do great things with my life.

The final thing that’s incredibly compelling about BTS, and perhaps the most obvious, is their performances themselves. Whether it be a music video or a live stage, they know how to put on quite a show. Not only are their songs catchy and their vocals powerful, but what sets them apart the most is most likely their dancing. The group dances create an incredibly captivating aesthetic that also really showcases their skills. I think this combination of talents being shown off at once are also a big reason for their success, and a way that they catch people’s interest. Altogether through their passion, hard work, communication, and unrelenting dedication, they are an undeniably compelling group of artists.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.