In an interesting, undeniably clever move, one of the fictional games featured in Black Mirror Bandersnatch is actually playable if you’re willing to take a few extra steps.
Black Mirror Bandersnatch is Netflix’s recently released choose-your-own-adventure interactive movie. The controversial film features a fictional video game studio called Tuckersoft that aims to produce hit titles with the goal of the company’s developers becoming rich and of course, famous. Netflix even created a real, era-appropriate website for Tuckersoft.
As a cool Easter Egg, one particular title featured in the film called Nohzdyve (Nosedive), is playable right now.
Staying true to the 1980s period the film is set in, Nohzdyve is only playable with a ZX Spectrum emulator. In Nohzdyve, you take control of a blocky character as it falls down a never-ending gap between two building while popping as many balloons as possible and avoiding walls, air conditioners and other pixelated objects.
Though the ZX Spectrum was a household name in the U.K. given it was one of the first computers to reach mainstream popularity in the region, to my knowledge it was never officially released in North America. Instead, the Commodore 64 reigned supreme in the 1980s in both the U.S. and Canada.
There are a variety of ZX Spectrum emulators out there, with Fuse probably being the most intuitive to use. You can download Nohzdyve here and Fuse here.
