People have found a hidden video game in ‘Bandersnatch’

The retro game, Nohzdyve, appears in the film

December 302018

There’s been a bit of a debate about how to categorise Charlie Brooker’s latest creation, the Black Mirror film Bandersnatch. Is it a film? Is it a game? With interactive choices that decide the actions of the characters, it’s hard to tell. What some particularly inquisitive viewers have found, though, is that there definitely is a game hidden at the end of Bandersnatch.

A loading noise made by a ZX Spectrum, the computer used by the show’s protagonist Stefan (whose life people have been ruining with their choices) can be heard at the end of the film. Some people immediately recognised this as the sound made by code being played back on cassette tapes and, on further investigation, it turned out that – with a bit of conversion – it could be downloaded onto the console and actually played.

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Hey presto, Nohzdyve running on a recently reincarnated ZX Spectrum! Actually, there was a loading error at the end, just to add authenticity to the experience...but it ran fine anyway pic.twitter.com/xc5q0puVjX
— Simon (@SimonWad) December 29, 2018

The game that appeared was Nohzdhyve, one being worked on in Bandersnatch by the famous coder Colin Ritman. Since the discovery, game developer Matt Wescott has actually admitted that he was responsible for the easter egg (in the real world).

Read Wescott’s whole process (and a bit of extra Bandersnatch info) below.

Without getting too spoilery... a post-credits scene shows the main character listening to a tape marked "Bandersnatch Demo", consisting of screechy electronic noise. pic.twitter.com/tV5bp3ZCU9
— Matt Westcott (@gasmanic) December 29, 2018

("Aha, you youngsters don't recognise that this is clearly a dialup modem tone!" they say with misplaced confidence to their slightly-younger cousins.)
— Matt Westcott (@gasmanic) December 29, 2018

This QR code takes you to the hidden Tuckersoft website, where, amongst other things, you can download and play the actual Spectrum version of Nohzdyve, a game seen earlier in the show. pic.twitter.com/cEPAuGWKDY
— Matt Westcott (@gasmanic) December 30, 2018

It's more than a little bit weird to be getting paid work doing ZX Spectrum stuff in 2018, but it's been a real blast working on this, and keeping a secret for the last 4 months while the whole world is fighting over the smallest scrap of leaked info :-)
— Matt Westcott (@gasmanic) December 30, 2018