Netflix releases Thronglets game tied to Black Mirror ‘Plaything’ episode

Netflix has released a very strange simulation game called Thronglets that is tied to the new Black Mirror Season 7 episode called Plaything.

It’s a simple game based on retro graphics where you grow your small animals dubbed Thronglets in a simulation. If you watch the Plaything episode (No. 7 in the new season), you’ll understand what this game is about and what could go wrong with a simple life sim game. Like it’s simple Stranger Things games, it’s yet another bet on gaming for Netflix‘s fledgling game business.

“It’s about tamagotchi gone wrong,” said Shaun Krenkel, founder of Night School Studio, a Netflix-owned studio, which made Thronglets. Now the general manager of games, Krenkel was speaking at a secret Game Developers Conference Netflix event where Charlie Brooker, creator of the Black Mirror show on Netflix, tuned in via video call.

The Plaything episode brought back Colin Ritman (played by Will Poulter), the wacko game designer from Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, an interactive film that let viewers choose the way they wanted the plot to go. Written by Brooker and directed by David Slade, Bandersnatch debuted in 2018 as a landmark transmedia event. It won two Emmy awards. Ritman worked for Tuckersoft, which is credited for creating Thronglets, and was run by Mohan “Mo” Thakur (Asim Chaudhry), who also comes back in the new episode. A game designer named Stefan interacts with Ritman and Tuckersoft, and it doesn’t go well.

In the new Plaything episode, a once-disgraced Ritman is back in a show directed by Slade and written by Brooker again. I’ll have to spoil some of the early part of the Plaything episode here.

In the year 2034, Cameron Walker (played by Peter Capaldi) is a older man with wildly long gray hair. He is arrested for theft and the police find that he’s wanted for murder. Under interrogation, he faces a cynical detective James Nelson Joyce (DCI Kano) and a more humane psychotherapist named Michele Austin (Jen Minter). To explain himself and the crime, Walker takes us back to 1994, when the young Walker (Lewis Gribben) was reviewing games for a video game magazine (remember those?).

Ritman invites the young Walker, a kind of neurodiverse game reviewer who is awkward with people, to come visit Tuckersoft and review his new game. Walker goes over and Ritman is rude as ever, noting that Walker “lacks confidence” in real life but is “strident” in writing and now is like “someone who is ashamed they exist.” Walker is sheepish but Ritman says it is a rational response in a terrifying world.

Ritman claims that his new work isn’t a game at all, but he has to call it that so marketers will know what to do with it. Rather than having a bunch of conflict, as most games have, this game is simply about life and raising your Thronglets and letting them multiply.

“You can’t control them,” Ritman tells Walker. “These are living individuals.”

Then he shows Walker the game, which is Thronglets. Walker steals the disc and takes it home and becomes obsessed with raising his little creatures. Then the usual dark Black Mirror vibes take over, the usual Black Mirror things happen, and before you know it, the episode fades to black.

In the game, you start out with a single Thronglet and your goal is to take care of them. You can feed them an apple, wash them with a sponge, or entertain them with a beach ball. If you succeed, then the Thronglets multiply, doubling each time. It’s a kind of addictive sim game, but you kind of know that it’s not going to go the direction of a tamagotchi game. I’ll leave it at that.

The new season of Black Mirror debuts today, with the episode No. 7 Plaything. And you can get the game today too. That’s pretty cool transmedia from Netflix, and it shows that it’s still one of the only companies that can release a TV show and a game about the same subject on the same day.

The creators describe the episode and game

“It is a very non-traditional game, and it’s been a dream of ours to work on something like this,” Krenkel said.

It started years ago when Krenkel, who was a fan of Bandersnatch, had pitched a game to Brooker. Brooker turned it down, but it gave Krenkel an opening to pitch again later. When he heard about the Playthings episode coming back with a game industry narrative, Krenkel made the pitch.

This time, it was accepted, and they managed to break the fourth wall again, this time by making a game in real life based on a game in a TV show.

“The thing about Black Mirror is you can’t just do a standard sort of game, right? It has to have some element that is unexpected,” Brooker said. “And have quite disturbing, dark things happening. That was when it really started feeding back into the episode itself, and the creatures themselves.”

Krenkel said, “It was super fun….There is a game that looks like it could be Lemmings or an early life sim. But it has a lot more under the hood that happens.”

He noted that the game and show teams went back and forth inspiring each other.

He said he wants you to care about your throng in the game, and it will take you in interesting directions as you play it.