I’m sorry, Thronglets

I think it’s safe to say that Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s dark and bizarre anthology series, should probably not be at the top of your list when it comes to places to look if you want a gaming recommendation. However, with so many of his stories based in the gaming sphere, there’s bound to be moments of genius in there, and season seven offers up a particularly good one.

Thronglets, according to the lore of Black Mirror, is the creation of Colin Ritman. At this point, he’s a recurring (and mentally unstable) character, having first appeared in the interactive spin-off Black Mirror: Bandersnatch as a developer at Tuckersoft, and he’s back with a new creation — Thronglets. It’s not a game, it’s an ‘experience’, and it’s impossibly adorable and yet somehow incredibly dark all at the same time.

Before I get into the game itself, I feel no choice but to briefly go over the events of the episode, for not other reason than it’s just just so damn good. Season seven episode four, Plaything, stars Peter Capaldi as a mentally unhinged game journalist (absolutely no parallels here) named Cameron Walker who got a chance to preview Thronglets alongside Ritman himself back in the mid-90s. After stealing an alpha copy of the game (on floppy disk, no less), he takes it home and begins his journey as overlord of a new virtual civilization that learns based on the input of the player.

After some time, an unfortunate murder, and a lot of acid (things get a little out of hand, clearly), Cameron ends up losing his mind a little bit. He builds what can only be described as a supercomputer cave, even going as far as inserting a direct port to his brain in the back of his head, and the Thronglets sort of… Take over. Far from being the overlord, Cameron ends up as their slave and conduit. The Thronglets are quite maniacal, for a bunch of cute pixel creatures.

Netflix has this uncanny ability to do just enough to earn my subscription fee, and they’ve done it again by releasing Thronglets as a standalone game that can be downloaded and played on iOS and Android through Netflix Games.

Things took a surprising turn

I have to say, it’s not like I went into this expecting a cozy gaming experience, not after having watched the episode itself. However, I wasn’t quite expecting the harrowing experience I got, with the Thronglets making me question my morality and my vocal apologies to my phone when it turned out I was a terrible ruler for this tiny world.

Everything was fine in the beginning, as most things are. My Thronglets were dividing, and I was providing. They seemed happy, and I felt like I was doing a good job of looking after them, until they began asking questions. They asked me what love was, and I accidentally taught them that it’s transactional. I’m still not entirely sure how that happened, because that’s not how I see love in real life.

Then, when a glitch appeared and I was tasked with helping the Thronglets build a bridge to get to it, things started to go wrong. I was happily using the Axe to gather wood until the Thronglets gifted me with a bug. I wish they hadn’t, because this bug was the beginning of my dark descent into the type of madness that can only be summed up with the saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

I didn’t know what the bug did, and I managed to skip over the instructions by accidentally tapping, so I aimlessly tried to use it on various items around the world. Tree? Nothing. Rock? Nothing. Thronglet? Death.

Oops.

The Thronglets were horrified. I’d just murdered one of them in broad daylight and apparently without shame. They shouted at me, but then immediately pointed out that using bones to build the bridge would probably be quicker than using wood. So now I’m not only questioning my own humanity and yelling apologies at my phone, but I’m also questioning how such adorable pixel creatures could possibly have such dark architectural designs.

Turns out, I’m a really bad ruler

Did I do this to them? They learn from me, after all, and I have always been fascinated by catacombs… I’ve since come to learn that the Thronglets tell you to use the bug on one of them, so now I just feel silly for apologizing, because it was their idea in the first place. Vindication is sweet.

I tried going back to chopping down trees for wood to build the bridge, honestly, I did. But the bones really did turn out to be quicker.

All of this occurred within the first ‘level’ of Thronglets, and things only continue to get darker from there. Eventually, you work your way up to Nukes, handed to you by the Thronglets themselves. They talk to you, ask you questions, and your input shapes how they evolve and how their world takes shape, so you have nobody to blame for their darkness but yourself (and the developers, but that’s somehow really easy to forget in the moment).

I’m not usually one for mobile games; something about touch screen controls just doesn’t appeal to me, but Thronglets’ impossibly dark undertones and bizarre ability to make me question things have captured my attention. In Plaything, the game is set up for playing on PC, and I can’t help but wish there was a PC version available to play, but I’ll settle for the mobile version if I can’t get anything else.

If you have a Netflix subscription, I’d highly recommend giving it a go, but maybe watch the Black Mirror episode first.