Thronglets from Black Mirror: Plaything is a real game, and it's better than you'd think

Thronglets is a deep, proper, actual game, compared to what my expectations of a tie-in to one episode of a TV show would be.

The good news is, you don't need to be off your head on mind-altering drugs to understand what's going on (as happens in the TV episode). There is actually text on screen that allows you to communicate directly with the Throng, which is a lot easier than having to do that.

The game basically charges you, exactly as you see in the episode, with growing a society from one tiny yellow creature to a huge Throng of hundreds.

The game starts exactly the same as it does on TV. There's a little egg, you hatch it. You have one Thronglet, you have to feed it, you have to play with it, like a Tamagotchi. So far, so cute.

And then, they start multiplying, and things start unravelling from there in a pretty major way, straight off the bat.

The game gives you some interesting choices. There's an option quite near the start where you can either spend ages chopping wood to make a bridge to your next objective, or you have the choice of using a bug in the game - an actual bug, little visual gag there - to harvest the corpses of dead Thronglets to build the bridge quicker.

I kind of fumbled this moment, and then my Thronglets did not trust me anymore; because I said I wouldn't harvest their bones, and then I actually did. Oops!

The longer you play, the more you’ll notice the Thronglets game diverging from what you saw in the TV episode. This is a net positive, though, because the TV version of the game certainly took its toll on the people who played it.

In the game version, there are two main levels of society-building stuff. The first one is basically a tutorial, but the second world you build is impressive in its complexity, with a number of different items to unlock and some overlapping systems that will soon have you stressing out.

At the start, you only have to worry about feeding, washing and playing with your Thronglets. But as the society develops, you have to think about their housing, their work-life balance, and whether you’re accidentally exposing them to harmful materials.

As you acquire more and more tasks on your plate, you’ll feel pangs of guilt as your spot dead Thronglets strewn about the map that you didn’t even realise had died. In the pursuit of gems and upgrades, it’s easy to get sucked in and blinkered to the realities of what your Throng is going through.

After the second world, there is a lengthy cut-scene with lots of dialogue options that will eventually thrust you into a big finale. The game, and your Thronglets, have been judging you all along. Will they find you wanting at the end? You’ll just have to download it for yourself to find out!

At its core, Thronglets is a fun game, although it is pretty short, at less than three hours long. The music is really good. The visuals are kind of exactly what you get in the episode, which is really cool. And it's free, if you've already got Netflix.

So, check out Thronglets. Don't try and take over the world when you're playing it. Don't try and send a weird signal to everyone. And don't, if you can help it, turn into Peter Capaldi, although that would be pretty cool.

Read more:

• Black Mirror: Plaything ending explained – What did Cameron do?
• Black Mirror Plaything star on how he worked with Peter Capaldi for unsettling shared character
• Every Easter egg hidden in Black Mirror season 7 – how many did you catch?

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