Netflix’s recent film “Choose Love” starring Laura Marano looks a bit different from other rom-coms — it gives viewers a choice in how the storyline progresses. This is called “interactive fiction,” and “Choose Love” is the streaming platform’s latest of this kind.

What is interactive fiction?

Interactive fiction is a form of storytelling in which the audience makes choices on behalf of the main character to guide the story in the direction they want. Viewers can watch movies in this style over and over again with a different experience each time because of the various pathways they can take and endings they can reach.

“Choose Love” presents viewers with 15 different choices throughout the film, prompting them to decide which of three love interests to pursue. During each of these choices, a timer lets the watcher know how much time they have left to make their decision. If the watcher doesn’t choose an option, the film is programmed to decide on the viewer’s behalf.

Interactive fiction’s past and present

In 1930, Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins published a romantic interactive novel titled “Consider the Consequences!” With 43 different endings, readers can navigate the love story between Helen Rogers and her two love interests. Once the reader makes a choice, the book directs them to a certain page number to continue their story.

Author Edward Packard is the creator of “choose-your-own-adventure” novels. In an interview with Marketplace, he said the idea struck while telling his daughters a bedtime story. When he couldn’t decide on an ending, he asked them what they would do and realized the potential of this style. Packard has published over 50 interactive books since 1979.

This role-playing style can most commonly be seen in video games now. Players use a controller to toggle between characters, worlds, tasks and even weapons in certain games. Non-player characters, or NPCs, serve to advance the game’s plot line by giving the gamer more information about the story’s world or providing advice, resources or choices. This has extended to mobile apps as well. “Episode,” which entirely revolves around interactive role-playing, allows players to customize their avatars and choose from over 150,000 stories. Even on TikTok, creators can post role-playing content through the app’s slideshow feature, directing users to skip to a certain slide depending on which choice they made.

Streaming platforms have now adopted this role-playing style. The critically acclaimed series “Black Mirror” had its own take on interactive fiction in the form of a 2018 film called “Bandersnatch.” Although vastly different from “Choose Love” in terms of genre, the basic concept was the same — viewers choose which way the story goes. Other examples include “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend,” to name a few.

What’s the appeal?

Interactive fiction allows audiences a sense of agency, one that isn’t explicitly present in most narrative forms.

“A standard narrative flow and structure, and the limitations of that, might be unappealing to individuals who are much more interested in bouncing around between possibilities,” said Murray Forman, a media and communications professor at Northeastern University.

Interactive storytelling has thrived among Gen Z, in particular. From Twitter threads to TikTok slideshows, there is an emphasis on branching out on pathways of one’s choosing. This provides a sort of instant gratification that is lacking in standard narratives. The popularity of short-form content on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other social platforms means that younger audiences may now find it difficult to sit through a movie spanning more than two hours without some sort of distraction.

There are generational distinctions between what younger and older audiences have come to expect from their media, Forman said. Shortened attention spans and higher levels of distraction may be a contributing factor to the popularity of a style like this, possibly furthered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“If you couldn’t go out, then this is another way of exploring, and it does have that expanse of potential,” Forman said. “It’s a little bit of a vicarious type of experience, wandering through different narrative possibilities when you can’t really wander anywhere else.”

A semblance of choice

“Choose Love” presents what can be seen as a series of cliche choices that yield similar endings — which dress to wear, whether to stand up to her boss or not and so on. The story ends with similar results regardless of which decision the viewer made, rendering these choices inconsequential and posing the question: how revolutionary is this?

“It gives us an illusion of choice when it’s actually sort of telling us what to do,” said Laney Strange, a computer and data science professor at Northeastern University.

“Bandersnatch,” on the other hand, has more variation in its choices, involving dead ends and a tangled web of pathways.

“Where’s the innovation coming from?” Forman asked. “Is it just trying to generate money? Is it trying to generate more attention and wider clicks? Or is it really about cultural innovation, artistic relevance? Is it about social and cultural change?”

As Neftlix’s latest addition to its library of 25 interactive specials, “Choose Love” serves as an exploration of a new genre.