Life Is Strange is an episodic mystery game by DontNod Entertainment made for most game consoles. Each episode has its own arc, with a loop of gameplay that repeats in each scene that progresses the arc. The setting is limited to each scene, with the most common locations being the main character’s school, their friend’s house, and other limited indoor spaces. The game heavily advertises the time-warping abilities of the protagonist and emphasizes the butterfly effect of their decisions, but the fixed scene settings help to minimize the number of possible paths the player can take. From a design perspective, this is necessary so that all possible paths are accounted for so they can be coded out and voice acted but as a player it’s sometimes disappointing to see that choices you thought would be crucial have little bearing on the narrative.
A Game Designer’s View of Life Is Strange
The primary types of fun Life Is Strange promises are narrative and discovery. Players’ decision making ability combined with the time warp of the protagonist allows them to explore multiple dialogue options before committing to one and these dialogues compose the overall narrative they witness. However, as mentioned above, the decision making can sometimes feel a bit clunky. Take for example, the scene where the protagonist must “prove” her time powers to her friend by “predicting the future”. Players need to witness a series of events, rewind time, and report the correct occurrences to the friend. Unfortunately, getting one event wrong forces the player to rewind and recite the entire dialogue over again, which gets frustrating quickly. It also breaks the design ethos that is established early on that “the player’s choices matter” as progression is blocked until they successfully list the events.
Blending Mechanics and Narrative
The main narrative of the game is that the protagonist, Max, has come back to her hometown of Arcadia Bay after several years. She sees her old friend get shot in the bathroom and gains the ability to turn back time, saving them in the process. From there, she tries to uncover the mysteries of the town, like why her friend got shot, why she keeps having visions of a storm destroying the town, and how she got her powers. The main mechanic of the game, the time warping, is also one of the central mysteries of the game, seamlessly blending mechanics and narrative. By exploring different dialogue options, Max and the player also can gain more information for solving each mystery than from one conversation alone, another well-executed combination of these two elements. Scenes are usually divided by cutscenes, where after going to the new setting the player can’t go back to the old. This is understandable as a design decision since you want important decisions to stick and monitor what path the player is going down but again as a player, it can be hard to predict what decisions are going to trigger irreversible cutscenes and which you can experiment with.
