For this week’s critical play, I played Life is Strange by Dontnod Entertainment. While this game is available on a variety of platforms, I played the Mac version, and the target audience is most likely young adults given the 17+ rating of the game.
Life is Strange features interaction loops heavily throughout the game. Your character, Max, must make a decision, which will lead you to act in a certain way. You will then receive feedback from the other characters in the game and learn more about the plot and the other characters. By holding down the control button, you could rewind to the time just before that decision was made, which directly starts the loop from the beginning and allows you to behave differently based on this feedback and new information.
However, some of these rewinds will unveil new information and create an interaction arc, where you learn more about the other characters in the game. However, there are some interaction arcs in the game where you are simply gathering knowledge without having to act in a certain way. There are several non-playable characters and objects in the game that reward you with feedback for interacting with them, without evoking a decision from you. The game also features multiple cutscenes such as the one below, where important information is gained.
All of this feedback from the other characters helps to weave the narrative into the mystery of the game. One interesting mechanic occurs when certain decisions are made; you will be given two options on how to act in a certain situation, and both actions will have both a negative and positive consequence. This mechanic reduces the clues that can be taken away from a select decision, keeping the player curious and enhancing the mystery.
The narrative of Life is Strange is also constantly introducing new characters and locations, which causes you to repeatedly ask yourself: who is trustworthy? By meeting new characters, the mystery continues to expand, and seemingly unrelated conversations and interactions begin to come together and form one cohesive story. As this story continues, the mystery keeps growing until eventually being revealed at the end.
