Life is Strange: episode 1

     A new occurrence in video games is the episodic puzzle/story games. Popularized by Sierra with their take on the Walking Dead series, and expanded to Borderlands, Game of Thrones, and their original series Wolf Among Us, these games are characterized by allowing the player to make choices that alter the narrative in different ways, and by a third person view of a character that walks very slowly while completing puzzles of varying intensity.
     Today's subject matter, Life is Strange, follows this episodic puzzle game nature, with an interesting twist... Also, it is made by DONTNOD and produced by Square Enix.

    Life is Strange follows Max, an 18 year old photography student at an elite high school, who wakes up one day to discover she can rewind time. Now she has all the time in the world to make her decisions, and can try different paths when talking with someone... However, there are some unintended consequences.
     The limit of Max's power is this: she can only rewind to very recent actions (within a minute or two). So, while she could make thing better in the short term, the long term carries effects unknown.
      She discovers this power when she goes into the bathroom after class, and is witness to a boy, Nathan, fatally shooting a girl, Max's old friend Chloe (they recognize each other closer to the third act of the episode). She sticks out her right hand, and suddenly time flies backwards until she is back in class. From then on, she can always choose the right path...

      Then again, maybe there is no right path.
      After every significant choice, or meet a significant event, you are told "this action will have consequences." this ranges from telling the principle the local monopoly's son brought a gun to school, to watering your house plant. Yes, seriously. And the game makes it where you, like the character, instantly feel guilty for EVERYTHING bad that happens because you can prevent it. You can prevent a girl from being hit on the back of the head with a football, you can save a bird from dying... But if you do help them, you get the message "this action will have consequences."
      Depending on how your time travel logic works, this could range from "the consequence is someone has to repair the broken window" to "mass hysteria." and given the ending of the episode, we are headed for the "mass hysteria" section of time logic.
      There is a butterfly motif running through the game, a reference to the butterfly effect and The Sound of Thunder. saving the bird's life might seem nice in the short term, but in the long term, it may cause a hurricane in Egypt...
       ...but then we get to my one problem with the story thus far: are any of our choices worthwhile?

     I'm going into speculation mode, so bare with me, but the ending to this could potentially be infuriating.
     You see, like saving the bird or stomping on a butterfly, actions can have massive consequences when it comes to time. And the entire story may have been screwed before we've even left the tutorial. You see, Chloe died in the original timeline... And Max when back in time to save her. Time is likely going to try and correct this error, if the previews and ending sequence are to be believed.
     Thus, I shall call the worst case, and most likely case scenario: you have to go back in time and stop yourself from saving Chloe. Now, this is most likely, as that was the event that triggered the storm (most likely right now at any rate). This is the worst case because it will mean that everything in between didn't happen. All the actions logged, that we are told will have consequences... all of them undone to undo the butterfly effect. If this is indeed the case, then by hell the only way to play is to do all the good actions, make yourself feel good. Screw the long term, you won't ever get there because you have to undo everything!
     Best case scenario however, is that you don't go back in time to defeat the butterfly effect. Your actions have actual long term consequences, and they have an effect on how the 5 episodes end.

I actually really enjoyed this game quite a bit. I want to do multiple runs to see the effects... but I also don't want to if the worst case scenario up there is true. Part of the reason I just stopped playing the Walking Dead game by Sierra is that no matter what, the end is the same; all the different entangled paths converge onto one point that is made no different by your choices other than small details. I hope that isn't what happens in this game. If a player is given choices in a game, those choices need to mean something in the end... otherwise it is all just metagaming for the theoretical "best run." If anyone cares enough anymore to run it.


Though to sum up, I really like the game and I am looking forward to the next episode (got the season pass, the next episode is in March), but I will be very sad if this takes the path I think it is... Life is Strange is a very melancholic game, and I can only hope that it ends happy. Even just an ending that is, "everyone runs away from the snowstorm in Egypt" is better than "basically the ending to The Butterfly Effect (movie)"
Plox no equivalent to aborting oneself...