Life is Strange is episodic graphic adventure video game and it was developed under Dontnod Entertainment and it was published under Square Enix. It is played on the Xbox One, Xbox 360, Playstation 4, Playstation 3, OS x, Microsoft Windows and Linux. It has two episodes that were released periodically in 2015. The plot of the game is about Maxime Caulfield, who is a photography student and she discovers that she is able to rewind the time whenever she wants to and this means that every choice made, it will lead to the butterfly effect. When she saw the storm that was approaching, she had the responsibility to ensure that storm does not destroy her town. The actions of the player will adjust the narrative as it unfolds and it does reshape it once it is allowed to go back in the time. Fetch quest with making of the environmental changes represent the puzzle solving form and this is in the addition of using the branching choices to make the conversation.
Life Is Strange development started in 2013 and it was formed in the episodic format. This was for both creative and financial reasons. Developers have conducted the field research when they went to Pacific Northwest and they subverted the archetypes in order to make these characters. The player feedback influence adjustments that are made at the characters and episodes. The character and story serve a central point within the game and not the tropes of the traditional graphic and like the point and click puzzles. Voice recording sessions happened in Los Angeles in the city of California.
Life is Strange is the graphic adventure game and it is played with a third person view. Mechanic uses are about rewinding the time that allows the player to redo the action that had been taken. A player may examine, interact with the objects and this will help him to solve the puzzle problems and they are in the form of fetching of the quest while making the changes in the environment. The items that were collected before the time travel; they are going to be kept into an inventory after this fact.
A player is able to explore different location in a fictional setting of the Arcadia Bay and he will communicate with the non-playable character. The dialogue exchange may be rewound while the branching options may be used for the conversation. When the event has been reset, then the details that have been provided before can be permitted to avail themselves even in the future. In certain circumstances, the choices that are made in the dialogue, can alter or can affect the story by the use of the long or short term consequences. Any choice taken, something good in the short term, it may end up worse in the end.
Plot
Life is Strange is the game that happens on 7 October in 2013, and it is told from Maxine Caulfield’s perspective. She is a twelfth grade student at Blackwell Academy found in the fictional town of the Arcadia Bay in Oregon.
A prologue starts when Max is thrown with a vision of a lighthouse that had been destroyed by the swelling tornado. She did awake instantly while in a class of the teacher Mark Jefferson. In order to restore her composure, she proceeded to the restroom. When she was being in the restroom, she saw Nathan Prescott who is her classmate murdering a girl. In one single but a sudden effort, she tries to rewind the time and she is moved back in her classroom as it was before. Taking into account the first outcome, she hurried off to help the girl by the use of the developed ability she just got. It was found out that the girl saved by Max was a childhood friend called Chloe Price. After the reunification, the two goes to the walk at the lighthouse that she saw in her nightmare. There, she tells Chloe that she has the ability of traveling back into the time. It is then made known that what she may think that it was a dream was just the reckoning about the future events, and it is the storm that will destroy the entire town.
Next day, Max sees another student called Kate Marsh being the subject of the bullying because there was a video in which she was kissing different students in a party and it went viral. It is believed that she may have been drugged and Max though that Nathan was the person who did it. Max goes to the diner where Joyce, the mother to Chloe is working like the waitress and she found out that Chloe was also there. They go to experiment with the power of Max at the hideout of Chloe called scrapyard. This makes max to strain and then he gets a nosebleed and fainted. Max has to make choices when it comes to go back in time to save one person but another thing may happen afterwards. For example if he decides to save Chloe father, Chloe will be the one to get accident and she will be paralyzed. And if she saves Chloe from a shooting, the entire Arcadia bay will be destroyed.
How to play Life is Strange
The player plays in the role of Max Caulfield, she is photography student and has just returned to her hometown called Arcadia bay and she is going to a prestigious school under the name of Blackwell Academy. She is shy and she likes to use retro camera and selfies. She has also power of rewinding the time. But she was not aware of her capacity of rewinding the time, not until she saves the live of Chloe who is a blue haired and punkish dropout of Blackwell. Chloe and Max were good friends before but they had fallen out of the touch. After the incident, the two were able to reconnect while Chloe used the help of Max to look for the other friend called Rachel who just went missing.
The city of Arcadia has also own troubles. Even if it was a prosperous fishing city before, it is now in hard times. It is being beset by the series of many eco-disasters and everything starting from the snow during summer and to unscheduled eclipse. It is believed that the disaster are potential apocalyptic and supernatural. Students at Blackwell have decided to do End of World party.
As Max learns about the life of Blackwell, she is given different choices to make. When she sees the misfortune of one rival, she has a choice to make, taunt her or comfort her. However, because of time powers of Max, any decision taken should be rewritten. It does give a change for reveling in the schadenfreude and to skip back to do good thing afterwards. Sometime, you may have to be firmer into the selection and you may not have to go back in order to double back and to check about the alternative options. However, it is only possible to rewind with a current scene since before you reach to long term consequences, then the choice you made will be already set in the stone.
The game comes with new puzzles and some of them get more interesting because of rewinding power of Max. Such interactions works like the pace breakers that are welcomed for this drama, but sometime they tip towards a busywork or padding. At a certain point, Max will be required to look for the empty bottles into the junkyard. It is the sequence which is tedious and it earns the self-deprecating reference in one of the following chapters.
This story is at one side a character drama and at the other side, it is a detective mystery. It is also part sci-fi adventure. Trying to balance such three strands, it is where life is strange tries stumbling. In one episode, Max has to go to a character room to get clues. The same character is sitting in the room and is crying over the problems that recent events have brought to him. There are times that it feels weird to be in such detective mode because of the undercutting of drama that tends to be mysterious. This is the same even when the mystery tries to get even greater drama.
The game becomes the best game while focusing on its characters. Normally with each archetype, everyone gets the motivation and the death while the story will be moving forward. The enemies of Max have some vulnerability while her allies have also some flaws. At a certain time, the game is pointed into the observation. Warren plays as a close friend and also a nice guy but he is desperate in need of the affection and it makes him to cringe on other people. The voice acting in the game is stronger while the strengthening and shifting of the relationship of Chloe and Max makes the best moment in the game. The game is found in the hyperreal and painterly world and it makes the memorable moments effortless.
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