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Just bought the game a couple of days ago and played through it, after having watched an LP (of everything but ep 4), it ends up feeling a lot more linear when it's the "second time" through because you end up seeing some of the "seams" in the game design (what choice matters and what doesn't, how much fluff/filler there is etc). Especially episode 4 didn't seem to have much choice of importance despite being the longest(?) episode so far, except the sequence with Frank and the usual sprinkling of "does this person show up here, y/n" thing (which rank more as pay-off to choices in earlier episodes). I enjoy the story enough for that to not bother me overly much, but it felt pretty noticeable here (unlike the earlier Kate/David stuff). Maybe it's because this is the second last episode and they kinda have to get the plot moving towards the conclusion and you don't really have much influence over how the main plot turns out. Man, these sort of games always leaves me feeling like there's some missed potential to really have some good replayability. e: The time alternative "branch" jump could have been used way better as far as player choice and impact goes, even if it didn't necessarily have to impact the main plot. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 10:52
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| # ¿ Dec 6, 2025 08:36 |
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I agree, despite the CYOA genre there's only really enough "alternative content" to maintain the illusion of choice for one playthrough and it's not really there to give crazy amount of entirely different outcomes. The difference in budget for these games compared to the more AAA mainstream titles rules that out and I wasn't quitegoing for that sort of thing in my critique. Even when talking about "major choices" I'd be fine if was just more tiny butteryfly things sprinkled in from choices you make (especially if that jump had lots of leak-over effects in the "main branch" depending on your choices, don't think I noticed anything though?). Things like how certain relationships are, hell, even how people dress, graffiti changing or buildings look; small touches can be as effective as "weird weather thing", without impacting the main plot at all. I felt there was some of that missing that lent to the episode feeling more linear than it had to be, without doubling the budget for the games so to speak (could certainly use less money spent on puzzle/"finding the right items" padding). Like you are only along for the ride during a bunch of segments. When you start to involve all these time powers you really can afford to be going a little more crazy with your world's... "flexibility" compared to the more mundane CYOA choices. And yes, I can see how certain choices in this episode (and previously) could have a relatively big impact in ep 5 still. Especially when it comes to Frank and David. Hope they go for a Life is Strange 2 (even if it's without any of these characters), I just want more of the good poo poo and these sort of games got all sort of potential to explore all kinds of settings and stories.
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Jul 30, 2015 12:00
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Hey speaking of Alpha Protocol, Obsidian should totallt get in on this booming adventure/CYOA market and make some kickstarter/budgety title. "What can change the nature of a High School Girl?" "A fiery whore? No, wait that's not right- Oh I got it, the answer is Time Travel!" Well I guess the writing would be slightly different without Avellone anymore.
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Jul 30, 2015 14:02
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Dontnod's next game is a vampire rpg. Life is Undeath, starring Doe the Vampire.
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Jul 30, 2015 14:18
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Dexo posted:She's gotta find a way to bring an item back in time, That Item being a picture of Jefferson's dead body, which she turns in for the Everyday Hero's contest. Something like this would be amazing. Time powers are made for trolling. We need a time-shenanigan based game where the main character is just the  fucker around with their power, so cathartic.
Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 19:14
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As Max approaches the beam, she is shot by a random NPC guard and collapses. You've been indoctrinated Max, you should have blown up the school, that temple of "the Man", while you had the chance. But we can put things right! Here, have some C4 and a skateboard. You know what to do.
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Jul 30, 2015 20:15
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There are ways to write a CYOA game that does tie player choices together with the end more or less well though. Even if it's mostly down to things like who of [A, B and C] that you influenced earlier during events [D1, G2 and K4] helps you out at moment X1 during the ending sequence(s) resulting in a choice between Ending D "Saved by a won-over Friend (doesn't *really* matter which)" vs Ending E1 & E2 "Pissed everyone off/got everyone killed" or ending B "Learned Fisticuff skills carries the day". Sure, if you boil it down it might just be Eco-Implosion stopped Y/N? If yes -> Murder Plot Foiled Y/N -> Check if character A, B or C are alive or not and run the [slightly modified] ending scene, with various degrees of happy ending all the way to poo poo be hosed up yo by your various minor choices throughout the game (ending scroll of resolutions if the budget doesn't allow for more). The gist of the main story doesn't change, but it's a step up from say "Slightly Interactive Cutscene where you walk up to a button and press it to end the game", "Do you kill the main baddy or not? You still die either way and nothing of your previous choices have any effect on the resolution or are even brought up during the last chapter" or "Red, Blue or Green?"-style endings. That's without really getting into how well written the story itself is or if it gives a satisfying conclusion (although obviously, it's necessary for it to be on a higher level to take more options into account and *work*). e: lots of words to say that there's a pretty big slide of ending complexity from anywhere between "canned ending" to "Alpha Protocol" and I hope we gets something reasonably complex even if it's not enough to replay the whole game for. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 21:07
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For some reason that scene is buggy as hell, not the first time I've seen the "Invisible Chloe" thing, but the rest was pretty amazing 
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Jul 30, 2015 22:07
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I stopped being able to rewind just a little bit for the entire episode, so hitting rewind threw me back to the start of any scene. Somewhat annoying at the party and the Frank scene.
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Jul 30, 2015 22:21
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sout posted:Okay, who predicted the twist. I am a dope and I didn't, so it made for a neat shock, I'm sure there are clues in the game that I glossed over, and thinking about it I can see his motives as Weird Hipster Art Man A couple of things I noticed because I played it all in like two sittings that made me suspicious: EP1: During class there's two things 1) Jefferson got a really creepy line about photographing "any of you" in darkness and capturing at your most vulnerable, which if you aren't paying attention to mr hipster-teacher you might miss. Nr 2 is that there's those binders (seen in the preview for the Dark Room during the end of ep 1 / 2) sprinkled around the school, which I did miss until checking closer, but it's not nearly as obvious either because even David got some, and Jeffersons is the wrong color. I don't know if it's ep 1 or 2, but there's a conversation between Jefferson and Kate, and if you talk to him after she runs off upset and talk about the Kate-video he drops this weird line (especially for a teacher) about "Maybe she doth protest too much" and kinda victim-blaming her? Consider that she has often assisted him in class, it's even weirder. This leads into the suicide-event, where he's the last one to have talked to her before she runs off to kill herself, and if you pick Jefferson in the sit-down with the Principal afterwards he (Jefferson) lies (not obviously) about Max ignoring her calls (even if you did answer) to try to shift the blame on you. Another less than obvious hint is that some of the art installations sprinkled throughout the campus, Jefferson is big into black-and-white photography (like Nathan), as he also mentions during the weird line in class about capturing you at your most vulnerable. The Dark Room itself also seems to be set up a little too professional to be merely Nathan's doing. One hint I semi-missed that someone here mentioned is that when you are putting the clues together you notice Jeffersons car in the pile of photos of cars David was tracking, and if you tie together the coordinates you notice that Jefferson was also at the Dark Room Barn the same night, just before Nathan arrives there. I only noticed the car in the photos, not the date and place thing because I skimmed it. The latest ep got a few more hints, but they aren't super obvious and relate to Nathan's phone messages that can be interpreted as coming from either his father or from Mr Jefferson, and a bit of weirdity that Jefferson is the one to show up during the End of the World Party to reveal the winners of the contest, seems like an odd place and time + he seems more involved with the party (there's obvious drugs/alcohol things going on when he strolls in that he doesn't pay any mind to) than he should be as a teacher, especially considering the events with Kate just earlier in the week. Oh, and for the final cutscene I noticed the pants/shoes and height didn't match Nathan, before we saw the face. Anyone else noticed anything more than this?
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Jul 31, 2015 21:16
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"Hello, this is Doktor Voigt from the Spinal Center, your new... spine is ready Ms. Price" Life is Strange 2: Spine Eater: Revengeance 
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Aug 1, 2015 06:46
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Someone did a breakdown of what show/movie each corresponded to. I think Breaking Bad was one? e: Someone was evidently RightClickSaveAs
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Aug 1, 2015 06:58
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I said no because while I don't got anything against people deciding on that course of action, ingame *Max* certainly had no business doing the deed at that point.
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Aug 1, 2015 09:26
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Killer BOB as the main villain in LiS (along with that ending) would be all kinds of hilarious/hosed up.
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Aug 1, 2015 11:27
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shmee posted:Also, I've been replaying the third episode picking different choices, and one thing I forgot was that, whilst wearing Rachel's clothes in the diner, Nathan for a moment thinks Max is Rachel. Which suggests he doesn't know she is dead, despite the stuff you see in the forth episode. Good spot to remember that moment, but still a little odd considering the photos relating to that in ep4. e: Checked Steamspy and LiS seems to have sold 440k or so copies on Steam and 1 million total up to the 23rd of July. Sales on steam seems to have picked up 40k over all of july, half before the release of this latest ep. Pretty steady seller (and probably better than say, Pillars of Eternity). I wonder how big of a team dontnod got working on this, considering they are also making that vampire game? Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Aug 1, 2015 |
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Aug 1, 2015 14:05
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Kate manages to die way less often than Chloe, so I don't know what her problem with the time-stream continuum is. It's probably firearms, aint it. I wonder if she'll ask Max how many times it's been and Max will just shrug awkwardly.
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Aug 1, 2015 19:37
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Going back to alternative Max(es...Maxii?), having Obsidian style "three J.B.'s" with an option to play as total teen-girl diva Max would be just as hilarious as the meta-aware smugbert time-traveller Max. "What-ever , Kate. Ger OVER yourself, god!  "(The pressing need to make it very clear just how few shits Max gives enables her to freeze time in this version) ((I am a terrible person))
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Aug 2, 2015 12:07
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Ekusukariba posted:First thing that came to mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryqG2DkuJH4 I liked the linked video Maximum selfie and clone Chloe.
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Aug 4, 2015 14:53
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theblackw0lf posted:Check out this flowchart describing all the branching possibilities from the conversation with Frank in episode 4. It's really impressive. I laugh at how little difference it makes whether Chloe is nice or not  e: Can't Chloe get her hand on a glock(ish) gun i another scene? Does she ever get rid of that gun, or does she just roll with the revolver just-because? Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Aug 5, 2015 |
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Aug 5, 2015 17:48
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VagueRant posted:If there hadn't been the video of Kate at the party, she probably never would have had a clue anything happened to her. "It was weird, I must have blacked out, but that nice boy Nathan took me home!" Kinda wondering when Nathan actually got involved in all this, there's a *lot* of binders in that cabinet, and he seems like too much of a gently caress up to have managed like 20 of these until loving up with Rachel/Kate now. Guessing he started recently? But then again, how long has this op been running, and at that location? Something Ep5 hopefully expands on.
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Aug 7, 2015 13:03
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seravid posted:Yeah, I don't think any of this ever happened in this thread though. Life Is Strange Ending E: Every character has their personal flavored mental breakdown at the same time, behold the carnage.
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Aug 10, 2015 18:36
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The problem with mysterious time powers that come out of the blue is that you have no loving idea how they actually work or when they'll go away / stop working / do something unintended. I think the game is doing a decent job of getting that across and even Max is catching on (a little). It's all fun and card-jumping time adventures until some day you find yourself stuck on the wrong side of a photo from your parents vacation album from the 70ies 
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Aug 15, 2015 21:18
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Max travels back in time to alert everyone, leading the police and half the school to the junkyard before the party, dragging Mr Jefferson along as he protests. They dig up Rachel's grave, only to find mr Jeffersons corpse stuffed into the bag instead. Then everyone notices that Mr Jefferson isn't standing with the police anymore. Max chuckles.
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Oct 19, 2015 14:58
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I laughed when I realized they were gonna go through *all* the endings before getting to the real one. Guess it was an alright ending, if yeah, predictable after months of pulling it through the stretcher. For awhile there in the clusterfuck I thought they'd actually decide to subvert any and all expectations and just go BAD END but oh well. (One alternative sure is kinda gimped on actually showing any aftermath / your choices ~not mattering~ much, but the whole episode is kinda a parade of your previous choices so... "okay". An enjoyable ride.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:06
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They missed an opportunity to have the art exhibit turn out to be full of Mr Jefferson-like psychopaths; Welcome Max, now you're one of us Max, one of us
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Oct 20, 2015 18:12
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BobTheJanitor posted:On rethinking this a little bit, I'm somewhat disappointed that the ending choice is provided to you with no proof that it actually is a real choice. The characters just assume that Max absolutely HAS to be the cause of the tornado, and that going back and letting Chloe die just HAS to be the way to fix it. Like, we all sort of accepted it because we were all expecting that anyway, and yes, the ending proves that out. But how exactly did we know for sure, in that moment, that it was the case? Basically this, yes. Did I do all that poo poo just to reset everything and maybe... stop the wicked photographer man? But wait, the episode really goes out of its way to show you how bad messing with time is, so the correct option is supposed to... go back in time again to "let" Chloe die? Does that mean we can't even use our knowledge about Jefferson? Or Kate? Because then we'd be back to using our time powers to save lives and oh poo poo. How is Chloe special in this case? In other words: the "gently caress you Max"-ending. It's a kinda dumb "rule of nature" to pull out just because of stuff like this 
Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 18:33
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Ekusukariba posted:I think the dead chloe ending implies that Nathan getting arrested solves all the problems, He rats out Jefferson, which means he's not around to bully Kate past the breaking point, so basically it all works out without needing powers and since Max is on autopilot she doesn't use any future knowledge I guess that kinda works, but it still leaves the main problem of the trope though. So still  "haha fuck you Max, the only winning move is not to play! Enjoy wondering for the rest of your life if maybe you could have done something different - that is, if you don't still have your powers and gotta hold back from even changing anything should it ever butterfly into a tornado because you accidentally saved a life down the line".Not very satisfying for anyone, but the of time.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:52
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abardam posted:My dream ep5 would have the Big Choice come up real early into the episode, forcing you to live with your decision for the rest of the ep. If you chose to save Chloe, you have to pick through the remains of the town and start a new life. If you chose to save the town, you have to investigate, on your own, the reason why the universe wants Chloe so dead. Could work for an episode 6. Or for lack of a better* example, how the original Macross had like a full season (or LoGH, for that matter) of "epilogue" after what would otherwise have been the finale in your standard anime show where everyone have to pick up the pieces after the finale. Which, resource wise would probably have to be basically episode 6 & 7, to cover all the possible ground the two "main" choices in the ending if nothing else, but they could have structured that better... or show how certain people survived anyhow depending on your earlier choices. Not gonna happen, but it would have given more weight to an ending like this. *Although I guess The Walking Dead Season 2 could technically be viewed as this, but for "one" choice.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:00
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TastyLemonDrops posted:In my game, during the dark room sequence nightmare Warren and Chloe were taunting me and commented about how I was trying to get into both of their pants (kissed Chloe, kissed Warren). I'm assuming this sequence changes if you did things differently? That is part of that hour of "Look! We remember your choices! And react to them!
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Oct 20, 2015 19:06
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exquisite tea posted:I think it's likely that Max has already been in time limbo many, many times before we ever see her in Life is Strange, and what we are playing through is one reality that happens to not totally collapse. So in effect we "win" by not looping back around to the beginning, as the original timeline Max must have done at some point, however many parallel universes ago. You're right, turns out this *was* all just part of a timeline loop; Max has been through this before. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing she could think of Lesson: Don't do drugs. LiS 2: "This is Max as we've never seen her before, a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever." The press release states that since the last game, Max has left Arcadia Bay behind and "drifted from bad to worse." The press release goes on to say Max has been double-crossed in this new city and is searching for both the truth and a way out. The game is set in São Paulo, Brazil, several years after the events of "the first ending" of the first game. Max Caulfield now works in executive protection for the wealthy Rodrigo Branco and his family in the hopes of escaping the memories of her troubled past. When a street gang kidnaps Rodrigo's wife, Max is pulled into a conspiracy of shadowy, warring factions threading every aspect of São Paulo society in a deadly web that threatens to engulf everyone and everything around her. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 19:16
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"It was a rough part of town, hella dangerous to every neighbourhood cat walking the streets let alone me; it was long past time to get cereal" I'd play Life is Noir. Heavily drinking & self-medicating Max or not.
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Oct 20, 2015 20:38
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Macaluso posted:You have to kill him to save him though. You can't get to him without turning the sprinklers on first so you can get past the fire. So he has to die at least once so he can live. 
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Oct 21, 2015 04:32
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BobTheJanitor posted:Uh... no. Don't you remember that the only way you could get to Kate was to literally stop time? Not only do you abuse time powers to save her, you do it in such a weird way that you can't ever manage to do it again. They don't really make it clear that everyone dies in the Arcadia hella 'recked ending either. You're told to trust... Warrens? Understanding of this whole phenomena, but for all we know it's just two alternative strands of ~Chaos Theory~. It's weird to push the "butterfly effect" and then have everything (like the petrol diner explosion) turn out exactly the same regardless of choices you make if you aren't there to personally shovel sand (when there's presumably a literal-choice-induced tornado of butterfly winds out to wreck the town for... reasons. But hey, they don't bother showing the actual outcome of town wrecked choice so maybe lots of people survived  It would have been a more balanced choice if it wasn't all about Chloe, and the Tornado had some other reason for being (or the Ghost Doe, Indian tribe stuff...), that either choice and "who survives" (if you want to boil it down to that) actually changes in both choices depending on your earlier choices throughout the game. Certain characters may never make it in line Alpha, or they are a "maybe" - while always popping up in Omega, but perhaps not in the same "state" (happily married or divorced). e: For example, the choice could instead influence *which path* the tornado takes, either half North or half South of town is wrecked. Hmm, not even sure if Chloe's life should really be on the line here, but perhaps earlier? You kinda already choose to save her so that option is basically "don't play the game, derp". Then it's not all up to how well the story makes the player feel about Chloe, assuming ~nearly everyone~ else dies. No, not very well handled. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 15:08
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Codependent Poster posted:DONTNOD should just go full Persona 4 with this series. Make a remix of this season with new twists and characters. Make some cartoons. DONTNOD, lacking the resources to take on LiS2 in any reasonable timeframe, outsources the production to Platinum Games. I don't know what we'd get, but it would be amazing.
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Oct 21, 2015 19:11
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SirKibbles posted:We don't deserve that game, no one does. Somehow they rope Chris Avellone on board (as a stretchgoal, of course) and suddenly we can finally answer the question: Can can change the nature of a Chris will have to come back to us on that one, but rest assured he's working away furiously to put this story together. ...What can change the nature of a ... Cereal Killer, yes, that's it!
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Oct 21, 2015 19:20
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Kaislioc posted:You can choose to sacrifice the town to save Chloe or you can choose to let Chloe die and... not worry about anything else like Jefferson or Kate because hey it would have all just worked itself out anyway. Not sure if that annoys me or not. Yeah it's way too neat and makes the whole game plot pointless, especially as Max forgets everything in that ending (no future knowledge to trigger Time Tornadoes!). So she doesn't even remember the "lesson" of not loving with time. Which either makes it inevitable that she uses those powers again because they never really explain when or why she got them or why she'd lose them. She's trapped in a loop, forever rediscovering "don't gently caress with time!" thing, repeating the loop until she "learns" not to gently caress with time only to forget it once she pops back into proper time space an-  That or the powers popped in randomly just for this week and popped out once she learned her lesson (which she forgets)  e: To run with it a little further, if the time powers don't just randomly come and go then that means she'll repeat the loop until she *doesn't* decide to not do anything (with whatever event it happens to be that trigger her using the powers). Only then could she remember to not use her powers again / trigger another time tornado. So at some point she actually has to live with having triggered a time tornado and letting it destroy whatever it is that Time Tornadoes decide to target. So yeah, the nature of the time powers *do* matter for the plot. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 16:40
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The problem with that is that if she forgets everything (during the time skip portion to friday) so things can autopilot along, but then she gets all her memories back on Friday she still has tons of "forbidden" knowledge about people and stuff she did in all those alternative timelines, which means she could accidentally trigger another time-tornado. She'd have to somehow keep track of what she "should" know about things and what she shouldn't know, and constantly make decisions to not... gently caress with time with time-travel gained knowledge. I'm not seeing how that would work unless she moved away from Arcadia Bay in a hurry, but then she'd have made a choice based on time travel knowledge too and  They're right, don't gently caress with time.
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Oct 22, 2015 16:54
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Obviously Only half serious, of course I know it's because some writer at a studio decided on this particular time-travel resolution and wanted to deliver a certain experience to the players. It's just doesn't hold up very well once you pitch a bunch of goons at it with magnifiers.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:03
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What you don't know is that the original ending pitted sticking with Chloe vs ALL HUMAN LIFE ON EARTH, leading to the two escaping the planet-tornado in the last space rocket (conveniently owned by the Prescotts). The writers felt it was a little heavy handed though.
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Oct 22, 2015 19:03
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I want to know why David is terrible at CQC
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Oct 22, 2015 19:19
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