I'm going to try to hide spoilers for episode 5 in this post, but be aware I'm going to be talking about that episode in general.

So I finished life is strange, and I have to say that the ending (or at least one of them) was pretty much perfect… if the game were a movie. It hit all the emotional points, and worked perfectly with the theme of the game and the characters. Some people basically predicted it as far back as episode 1, so it wasn't exactly a shocker.

But this game isn't a movie. In that regard I felt like Dontnod squandered something potentially amazing. We could have had the first game where choice not only mattered in the long run, but was instrumental in the game's theme and impact.

The very first time I played the game, I did not like it. My first impression was that the rewind mechanic undermined choice by removing the permanence of it. What's the point of a choice of you can see what happens and change to what you want? As the series went on though, I realized that the mechanic was central in the theme of regret, and was a actually a cool way of portraying that in game. I wrote something on reddit about that. Read that then come back here.

Choice has always been a problem with games. I don't think there's ever been a narrative driven game in the history of the medium, where your choices end up ultimately mattering in the long run. Many games had big choices at the end, which determine the ending, but this nullifies all choices before. Some games had your choices change things along the way, but you still end up in the same place. The closest I've seen such a game come to having all of your choices effect both the journey and the destination is Heavy Rain. Given that game had a lot of problems, that should clue you in as to the state of things. In short, nobody's done it right yet.

So, I was extremely excited coming up on the finale for Life is Strange. The tagline was "You can't save everyone", and given the nature of the theme of regret and the rewind mechanic, I was expecting for our choices to ripple to the end of the game, and force us to finally face them for Max to complete her character arc.

That didn't happen. The only choice that ultimately matters is the last one. The problem is that to get there, to that place to make that final choice, you needed to rewind time and undo all your choices prior.

I was positively giddy when Jefferson burned Max's journal and pictures. That was the moment right there where I thought the choices we made all the way back to the first episode were locked in so to speak, and from here on out we'd see those choices ripple down and effect the events leading to the ending. The fact that it didn't end up that way was criminal!

How will you get out of the darkroom? Were you nice to David? Maybe he'd help. Frank alive and uninjured? He could find a way. Your choices led nobody being able to help you? You're on your own. And when you do get out, all the lives you affected are there staring you in the face. But you just rewind time, and pretty much fix everything…

I think if when faced with the choice in the end, that choice manifested itself without Max having to go back in time, it would have been more powerful. So, if you choose to sacrifice Chloe, that should happen right then and there, and the storm dissipates before it kills a bunch of people. Don't sacrifice her? You both leave together and the town is wrecked. Because you didn't go back in time, all your choices are preserved which can have a big effect on the ending, despite there only being two choices at that moment.

This game was the most interesting failure I've played in a long time. Up until yesterday, it was a huge success. They just dropped the ball, when they very easily could have not. So much about this game was great: the story, the voice acting, etc, that it's a shame it takes its place along side all the other games in history that do consequential choice wrong.

I heard Life is Strange was commercially successful, so I will be keeping an eye out for whatever the studio does next.

Have you played Beyond: Two Souls?
It's Quantic Dream's post-Heavy Rain game, and was a bit more focused. There were entire sections of the game that you could miss out on if you didn't do certain things, and not only were there many different endings, your relationships with people (and their ultimate fates) could all be affected by how you played along the way.

Heck, there was one reviewer that criticized a portion of the game for having a random event happen that wasn't explained, but he obviously just rushed through it, since the event was not random, and in my playthrough, it was completely explained (and helped lead to some of my final choices, and the ending that I got).

Beyond is going to get a PS4 release at some point in the near future, and I want to pick it up, even if I rarely replay choice-driven games. But it stars my Queen, so I may be a tad biased...

That said, your standards for choice-driven narratives are entirely unrealistic at this point in game development. You want developers to take into account every single choice that you might make, and craft an entire branching story out of it, doing the exact same thing for every possible choice that might come as a result of it. A single game that did that would be bigger than all of the Mass Effect and Quantic Dream games combined. It's likely never going to happen., and honestly would probably lead to the financial ruin of any developer that did it. Some reviewers would think they got a lousy game, with a bad story, and others would think that it was the best narrative they ever played... Assuming the writers wrote consistently good story for each of your thousands of choices.

Have you played Beyond: Two Souls?
It's Quantic Dream's post-Heavy Rain game, and was a bit more focused. There were entire sections of the game that you could miss out on if you didn't do certain things, and not only were there many different endings, your relationships with people (and their ultimate fates) could all be affected by how you played along the way.

Heck, there was one reviewer that criticized a portion of the game for having a random event happen that wasn't explained, but he obviously just rushed through it, since the event was not random, and in my playthrough, it was completely explained (and helped lead to some of my final choices, and the ending that I got).

Beyond is going to get a PS4 release at some point in the near future, and I want to pick it up, even if I rarely replay choice-driven games. But it stars my Queen, so I may be a tad biased...

This is so friendly... you and Cody usually bicker like an old married couple!

That said, your standards for choice-driven narratives are entirely unrealistic at this point in game development. You want developers to take into account every single choice that you might make, and craft an entire branching story out of it, doing the exact same thing for every possible choice that might come as a result of it. A single game that did that would be bigger than all of the Mass Effect and Quantic Dream games combined. It's likely never going to happen., and honestly would probably lead to the financial ruin of any developer that did it. Some reviewers would think they got a lousy game, with a bad story, and others would think that it was the best narrative they ever played... Assuming the writers wrote consistently good story for each of your thousands of choices.

Ahhh, there it is ;p <3

So I haven't played LiS (aside from the free demo chapter 1 that was underwhelming to me), but I'd like to point out that there is at least one very excellent game where your choices along the way absolutely influence the variable ending and can (depending on the ending) result in a wholly different thematic feel for the game.

I am, of course, talking about Silent Hill 2.

If you have not played it, do so. Know that, as you play, you're making choices which affect the ending of the game and you have NO IDEA how those choices will affect it, or IF they will affect it, or even which of your actions count as "choices" for the purpose of determining the ending that you get. It's quite remarkable. I really urge you to play without reading any spoilers. Also play it in a dark room with the volume up higher than you normally set it. Tell a friend to show up sometimes between midnight and 4 am (but not to tell you when) and to just open the door and come in when they get there, without knocking or anything. They should also be carrying a mannequin with them, and be dressed like an orderly. Don't worry about why.

if you have played the game, go look up the gamefaqs of it to see how your actions affect the possible endings. Then watch youtube vids of those endings. The fact that the final actions of your character are determined by the ending you receive leads to very different "conclusions" to the plot and the arc of the game. It's genius.

Just so everyone's aware - Cody and I have been really into this game and poring over it every episode.

Ultimately, I agree with you Cody, I'm just a lot more tolerant. I want to say up front that I loved the last episode and actually found it to be one of the most interesting of the lot.

I think 'Until Dawn' is a good starting point. The descriptions of what the developers wanted and even the in-game text emphasises that everything is variable, but the totem mechanic essentially pre-warns you about every single choice so you can 'game' the game to get the outcome you want. What's the point of a choice-game where you already know the outcome?

I initially felt that way about Life Is Strange - and so I started to play with minimal use of the rewind mechanic. I think I've talked about this before, certainly to you and maybe to the forum as a whole. But round about episode 2 I realised that the rewind mechanic was supposed to stir up the genre by giving you the chance to see the outcome of your choice, and asking how your behaviour would change if you were able to see the outcome of what you do. The old 'what if'. I thought giving that ability to a socially anxious teen was very interesting, but it also limited my ability to play in some strange ways. I didn't have the need to debate over every decision, and this game made me feel so very old by making it so hard to identify with a teen!

In some ways, I could have done with less choice in the series. Chloe's an excellent example of this. I shouldn't have been given the choice to not be romantically involved with Chloe. Those relationships should have been pre-ordained to make that final choice more impactful. There are also serious issues with Chloe's character, the girl's punk rock attitude comes off as downright abusive and in a game that is so deeply aware of the way men in power can frighten young women I'm amazed at some of the dialogue Chloe comes out with (unless the whole storm is a metaphor for abusive love). From my adult point of view, I was trying to distance Max from Chloe from the get go, making that final choice less important.

I wonder how much of this is the lack of technological ability (which I can forgive - we simply can't write games where all branches have equal content) and how much is market forces (not wanting to lock stupid players from content when you miss a choice). Life Is Strange could have done a lot, with its rewind mechanic, to combat that second possibility. But even then it didn't use its own mechanic enough. Every episode I had to re-remember the use of my powers, and I think I talked to you about the long conversation with David that I thought I was completely unable to rewind through because of an off-hand piece of dialogue. This is a game that could have benefited a little more from the Valve-tutorial play testing style.

A couple of other things I want to raise now the game's finished - I'd love to get a male perspective on the guys on this game, as I (and Yogscast Kim and Hannah's playthroughs) kept noticing the terrifying power imbalance in the game. It was almost too heavy handed I think, but in these days of Gamer Gate, who knows?

A related thought - I found it very interesting that Joyce, arguably the character with the most to lose, is one of the few who don't message Max through the dream sequence (with the exception of Chloe, is it predominantly the male cast?) And her grief in my ending was, I felt, remarkably restrained. This might be writing, might be more of the 'Chloe' character I just don't get.

But I don't think we should try and undermine Life Is Strange because as a new IP it fulfilled a lot of its promise, was a beauty and a joy to play, and at least for me very polished and bug free. Really looking forward to more from Dontnod

Yep. It was awful.

Cheapley and I arranged to not discuss the game until 10-26. I'm going to post then to give people a weekend to play it.

Have you played Beyond: Two Souls?
It's Quantic Dream's post-Heavy Rain game, and was a bit more focused. There were entire sections of the game that you could miss out on if you didn't do certain things, and not only were there many different endings, your relationships with people (and their ultimate fates) could all be affected by how you played along the way.

Heck, there was one reviewer that criticized a portion of the game for having a random event happen that wasn't explained, but he obviously just rushed through it, since the event was not random, and in my playthrough, it was completely explained (and helped lead to some of my final choices, and the ending that I got).

Beyond is going to get a PS4 release at some point in the near future, and I want to pick it up, even if I rarely replay choice-driven games. But it stars my Queen, so I may be a tad biased...

This is so friendly... you and Cody usually bicker like an old married couple!

That said, your standards for choice-driven narratives are entirely unrealistic at this point in game development. You want developers to take into account every single choice that you might make, and craft an entire branching story out of it, doing the exact same thing for every possible choice that might come as a result of it. A single game that did that would be bigger than all of the Mass Effect and Quantic Dream games combined. It's likely never going to happen., and honestly would probably lead to the financial ruin of any developer that did it. Some reviewers would think they got a lousy game, with a bad story, and others would think that it was the best narrative they ever played... Assuming the writers wrote consistently good story for each of your thousands of choices.

Ahhh, there it is ;p <3

I wouldn't say it's bickering. I'm just pretty good at explaining to Cody (in a friendly manner) all of the ways he is objectively wrong, which is almost a requirement whenever he starts spouting his opinions. :P

Have you played Beyond: Two Souls?
It's Quantic Dream's post-Heavy Rain game, and was a bit more focused. There were entire sections of the game that you could miss out on if you didn't do certain things, and not only were there many different endings, your relationships with people (and their ultimate fates) could all be affected by how you played along the way.

Yes I have, but the problem is that you end up in exactly the same place but with minor differences. You can see all the endings in two playthroughs. If there are 12 endings it should take 12 playthroughs. I believe Beyond Two souls had a 30 million dollar budget. Perhaps true meaningful narrative choice in games IS simply unfeasible. That doesn't mean you can;t criticize games that try.

That said, your standards for choice-driven narratives are entirely unrealistic at this point in game development. You want developers to take into account every single choice that you might make, and craft an entire branching story out of it, doing the exact same thing for every possible choice that might come as a result of it. A single game that did that would be bigger than all of the Mass Effect and Quantic Dream games combined

I never said it'd be easy. In the case of Life is Strange, I think they'd have to have added very little to make it work:

1. Various ways out of the darkroom with various people. Right now it's just David. Scene could be with david / frank / warren, etc.
2. The diner scene changes depending on who is there.
3. Obviously who is at the funeral.

Not much, but it would have sold the illusion far more convincingly.

If you have not played it, do so. Know that, as you play, you're making choices which affect the ending of the game and you have NO IDEA how those choices will affect it, or IF they will affect it, or even which of your actions count as "choices" for the purpose of determining the ending that you get. It's quite remarkable. I really urge you to play without reading any spoilers. Also play it in a dark room with the volume up higher than you normally set it. Tell a friend to show up sometimes between midnight and 4 am (but not to tell you when) and to just open the door and come in when they get there, without knocking or anything. They should also be carrying a mannequin with them, and be dressed like an orderly. Don't worry about why.

If it works as you say, then yes that would be remarkable. I'll try it some day.

In some ways, I could have done with less choice in the series. Chloe's an excellent example of this.

I felt that way, but with regards to the ending. Given the theme and all, I would have had only one choice appear on the final prompt. The right one.

A couple of other things I want to raise now the game's finished - I'd love to get a male perspective on the guys on this game, as I (and Yogscast Kim and Hannah's playthroughs) kept noticing the terrifying power imbalance in the game. It was almost too heavy handed I think, but in these days of Gamer Gate, who knows?

You know how I feel about Warren. He's a wuss and a bit creepy. He's sort of the guy who thinks he's nice but is not really. I think Max's assessment of him in her nightmare is fairly accurate: he's primarily interested in fucking her but is too much of a pussy to know he has no chance.

Wells I think was an okay dude, as was David. I don't think I had any issues with gender in this game, nor did I find anything offensive. I think the sex of the characters was intentional, and meaningful to the story which is more than I can say about a lot of games that just shoehorn in females.

But I don't think we should try and undermine Life Is Strange because as a new IP it fulfilled a lot of its promise, was a beauty and a joy to play, and at least for me very polished and bug free. Really looking forward to more from Dontnod

This is why it was a beautiful failure.

I wish I were further along but I was too tired / sick to even make it back through episode 1. It might even be the weekend before I make it through 5. As much as I'd love to talk about the story and end and everything I refuse to use whatever generic save point they offer just to skip ahead. Nothin' stopping me from discussing the more general issues though.

On story/decision based games never pulling it off:

I agree. And at risk of sounding too much like a know it all, I don't understand why it's so hard to do right. Ok, writing a story is hard. Coming up with a single scene can be really hard. Connecting scene after scene, motivation after motivation together in a flow that simply makes sense let alone has ongoing themes and likable or hateable characters and intriguing or shocking or inspiring story beats... Yep. It's hard. I saw a funny quote the other day. It went something like:

A writer is someone for whom the act of Writting is harder than it is for other people.

But, if you can pull off a compelling story, isn't pulling off a branching story mostly just... more writing? Change this or this and then see how your characters and world would play out? Write that down and repeat. I think maybe two things get in the way with games: Budget (which can be monetary or available time) and the inability to demote the best endings so that they exist simply as a few equal possibilities among many.

Budget, because if some decisions lead your characters to completely different places you might not have the resources to design new locations or hire quality voice actors for characters who did not come into the story until it took a substantially different turn. Things like that. Showing every possible branch with your available budget would see a huge drop in overall quality so you prioritize. And, of course, the more characters and decisions you have the more and more budget you need.

Inability to demote storylines, because even if you had the time and money to produce everything the story would need... you don't want to. Ending 1 & 2 are awesome, connect with all your themes, highlight and reveal all your characters or cleverness or twists. Ending 5? It sees your lead character give up the fight and hiding from the world in a scared and depressed state that doesn't even allow them to reach the brilliant struggles you had in store for them. You'll happily see ending 1 & 2 to the end, but ending 5? Instead of committing and following the character through the misery and cowardice of their once again ordinary life you throw up a Game Over. Continue? screen and direct the player back to the "real story."

What would be neat is if some studio had both the budget and fortitude to fully commit to everything.

On Life is Strange being better as a movie:

Didn't you enjoy the anticipation and speculation of seeing how decision x would affect the safety or friendship with character y? The thrill of not knowing if I'd made the "right choice" across any number of decisions will stay with me even if the ending can't fully live up to everything it should. And I value the chance to make those choices instead of watching one linear sequence play out over the course of a single movie. Movies absolutely have their place, but don't games have theirs too?

Didn't you enjoy the anticipation and speculation of seeing how decision x would affect the safety or friendship with character y? The thrill of not knowing if I'd made the "right choice" across any number of decisions will stay with me even if the ending can't fully live up to everything it should.

Yeah, this is totally true. But imagine if it were true including the end :-)

I think my biggest problem with either ending was that Chloe knew about your choice. Think of how much better the ending would have been if Chloe was oblivious. Both sacrificing her and saving her would be much more impactful. Sacrificing her would be so because she didn't ask for it so Max is letting her die without consent, and saving her would be so because she now has no idea what Max sacrificed to save her. The choice now becomes tough. The minute Chloe decides she needs to die is the minute that either choice loses poignancy.

Remember the Last of Us ending?

- No text -

Have you played Beyond: Two Souls?
It's Quantic Dream's post-Heavy Rain game, and was a bit more focused. There were entire sections of the game that you could miss out on if you didn't do certain things, and not only were there many different endings, your relationships with people (and their ultimate fates) could all be affected by how you played along the way.

Yes I have, but the problem is that you end up in exactly the same place but with minor differences. You can see all the endings in two playthroughs. If there are 12 endings it should take 12 playthroughs. I believe Beyond Two souls had a 30 million dollar budget. Perhaps true meaningful narrative choice in games IS simply unfeasible. That doesn't mean you can;t criticize games that try.

The issue is how you define "ending". In a game such as Beyond (more so in Heavy Rain), there are a limited number of ways the scene before the credits can play out. This is because of the limitations that the developers have to account for. That said, while the final scene may be the same for everyone, the entire journey may be different, so you have countless "endings" along the way.

Mass Effect was a fantastic example of this. All of your choices in the first two games came to a head in Mass Effect 3. All of your relationships and choices came to a conclusion from the minute the game started, all the way up to the final section. Who lived? Who died? Who loved you? Who hated you? All of it was a result of your choices, and all of it played out as a consequence of everything that you did, big and small.
The entirety of Mass Effect 3 was an ending, but people forget all of that because of the very final scene that serves as an ending to your character.
Apart from the final choice (were people seriously expecting hundreds of possible outcomes?), I'd say that Mass Effect has come closest to being the game that you want. And that took three separate high-budget releases.

That said, your standards for choice-driven narratives are entirely unrealistic at this point in game development. You want developers to take into account every single choice that you might make, and craft an entire branching story out of it, doing the exact same thing for every possible choice that might come as a result of it. A single game that did that would be bigger than all of the Mass Effect and Quantic Dream games combined

I never said it'd be easy. In the case of Life is Strange, I think they'd have to have added very little to make it work:

1. Various ways out of the darkroom with various people. Right now it's just David. Scene could be with david / frank / warren, etc.
2. The diner scene changes depending on who is there.
3. Obviously who is at the funeral.

Not much, but it would have sold the illusion far more convincingly.

And you still would have complained...

The issue is how you define "ending". In a game such as Beyond (more so in Heavy Rain), there are a limited number of ways the scene before the credits can play out. This is because of the limitations that the developers have to account for. That said, while the final scene may be the same for everyone, the entire journey may be different, so you have countless "endings" along the way.

Pretty much every 'choice' game gets the 'journey' right. Of course the choices change things on the way. But these choices are forgotten about in the end nearly always. I'm not convinced it's impossible: Life is Strange had a linear story, yet it functioned fine with the choices you made and warped to accommodate them. The only difference is the ending did not.

You have to be able to change both the journey and the destination. You can get away with having one destination if you play the 'free will is an illusion' card, but that is really overdone in games, probably precisely because nobody has figured out how to really allow us satisfying narrative choice.

You don't need one ending per choice permutation. Some choices are small one by definition, and might only effect a line of dialogue here or there. But small choices can add up (imagine constantly giving dismissive responses to a character), and there are obviously big choices that should take the plot in different directions.

I'm not ashamed to say that I simply don't know if it can be done or not - if you can craft a story this way even without practical limitations. I am leaning toward yes however.

And I don't know how to feel about it.

Parts of it were good (the dream sequence, in particular stands out). Parts of it still made me tear up (I'm a wuss!). It definitely hit some really emotional notes.

The final choice seems a little ridiculous. You wouldn't try anything else? Everything boils down to a straight binary choice, and one that quite a few people predicted way back in episode one? That sucks.

I'll need more time to fully digest, but they did basically the one and only thing that could have made me really not like it. ):

That said, Life is Strange as a whole really stands out as a great experience to me. I will definitely be paying attention to dontnod in the future. They did a lot of things incredibly well, and I'm not ashamed to say that I cried more than once throughout the series. It's rare that a movie or book or story can move me like that, much less a video game, so they clearly did something right.

I hope you do still make a thread early next week, Funkmon; I'll be more fully able to articulate by then, hopefully.

3. Obviously who is at the funeral.

How'd that play out? I didn't see that ending, and I'm not sure I will. I was considering playing through again at some point, making different choices, but now I don't think I am. Nothing really mattered, other than seeing that you made specific choices on a stats screen.

- No text -

I've been recording a let's play of the game, mostly to test my recording equipment. I've got about an hour of the game that's good, in various spots, but there are always problems with the other half, like my microphone didn't record, or the audio isn't synced up correctly and I accidentally deleted the source files.

I've now played the episode 3 times. I'm going to have to play it AGAIN to finish that stupid series.

Still haven't chosen to not kill Warren. Killing Warren is my primary motivation for the last choice in the game. I want him to die.

Still haven't chosen to not kill Warren. Killing Warren is my primary motivation for the last choice in the game. I want him to die.

I never replayed an episode to see any differences, but I was nice to Warren and agreed to go to the movie with him and whatever, but . . .

Is he SUPPOSED to feel super creepy, or is that just a side effect of the way he's acted? Because I honestly can't tell.

I don't think he's super creepy. He's just in love with Max. I just hate him for being legitimately stupid and pretending he's smart.

I don't think he's super creepy. He's just in love with Max. I just hate him for being legitimately stupid and pretending he's smart.

That gives GO APE a whole new perspective.

Right on. You and I seem to view Mass Effect in the same way.