A few days ago I told all of you about the games I’m most looking forward to in 2015, including the game that I just finished, Life is Strange. I explained that LiS is a point and click adventure game that’s trying to compete in the story based game world. Another interesting mechanic is that this is an episodic game (not from Telltale Games, thankfully) and it advertises that the decisions you make in early episodes will have consequences in the future. This game constantly reminds you of this fact and gives you the option to change your decision using the main gameplay aspect, being able to rewind time! This time master is Max Caulfield, who recently moved back to her hometown to attend Blackwell Academy. Max is an aspiring photographer, and the other characters tell you that she has a “gift” for photography (meanwhile the only pictures Max seems to take are selfies with her Polaroid camera).

Max discovers her gift of time-bending early on in the story, and it allows the player to rewind and answer questions correctly or to change the outcome of certain events. It’s pretty obvious that this the core mechanic to the game, other than pointing and clicking on things through a really strange interface. The item that you want to interact with is highlighted, and then a box pops up with options such as look, play, or search, and you click and drag your mouse in the direction of the action of your choosing. It’s just as overly complicated as it sounds. Even the time-rewinding is finicky, and only lets you use it when the game says it’s allowed. During a conversation with one of Max’s friends, I wanted to back up and change my answer. But since you can’t rewind during dialogue I had to wait until the end of the conversation. Five minutes later we were still talking, and more characters kept popping in until Max hopped into one of their cars and was whisked off to the next part of the game. It never let me utilize this one gimmick the way that I wanted, and instead railroaded me off into the distance.

The game has a unique art-style, the nature looks nice and the people look and act realistic. None of the movements look awkward or strained, except for when characters talk and the dialogue rarely matches their mouths. LiS is also set in Oregon! I mentioned in my Gone Home review that I love a good Oregon shout-out, and now I’m on my second point and click, story based game set in my home state. The soundtrack is excellent. It reminds me exactly of the music the kids at my high school listened to, indie underground with acoustic guitars and male vocalists. I’m actually considering finding the soundtrack from this game, or even searching out the tracks individually, it’s a great soundtrack.

So I’ve been kind of harsh on LiS up to this point with its weird gameplay mechanics and imbalanced characterization. It’s been said many times before that if you’re going to make a point and click game, the story needs to be damn good to back it up. And honestly, Life is Strange presents a unique story with characters that seem interesting and are fairly in-depth. They’re all angsty teenagers living in a small town along the Oregon coast, so they can be forgiven for their poor attitudes and crazy moodiness. At one point Max’s friend Chloe tells her that she needs to “medicate” before pulling out a joint to light up. Which, bleh, what teenager in their right mind would say that? That really pulled me out of the story, but LiS won me over again a few moments later when Chloe uses a sweet Oregon ashtray.

The voice acting in the game is spot-on, it’s convincing and helps me to believe these characters could be real people. The school and the town feel like places where people actually life and interact. One of my favorite parts of the game was wondering around in the girls’ dorm looking at peoples stuff, especially in Max’s room. It’s a great moment of environmental storytelling, and lets you become invested in the characters stories and histories without walking up to them and spending five minutes of dialogue asking questions.

I can’t help but compare Life is Strange to Gone Home. Both are point and click, story based, and emotional games set in small towns in Oregon. The first episode of LiS takes about the same time to complete as the entirety of GH. It’s hard to say if being episodic will help or hurt LiS, because in the same timeframe GH fleshed out an entire story and character arc that was extremely moving and emotionally compelling. I get the same feeling here as I did before that makes me wonder why these stories are being told as a game. They could easily transfer medium to a short novel or film. I’m curious if these types of games are being made because game-makers simply came up with the idea or if they were compelled to tell the story. Would the developers feel incomplete if they were unable to produce this game and put it out there for players to experience? Obviously companies like The Fullbright Company and Square Enix are trying to make money. Were these games made because Square Enix needed a new game to produce and someone came forward with the premise for Life is Strange? Did The Fullbright Company have the idea for Gone Home first and started the game studio second? Maybe the motivation behind the games is one of the differences between indie studios and big AAA developers.

Life is Strange is trying to be the next big story-based game with long term consequences. It’s hard to say too much about the story since we’re about 1/5 through the plot, but the groundwork that’s been laid down so far has been intriguing. How does Max’s ability change in the future, and how do the seemingly insignificant choices made so far all fit into the big picture? It’s hard to say if I’ll play through Episode 2 yet, but I am genuinely curious what the next installment will look like. I hope that some of the characters and plot will be more polished, but I’m most excited for the next episode’s soundtrack.