Life is Strange by Developer Dontnod

I'm confused about the k/m controls.

The very first input prompt has you focusing on a Polaroid photo on your classroom school desk but I couldn't activate it.

My mouse cursor just floats around the circular button prompt trailing off of the photo but doesn't navigate down to the photo itself, so it feels like I can't interact with the object.

Not sure what I'm missing. Any advise?

It works like a radial menu. You hover over the circle, click and drag to the verb you want to activate.

krev82 wrote:

hmm, I'm inclined to wait until all 5 are out so that there's no delay between playing the episodes.

I think they've said they're planning on 6 weeks between episodes, so it's not a huge delay.

Just finished the first episode. This is absolutely brilliant!

Wow. That was even better than I expected, and I am shocked. I'm glad to hear about the 6 weeks between episodes thing because if it was on the Kentucky Route Zero schedule...

It was once again interesting to play a game set in Oregon. So weird! This even had more Oregon references than Gone Home did. As far as choices go, I actually let quite a bit slide which felt somewhat natural to the character. I may go back through and play once more to fix a few things on a different save slot. I'll probably do that just before the next episode gets released.

Assuming they do as well with the next episodes, this will be better than any game I played in 2014 and likely my favorite game of 2015.

The PS4 version is great. The mouth movements don't sync up which I assume was just a budget thing. you get over it quickly.

Choices:

Spoiler:

-You hid the truth
-You comforted Victoria
-You took a photo of David harassing Kate
-You came out of hiding to intervene
-You didn't let Daniel draw your portrait
-You didn't sign Ms. Grant's petition
-You helped Alyssa
-You erased the insults on Kate's slate
-You watered your plant
-You didn't touch Dana's pregnancy test
-You "reorganized" Victoria's photos
-You didn't write on a dirty RV
-You let the bird die
-You broke Chloe's snow globe
-You didn't leave any evidence
-You read David's files

It's interesting to see the statistics on the choices. A lot of them are fairly evenly split which, to me, signifies some really good writing. There are absolutely wonderful grey areas in this game. It's also fun that you can view only your friend's choices although I don't have enough people on PS4 who've played it (just 1 other person).

Finally, here are some references I dug:

Spoiler:

There were two fun Twin Peaks references that stuck with me. The first was the truck's license plate. Awesome. The second was the "Damn fine burgers" comment about the diner. I suppose the whole waitress thing is a bit of a reference too.

I liked her offhand comment about Polaroids being expensive. Polaroid stopped making the film/prints a few years ago, so I imagine a third party makes something equivalent and charges you through the roof.

There was a quick Oregon references non-Oregonians might not catch. Warren mentioned a drive-in in Newberg just an hour away. That actually exists in Newberg. I used to work at a Fred Meyer right next to it although I never actually caught a movie there. My grandparents live there now, and my parents live in the adjacent city of Sherwood. Newberg is roughly an hour from the coast. It's funny to think that a kid living on the coast who just got a car would pick that as a destination. I think that's completely a legit thing a teenager would do.

I bought the season pass in an effort to throw money at this game. I'm almost tempted to buy it on Steam as well. As soon as this goes on sale, I will be gifting this game like crazy. Don't wait for that to buy it, though.

Freyja wrote:

It works like a radial menu. You hover over the circle, click and drag to the verb you want to activate.

Got it. Thanks for the help.

Just at the start of the game but I'm already loving it. The presentstion, atmosphere and tone is incredible.

Only criticism is the lip-synching, which is absolute crap. No worries though. Everything else is so strong that it's easy to overlook.

Oh geez, I'm going back through in collectible mode:

Spoiler:

I skipped a few things. The tre flip gag is genuinely funny. I busted up laughing and did not expect that. There are so many great little touches sprinkled throughout.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Oh geez, I'm going back through in collectible mode:

Spoiler:

I skipped a few things. The tre flip gag is genuinely funny. I busted up laughing and did not expect that. There are so many great little touches sprinkled throughout.

Yeah I went back through again for the photos as well

Still missed the...

Spoiler:

..."saved the bird" choice.

Still no idea where that's supposed to occur.

Also: A foolishly early (probably wrong) guess at what happened to the missing girl:

Spoiler:

Mr Fancy Pants photography teacher is a serial killer. She's mentioned as a muse a couple of times by different people, and that she wanted to be a model. Wouldn't be a stretch to assume 'Hipster Glasses' seduced her into trouble with promises of a lucrative modelling career, and the red folder at the end is his "portfolio" of her, collected along with his previous victims.

pyxistyx wrote:

Still missed the...

Spoiler:

..."saved the bird" choice.

Still no idea where that's supposed to occur.

Spoiler:

That happens right when you first enter Chloe's room. It was so strange that I almost laughed when it happened. I totally forgot to rewind time and fix that, though.

I'm gonna take a break from the game but will definitely go through and get every collectible at some point.

pyxistyx wrote:

Also: A foolishly early (probably wrong) guess at what happened to the missing girl:

Spoiler:

Mr Fancy Pants photography teacher is a serial killer. She's mentioned as a muse a couple of times by different people, and that she wanted to be a model. Wouldn't be a stretch to assume 'Hipster Glasses' seduced her into trouble with promises of a lucrative modelling career, and the red folder at the end is his "portfolio" of her, collected along with his previous victims.

Unless that last bit is a

Spoiler:

red herring

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

Still missed the...

Spoiler:

..."saved the bird" choice.

Still no idea where that's supposed to occur.

Spoiler:

That happens right when you first enter Chloe's room. It was so strange that I almost laughed when it happened. I totally forgot to rewind time and fix that, though.

Not quite.

Spoiler:

It's if you go into Chloe's folks' room on the way to the garage.

Ahhhh.

Spoiler:

It's that bird that hits the window, though, right?

Ah! I didn't even realise you could go in there!

Spoiler:

(also didn't realise you could pop out into the back garden as well until i did the second run through). They did a good job of packing each area with lots of things to look at and examine, as opposed to the often rather sparse Telltale stuff

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Ahhhh.

Spoiler:

It's that bird that hits the window, though, right?

Yup!

Got all the photos! Only one of them I really had no idea where to look after having played through the game the first time. But it still wasn't too hard to find by being a completionist.

Spoiler:

The bird.

That was really quite good. A little on the short side, and I'm not overfond of the episodic format, but it was good anyway.

It's a Telltale-style story, but with more detail and things to interact with. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the combinatorial explosion of choices; Telltale's normal approach was to prune back choices so that later events basically rendered your choices not relevant to the ending. With the amount of extra detail in the areas, I'm hoping Dontnod will be willing to take on more of the complexity of a branching narrative.

Oh, and I'm in tuffalo's camp on the reason why the girl is missing:

Spoiler:

Dramatically, it makes the most sense for the trusted, handsome, celebrated teacher to be the villain. Also from that angle, the nutsoid security guy may be trying to catch him, and the girl he was harassing may know something.

Security Guy is too much of a dick; there's gotta be a reversal coming there.

Re: Malor

Spoiler:

I feel the same way. But I can't help but hope that David still somehow gets his just desserts... because he really is a [em]monumentally abusive[/em] dick.

Finished the first episode this morning, really enjoyed it a lot. It definitely left me wanting more at the end, so looking forward to more episodes coming out.

I found all but the bird picture on my play through, then went back in collectible mode and found that one. I like the photo collectibles, looking at them in the journal is usually enough of a clue to figure it out, without completely giving away the solution for how to find them.

Interestingly, I think giving me the ability to rewind and make different choices actually made it harder for me to make a decision in most cases. I didn't really expect that when the mechanic is first introduced at the beginning. It's a neat idea and I'm curious to see how it fits into the overall narrative throughout the rest of the series.

Here were the choices I made:

Spoiler:

You Reported Nathan.
You Comforted Victoria.
You intervened to help out Kate.
You came out of hiding to intervene.

You let Daniel draw your portrait.
You signed Ms. Grant's petition.
You helped Alyssa.
You didn't erase Kate's slate.
You watered your plant.
You didn't touch Dana's pregnancy test
You "reorganized" Victoria's photos.
You wrote on a dirty RV.
You saved the bird.
You didn't break Chloe's snow globe.
You didn't leave any evidence.
You read David's files.

Sonicator wrote:

Not quite sold on the trailer alone, but might dive in if people seem to be enjoying it.

There is a demo on PS4, not sure about PC.

Just finished up the first episode. Not much to say about it that hasn't been more eloquently said by others, but I really enjoyed it, and I can't wait to play the next episode in March.

I'm liking this the more I see of it.. I'm probably going to wait for a couple of episodes to be out and see how people are liking the story.

The phrase 'selfie expression' is nearly a deal breaker. I really hate that kind of pun based writing.

Higgledy wrote:

I'm liking this the more I see of it.. I'm probably going to wait for a couple of episodes to be out and see how people are liking the story.

The phrase 'selfie expression' is nearly a deal breaker. I really hate that kind of pun based writing.

To be fair, that's kinda the point - it's supposed to be a clumsy, awful pun .

There are a few cringy lines of dialogue in there though "time to be an everyday hero" springs to mind..urgh.

When I first heard that line it rang alarm bells. I'm sure you are right and it's knowingly bad. Certainly the rest of the game is looking very nice. I can live with a few dodgy lines as long as most of the dialogue has a realistic tone.

I think it's clear that Jefferson is meant to be the kind of person who makes dad jokes. They seem forced to me--but like [em]he[/em] is forcing them, not like the writers are forcing them onto a character that wouldn't use them, or a time when the character wouldn't use them.

As for the "time to be an everyday hero" thing... I saw that as a reflection of Max's self-deprecating attitude. She knows that line is cheesy, and she's turning it against herself internally to defuse her own tension. I could practically hear the exasperated "lol" punctuating the end of it.

I don't think I've seen any specific lines or jokes that have felt "too precious". Just enough to make the player wince and roll their eyes... just like Max would.

I guess I'll see if that continues, or it gets worse.

I love this game so much. So far I've had a few weird moments where the gaminess intervenes though. Like there were times when it was obvious that the placement of things was deliberately constructed so that I'd end up searching the whole area before finding my goal... and that made me uncomfortable because I felt like I was forced to invade people's privacy simply to achieve some goal set by the game. But that's a minor quibble given how everything worked out. I don't expect I'll manage a completionist playthrough though, because I am playing this straight up--I'm not poking into things that I wouldn't in real life.

Hypatian wrote:

As for the "time to be an everyday hero" thing... I saw that as a reflection of Max's self-deprecating attitude. She knows that line is cheesy, and she's turning it against herself internally to defuse her own tension. I could practically hear the exasperated "lol" punctuating the end of it. :)

Not to mention Everyday Hero is also the title of the photo contest the teacher mentions to the class only moments earlier as everyone is leaving. Seems like a reasonable dialog fit to me.

I did cringe a bit in the bathroom scene when the term "hella" is used not once, but twice. Felt out of character. But I think this points more readily to what the game is doing right. If I'm noticing little quirks that don't quite fit, that tells me that the writers and voice cast are doing a lot right for only small bumps to stick out. It feels like an authentic, believable space with authentic, believable characters, and this is what I want more than anything these days with narrative-driven games.

I'm with complexmath in that I absolutely love this game. While there's a supernatural twist, of more valuable to me is the completely mundane setting with convincing, innocuous characters. It's such an exciting time when games like Life Is Strange and Gone Home are meeting with critical (and hopefully commercial) success.

Reading through this page I think I've missed out on a lot of content besides only getting three of the optional photos. I like to think of myself as a completionist too but I must have been spoiled by Telltale,

Is the idea to create a new save game for all of the extras or is it possible to do everything/get all the achievements and just rewind it as I see fit?

I think the latter. It seems like they've set up that mechanic as a means for learning stuff without any repercussions. But I'm operating under the assumption that willfully invading others' privacy, knowing that I can get out of the consequences if I'm caught still leaves my character changed, and not necessarily for the better. Like even exploring the consequences of different actions could have an effect on Max's character in the long term. So it's an ability I'm using sparingly so far.

Once you complete the game, you can replay any section in "collectible mode" which has no effect on choices going into the next episode, but lets you see things you've missed and collect photos.

Ah cool. I'm not quite done with ep. 1 yet. Good to know that this exists.

Just finished. Man that was ace.

Took me roughly 5 hours, but this is always how it goes with these games. I pour over every detail, click everything imaginable, and just soak in the sights. Speaking of which, I absolutely love the art direction and cinematography. The game world is so gorgeous.

Got all 10 pics first time through. Man, that ending-sequence montage and music selection was so affecting. Awesome, awesome stuff!