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plutherusI’m looking at some of the lessons to be learned from the writing in Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
For the complete series, see https://plutherus.dreamwidth.org/tag/lifeisstrange
Warning: Contains many many spoilers.
In the next scene, we find ourselves back at the Junkyard.
I mentioned the journals earlier. They, along with the text messages on Chloe’s phone, add detail to the world and serve to remind the player of what has happened, but don’t significantly advance the plot. Chloe’s journals take the form of unsent letters to her missing friend, Max. Chloe and Max were best friends until Max’s family moved to Seattle just a few days after Chloe’s dad died, when they were both 13. Their lives have taken completely different trajectories since then, and Max no longer keeps in touch. In the texts, you can see several times Chloe trying to contact Max, who keeps promising to call her and never does. Chloe eventually gave up.
The journal entry to this scene starts with the line:
She’s not asking as an accusation, she’s thinking of running away and leaving Arcadia Bay behind, and wants to know how to decide when’s the right time to do so. It’s all the more heartbreaking that she’s not even mad anymore, just curious. She envies Max’s ability to escape.
Chloe half-heartedly starts smashing things around the junkyard. When she comes to an old trunk. She raises her baseball bat, then stops. For all it’s outward appearance, it holds promise. Again, since this is a prequel, this scene has to work two ways:
For those who’ve played the sequel, we immediately recognize Chloe’s Truck, so this is going to explain how she gets it.
For those who haven’t, it’s just a truck, and we can tell there’s something significant about it, but we don’t know what yet.
This leads to a minigame in which you start to repair the truck. The game leads you to find items around the junkyard to spruce it up, most of which are recognizable from the original game. Because you’ve spent so much time on it, it reinforces the importance of the truck itself. In a novel, this could be accomplished by layering on details. The more details you give about something, the more importance it will gain in the reader’s mind. It’s a good way of saying “Hey, pay attention, this is going to be important.” without telling the reader why yet. It sets readers expectations. As mentioned before, though, if you put in too many details, readers will expect it to be important so they’ll be disappointed if nothing ever comes of it.
Fixing up the truck segues into another dream sequence. They have several of these, as Chloe imagines the traffic accident that killed her father three years ago. In the previous sequences, she was in the back seat of the car when her father was driving. In this one, the car’s already wrecked and on fire as they sit in front of it and talk.
The game avoids the one thing that annoys me most about dreams in stories, and they do the one thing that a dream scene should always do.
First, they don’t try to trick us into thinking it’s not a dream. It’s obvious from the start it’s a dream, and even Chloe is aware of this fact.
Scond, it imparts mystic wisdom, as a dream should do. In this case, at the end, her father discusses the fire (both the car and the forest fire which is still raging) and urges caution.
If you didn’t get the point yet, she is awakened by Rachel knocking at the window of her new truck.
They discuss the truck. (“I can’t believe you already found us an escape vehicle!”) and their plans for running away together. Chloe is skeptical. Rachel has no doubts.
Rachel is still into her games. “What you need is therapy!” It’s kind of a clumsy way to get Chloe to discuss her feelings, which isn’t even needed because they’ve already been talking organically. But then again, games are what Rachel does. Rachel does admit that she’s inspired by Chloe. “Maybe I needed someone to teach me how to give no fucks because I was tired of having to give so many fucks all the time.”
There’s also a cute exchange that reiterates how comfortable they are getting talking to each other now.
Rachel leaves her bag when she goes (“a survival kit for you”), and it turns out it’s just clothes. This lets you choose a new outfit, and, in the case of my play through, finally change out of the stolen Firewalk T-shirt she’s been wearing for the last two days, but doesn’t really add anything to the plot. Nor does it advance character. In a novel this scene could be replaced with a line.
Or just skip it entirely. It could help reiterate the passage of time. Or it could just be ignored. It’s only been two days since the beginning. “How could just meeting this girl change her life so much in only two days?” would also underscore the time and also add a bit of intensity as well as doubt to their relationship.
This leads to another minigame in which Chloe fixes up a shack in the junkyard, similar to how she did the truck. Same thing applies about underscoring importance with details. Players of the original game will of course be familiar with the end results of the shack. Here we get to see the beginning, and the first line of the graffiti that Max eventually may or may not add to.
But for now, drug dealer Frank finally shows up, and he has a job for Chloe.
For the complete series, see https://plutherus.dreamwidth.org/tag/lifeisstrange
Warning: Contains many many spoilers.
In the next scene, we find ourselves back at the Junkyard.
I mentioned the journals earlier. They, along with the text messages on Chloe’s phone, add detail to the world and serve to remind the player of what has happened, but don’t significantly advance the plot. Chloe’s journals take the form of unsent letters to her missing friend, Max. Chloe and Max were best friends until Max’s family moved to Seattle just a few days after Chloe’s dad died, when they were both 13. Their lives have taken completely different trajectories since then, and Max no longer keeps in touch. In the texts, you can see several times Chloe trying to contact Max, who keeps promising to call her and never does. Chloe eventually gave up.
The journal entry to this scene starts with the line:
“When did you know you were done with me? I mean, how did you know it was time to move on?”
She’s not asking as an accusation, she’s thinking of running away and leaving Arcadia Bay behind, and wants to know how to decide when’s the right time to do so. It’s all the more heartbreaking that she’s not even mad anymore, just curious. She envies Max’s ability to escape.
Chloe half-heartedly starts smashing things around the junkyard. When she comes to an old trunk. She raises her baseball bat, then stops. For all it’s outward appearance, it holds promise. Again, since this is a prequel, this scene has to work two ways:
For those who’ve played the sequel, we immediately recognize Chloe’s Truck, so this is going to explain how she gets it.
For those who haven’t, it’s just a truck, and we can tell there’s something significant about it, but we don’t know what yet.
This leads to a minigame in which you start to repair the truck. The game leads you to find items around the junkyard to spruce it up, most of which are recognizable from the original game. Because you’ve spent so much time on it, it reinforces the importance of the truck itself. In a novel, this could be accomplished by layering on details. The more details you give about something, the more importance it will gain in the reader’s mind. It’s a good way of saying “Hey, pay attention, this is going to be important.” without telling the reader why yet. It sets readers expectations. As mentioned before, though, if you put in too many details, readers will expect it to be important so they’ll be disappointed if nothing ever comes of it.
Fixing up the truck segues into another dream sequence. They have several of these, as Chloe imagines the traffic accident that killed her father three years ago. In the previous sequences, she was in the back seat of the car when her father was driving. In this one, the car’s already wrecked and on fire as they sit in front of it and talk.
The game avoids the one thing that annoys me most about dreams in stories, and they do the one thing that a dream scene should always do.
First, they don’t try to trick us into thinking it’s not a dream. It’s obvious from the start it’s a dream, and even Chloe is aware of this fact.
Scond, it imparts mystic wisdom, as a dream should do. In this case, at the end, her father discusses the fire (both the car and the forest fire which is still raging) and urges caution.
“Fire is mesmerizing. It blinds… with beauty. But fire is jealous, Chloe. It wants all the beauty for itself. That’s why you have to be careful.
“Careful of what?”
“Of getting burned.”
If you didn’t get the point yet, she is awakened by Rachel knocking at the window of her new truck.
They discuss the truck. (“I can’t believe you already found us an escape vehicle!”) and their plans for running away together. Chloe is skeptical. Rachel has no doubts.
Rachel is still into her games. “What you need is therapy!” It’s kind of a clumsy way to get Chloe to discuss her feelings, which isn’t even needed because they’ve already been talking organically. But then again, games are what Rachel does. Rachel does admit that she’s inspired by Chloe. “Maybe I needed someone to teach me how to give no fucks because I was tired of having to give so many fucks all the time.”
There’s also a cute exchange that reiterates how comfortable they are getting talking to each other now.
Chloe: “I’d say I’m just exceptionally well-adjusted.”
Rachel: “I’d bet my therapists license that nobody has ever called you that before.”
Rachel leaves her bag when she goes (“a survival kit for you”), and it turns out it’s just clothes. This lets you choose a new outfit, and, in the case of my play through, finally change out of the stolen Firewalk T-shirt she’s been wearing for the last two days, but doesn’t really add anything to the plot. Nor does it advance character. In a novel this scene could be replaced with a line.
It turned out, Rachel’s idea of a “survival kit” was several changes of clothes. Chloe found a pair of black jeans that fit well enough and a sleeveless white shirt which, once it had benefited from some Sharpie magic, replaced the stolen Firewalk shirt she’d been wearing since the morning after the concert.
Or just skip it entirely. It could help reiterate the passage of time. Or it could just be ignored. It’s only been two days since the beginning. “How could just meeting this girl change her life so much in only two days?” would also underscore the time and also add a bit of intensity as well as doubt to their relationship.
This leads to another minigame in which Chloe fixes up a shack in the junkyard, similar to how she did the truck. Same thing applies about underscoring importance with details. Players of the original game will of course be familiar with the end results of the shack. Here we get to see the beginning, and the first line of the graffiti that Max eventually may or may not add to.
But for now, drug dealer Frank finally shows up, and he has a job for Chloe.
