Apathy is a common emotion experienced with games that follow a “choose your own adventure” focus. Usually these game feature branching storylines, character deaths and the impacts of the player’s choices. Notable games in this genre include TellTale Games’ The Walking Dead Game and Square Enix’s Life is Strange.
Discuss, perhaps from a personal view, how the player may experience apathy after playing a choose-your-own-adventure. Is apathy a foregone conclusion after playing one of these games or does it vary on the player? As well, what are some of the other reasons a player may experience apathy? Could it be from the writing, disjointed plot, lack of character importance?
I believe this can be an interesting topic. When a person plays these forms of games, they are making drastic story-altering decisions in a limited amount of time. While people may make thousands of decisions a day, for the most part they are subconsciously thought about where the decisions we make are almost instinctual or based on personal bias. With these Choose Your Own Adventure Games, while being fictional, you are making these split second choices not for yourself but another person, even more so these games often give gravity to the weight of your decisions. Now from a writing perspective, these stories are very hard to properly cultivate because there are so many variables that making choices right from the first episodes already limits the possible paths you can take. Because of that, these games can be a completionist nightmare purely because each decision could impact just a scene or the entire feel of the story and having to go back over multiple times could feel like a mute point unless the story was worth re-watching.
– Kevin Mohammed5 years ago
Until Dawn and Life is Strange are both video games this year that have tackled the idea of the butterfly effect. Both are cinematic adventure games with a heavy focus on narrative, and both are built around the consequences of choices the player makes. Does one game do things better than the other in this regard? Does Until Dawn lack a unique mechanic when compared to Life is Strange’s time-travel powers, or does the latter overcomplicate things? Which game creates a better network of cause and effect, and which does a better job of maintaining that web?
I enjoyed both of these games and the only similarity between them is the idea of the butterfly effect. I think Until Dawn utilizes the idea of player choice better, simply because there is multiple endings one could acquire. In Life is Strange, no matter your previous decisions in the game, your ending is either A or B. – Lexzie8 years ago
The use of various different animals in the episodic video game "Life is Strange" span from spirit animals to breeds of dogs assigned to people who buy drugs from Frank to even scientific theories (ie the Butterfly effect). There is a wide selection of animals to choose from, but the five with the most subject matter on would probably be: the deer, butterflies, dogs, whales and birds (specifically, the blue jay).
Discuss the meanings and connotations certain animals have in "Life is Strange" and perhaps which human they can be assigned with.
Does Frank’s buyers list accurately reflect who he has assigned to a certain breed? Is there any significant meaning to the list at all?
What do the various appearances of the butterfly represent? Does it always show up when the Butterfly Effect in practice?
Max points out that the deer is specifically a doe and it seems to be connected directly to her. What is their relation? – LaRose8 years ago
