Part of me can't shake the feeling that Kate was supposed to jump off the roof.
Life is Strange, an episodic, choose-your-own-adventure with more talking than killing, is a coming-of-age story, and here's the obligatory spoiler warning: Major plot points follow. Such stories tend to be as much about failure as anything else, forcing players to recognize and accept the impassable gap between their choices and the unintended consequences of them.
About that roof. Kate, so despondent over the bullying and harassment she experiences after an embarrassing moment, is poised to jump from the roof of her private school unless our hero, a senior named Max, can talk her down. When I play this game with my wife, we get Max to do just that, and the episode ends with tears and quiet hope. I'm relieved, but it feels wrong. Like we broke something. Not because Kate's death would have been more dramatic, a bit of tragedy on the way to Max's self-actualization, but because it felt a little too neat. We acted with the best intentions, and experienced the best outcome. No surprises; no friction.
What kind of growing up is that?
Calling a MulliganLife is Strange grants do-overs. Early on in your journey with Max Caulfield, a mild-mannered teen who has returned to Arcadia Bay, Oregon1, to study photography at the exclusive Blackwell Academy, you (and she) discover she has a gift. Max can rewind time, the world blurring as she moves back in time, memories intact and free to change whatever just happened.
On Max's first day at Blackwell, a girl named Chloe is shot. Max rewinds time to save her. And then everything goes sideways.
