Welcome to LIFE IS STRANGE week. If you aren’t familiar with the DONTNOD videogame series, they’re choice-based narrative games where the decisions you make matter more than they ever did in your MASS EFFECTs, and they’re all centered around the traumas endured while navigating one’s tumultuous teen years.
First up will be LIFE IS STRANGE, followed by LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM, then the ‘demo’ for LIFE IS STRANGE 2 — THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN SPIRIT — before diving into LIFE IS STRANGE 2. Then LIFE IS STRANGE: TRUE COLORS, followed by the TRUE COLORS prelude/coda: STEPH’S STORY.
It is worth noting that all of these games deal rather frankly with a range of unsavory and traumatic actions and conditions, such as abduction, abuse, familial death, suicidal thoughts, and more. I’ll be assigning content warnings to each post but, if you’re sensitive to such matters — believe me, I am and I really probably shouldn’t even be playing through these games right now — you may want to skip these entries.
If you want a primer, I’ve created a YouTube playlist:
The first post will be for LIFE IS STRANGE (2015) on Feb 20th! In the meantime, you can take bets on which is my fav.