Life is Strange: STOP TOYING WITH MY EMOTIONS!

One of my guilty pleasures for the past few years is partaking in, and playing, video games that are more and more about the story and emotional impact than the actual game play.
I've played great games that had great stories and game play (Tales of Symphonia), games where I could skip the story for some reckless fun (Grand Theft Auto), and, of course, games where the story is griping and emotionally driving.
Right now, I'm working through a game that falls into the last category there: Life is Strange.
The basic premise is that you play as a teenage girl at an elitist boarding school for arts and sciences. One day, after witnessing the murder of another girl, you discover you can rewind time to the effect of a couple seconds to a couple precious minutes. Using this, you and the girl you saved try to uncover the greater mysteries that plague the campus and all your choices have some kind of lasting impact. Rewind time so that one girl doesn't get hit with a football? AAAAANNNNDDDDthe football breaks a window instead and a day later you see the window boarded up.

To put this lightly, this game has been jerking with my emotions!
No, really, there are five chapters (Four of which are out as of this blog post) and I have completed three. The third chapter has you go back in time to prevent a disaster that happens to your best friend's family, but instead the end of the chapter reveals it happen to her instead! UGH!
Another game that I've become more and more invested in the story than the game play is the point-and-click horror game Five Nights at Freddy's. There is an interesting lore there and I give the creator major props for building such an awesome and haunting lore as he did!

To be fair, it is very, very rare that a game or book gets me emotional. I don't mean like the disgust I felt when Darken Rahl in Wizard's First Rule was found to have been sacrificing children. I mean, like the big reveal that your 'quick fix' for your BFF actually made her situation worse! (Better yet, I've read spoiler free comments that it gets much, much worse!)
I've cried for books and games, I've gotten mad at characters, I've cheered with them, and I've nearly stuffed a paperback into my own mouth while reading a particularly heroic and epic moment.
But... I can see these story-driven games becoming more of a guilty pleasure for me. Ever since I devoted myself to putting my ideas down in writing I have found myself more and more consumed by the premise of a story. One of my dreams one day is to be able to do one small action to aid someone and, if they ask how they can repay me I'd reply that all I'd want is them to tell me a story. I haven't even come close to doing it, but some day I will! I'm determined.

Anyway, I have chapter 4 of Life is Strange ready to play and c5 is due out in September. (Yay(!)(?)) So I'll just play 4 and question everything until 5 shows up! Hopefully it's not delayed.
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Published on July 30, 2015 19:49
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Nick's Insight to Madness

Nick Bolock
This is the semi-official blog of author Nick Bolock. I'll write here about my writing, some things around me, ideas I've worked on, and some other things along the way.
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