Life is Strange: The Blue Age of Storytelling

[Music] are we good can you hear me am I on bueller bueller okay good day how do you do fellow kids thank you so much for coming to these life estrange the blue age of storytelling I feel like my voice is little extra-crispy loud but that's just my paranoia and nervousness thank you for coming this panel in life is strange what I call the blue age of storytelling my name is Christian Devine now is the head writer for the game life is strange published by Square Enix and produced by the amazing don't not entertainment I'm giving myself a few get-out-of-jail-free cards so that's just if you hear a numb it just means I passed off one of those cards so that start let's start from the beginning and because it's a because

we're talking about a narrative and dramatic structure the talk is going to be bracing basically broken down to three acts Act one is the intro well talk about myself background how I came to work for life is strange actually we're going to go into an actual anatomy of the scene we're going to take a major scene from life is strange and analyze it and show the levels of writing and design and POV that went into it and maybe how all these different characters choreographed creates a really strong emotional scene and a strong narrative scene and the final act is called the field simulator and we'll talk a bit about the emotional response to life of strange you and the unexpected to us emotional response even though that's what we hope for and how maybe we did that and maybe how we didn't do that and so first off my dad was I'll start from a background this is g-force Gatchaman

know I love these pants here because they're so 70s it's hilarious that's me on the far right my dad was in the military so I'm what's done in America as a military brat meaning we moved around constantly because my dad served in Vietnam and when he was in in Vietnam we were just at different bases form I was born in New York so we'd go from New York to Florida to South Carolina Wyoming Columbus all over Monterey I was born with one hand what the doctors of the time call a congenital birth defect there's no real reason or explanation it I don't ask for any sympathy or even barely empathy because of course when you're everybody knows is who's everybody's got their own shell on their back either it's a exterior shell or it's an interior shell and we all carry the shell with us and mine just happens to be exterior and it early on I learned that I was different and I learned early

on that I had to be smarter and better prepared to deal with society because they're always gonna be like oh oh oh baby oh you can't do this oh I can do everything but juggle and fortunately just does not come up and since Donald Trump is not going to become president I don't have to worry about juggling just letting you know as an ambassador from America and one of the most important things I learned very early on my brother Scott was a big influence on me because he was a few years older and I was always the you going where you going where you going which he loved and but he was the cultural influence on me and so he he exposed me to all the cool cultural things that I that I needed to be exposed to as a kid and Bruce Lee was one of my early heroes and Bruce Lee is quote one of his my favorite quotes is make your disadvantage or advantage and that's what I learned early on about my arm you know you you use whatever you have but if it's not perfect take that

and try to apply it to an the system and make it work for example I will use life is strange an example life is strange obviously was not a triple-a game didn't have the big budget but it's very low Phi and so instead of trying to compete with massive photo realism and incredible graphics they use a totally different art style a painterly very beautiful handcrafted art style and it's a lo-fi aesthetic but it works and it fits it fits the aesthetic of the game and I think in what's going on right now and in in gaming is that you're going to have all these new areas of aesthetic coming in because it's a very young industry we're very it's 30 years old when you look at it and as if you compare that to the film industry or literature anything you can see what a very small timeline that isn't so but the acceleration is very rapid of the technology and I think technologically were there I mean games I mean VR is the next thing but boy graphically to go from pong to Wow is pretty incredible and only a 30 year period so this is a

map of Rockland California it's pure suburbia oh wait a minute that's actually the back cover of the rush albums signals because the song subdivisions is was a defining album in my life because you know one of the lines of the song subdivisions is nowhere is the misfit or the dreamer more alone and that's the feeling every artist has or anybody who wants to go beyond you know feels so culturally I'm consider myself a media baby and I bunged up everything as a kid I was a huge Godzilla fan huge you know monster movie fan when I was a kid I wanted to be an animator I really ray harryhausen was my hero so I dreamed of being a stop-motion animator and I did a lot of stop motion but I realized boy you really need a lot of discipline and it's not a field that there's a huge amount of people that I can succeed in and I moved onto drawing in art Jack Kirby is my is my new God in terms of artists and you can see Kirby's worked it I mean the Marvel Universe all came from Jack Kirby Stan Lee did write it but Jack Kirby

created everything and and the power of that mythos and the power of that myth-making you know really influenced me early on my brother gave me Martian Chronicles my Ray Bradbury that changed my life I love Bradbury's writing because I was never into heart I read the hard science fiction but I was never I didn't really care about how the rocket ship worked and neither did Ray Bradbury he was like they get in a rocket ship they fly to Mars that's it that's the science of Ray Bradbury so there was a poetry to his fantasy but his bent was more social issues and how people deal with the future with you know with their own morality dandelion wine romantic October country the darkness of The Melancholy of October that Bradbury is so beautiful out and you know growing up Judy Blume was a huge influence on me she's a do you know who Judy Blume is out there she's the most famous young adult author in America all up until recently she's still famous and she's the first young adult author to actually present issues

of bullying and and what you go through is Cooper T and in an honest way her books are very controversial they're often banned blubber was a very successful very controversial book about a young girl who's picked on enormously because of her weight it's an incredibly cruel mean book not because she's cruel and mean because kids are cruel and mean and she she just we love these books because these were our classmates and when I was ten years old I saw this movie called Star Wars and Star Wars you know I hate to say yeah that changed my life but yeah Star has changed my life because when I sat in that theater and the Star Destroyer went overhead the entire audience cheered now one thing we don't quite have anymore in movies is this communal feeling yes people applaud and they laugh and they cheer but Star Wars brought back this immense audience involvement so the entire time people are cheering and laughing and literally almost standing on the seat and I don't think anybody's they can quite imagine that response and it was a very typical audience response

so the moment that Luke Skywalker goes out and looks out the binary sunset that is a brilliant myth-making moment Lucas didn't even really know what he was doing in that moment because that's the moment that he's saying to every dream or every artist that's looking out there like where is my place where am I going and I at that point I said I'm going somewhere I want to be an artist and I'm heading out towards that future now one of my other heroes is Jean Cocteau who's a French artist very famous French artist and he always said that art is a marriage of the unconscious and the conscious meaning that when you're creating art you need to be relying you can't be analytical because you just won't get far and that's why most people stop writing they're like oh why I was writing but I had to I keep editing which is what I started doing but you know you have to let the [ __ ] out you cannot edit it you wait till afterwards to be analytical so you have to be really pure about that and my influences are so great and what I'm talking about the Blue age of storytelling I'm kind of

talking about a cultural change of we had I was a huge anime fan obviously Gatchaman big influence Captain Harlock and of course this is satire Mad Magazine for me Mad Magazine taught me very very early on not to trust anything I saw and I still don't it's just how I am I just know that you know that there's a lot of manipulation going and I'm very also as a writer I'm very aware of how things work a bit so I'm very like I make sure that I'm checking everything of course you know I became a huge fan of monster magazines HR Giger you know the all these weird influences really created me fantasy books conan and heavy metal when I started hitting puberty I'm like oh oh there's some naked bodies in here in violent school and I also grew up with John Romero he was my best friend since 10 years old and we were a couple of really mean kids in terms of what we were doing artistically because we start breaking the rules at National Lampoon magazine broke all these scary rules and this is

a page from a story called boys wrath by John Hughes who later created Breakfast Club in sixteen Candles but before he was John Hughes he was writing the most merciless terrifying stories about suburban youth and and we kind of all in took that Ian Fleming James Bond huge influence on me and then of course games monopoly for some reason I was obsessed with as a kid I don't know why I always wanted Baltic Avenue in Mediterranean I would get hotels on there and go bankrupt within you know two plays and Donkey Kong really changed my life aybe I love the name Donkey Kong there's it's the two weirdest words put together ever and it fits perfectly and me and John would spend hours of their cave I turned the Donkey Kong machine over and I was instantly always huge and arcade games and always attracted to the visual and even the narrative qualities like oh come on Mario get up there you know get up there and then when I was about 12 I started reading about Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy magazines in the

back of counterculture magazines now I didn't know wow this is like a a board game but you get to have narrative you get to talk and beat and have dialogue and say characters and so dungeon dragons is the biggest storytelling influence on me and it really taught me story in a way because when you're sitting at the table you have to really come up with thing because it's all built around players decisions and you don't know what you may have a map you may have a guy but you don't know what the players are gonna do so it really taught me to think about story and narrative and then I could a say all the roles of the characters and it was just a huge influence on me and even games like car wars by Steve Jackson which I totally adore this is not a picture of me and my friends but it sure could be it's pretty much the archetypal picture of all the kids you know playing D&D in the day and as a writer I started the first script I ever read was alien and this is the scene right here this is the original description of the alien coming out of Kane's chest and I absolutely was fascinated by the writing style if you

look at it dot dot dot dot and Walter Hill rewrote Dan O'Bannon script and Walter Hill who wrote the Warriors and forty hours in a lot of films he had a really amazing screenwriting style it's kind of like a haiku and just a read staying than a smear of blood blossoms the fabric of his shirt is ripped open the crew shouts in panic you know it's just pop pop pop and Ridley Scott read the script in half an hour he but he wanted to do it immediately just because of the way the script was written so that was a big influence and of course Stephen King when I read The Shining blew me away and terrified me and I was a huge Stephen King fan and I read everything Harlan Ellison taught me how to question and stand up for myself as a kid because he's a very famous writer Harlan Ellison wrote the most famous episode of Star Trek the original Star Trek called the city on the edge of forever which is referenced in life is strange of course Kirk has to go back in time he falls in love in order to change time he has to let the woman he loves dies so it's and it's the best episode of Star Trek and it's my favorite ignore Iran's

politics but her writing to me was amazing and her writing style changed my life because she had a really beautiful way of encapsulating ideas and emotion and in a way that I thought that I'd never read anybody do before and I I advise you if you were interested in just dialogue just to read her dialogue ignore her politics but just read what she's writing because it's truly amazing writing William Gibson huge fan because he was the first person to like predict the cyberspace where we're at now and it's it was it's an amazing achievement my first published the first time I was ever published in the magazine was Fangoria the first time the Evil Dead was ever mentioned in any media so I'm very proud that my it was for a draw the fame contest from John Carpenter so I made it to one of the 100 finalists at a 4,000 entries and that also said I said huh maybe I have something going on here maybe I can maybe there's a maybe there's a way for me in this world I'm a big fan of Marshall McLuhan talking about the media because the

media is is somewhat of my subtext and and I believe that a lot of my viewpoints are filtered through what goes on in the media and I also believe it's the most powerful force in the world outside of politics and it does change and transforms people's lives and it hypnotizes them and inspires them and so all of these cultural influences I always say nothing is wasted it doesn't hurt to have every arrow in your quiver I don't think anything that you do like I'm interested in this but I'm interested in that you never know where that one thing that you think is not going to mean anything is going to come up and actually mean something so let's get a bit to what I call the blue age now the new age it was the term from the 60s and 70s this holistic movement that was a response against Western kind of imperialism and capitalism and it led to this holistic spiritual movement in the 70s and 80s and then strangely enough led to Yanni and record stores next

tangerine dream what does not Yanni and tangerine dream do not belong together Brian Eno I'm a huge huge ambient instrumental music fans so but to me we're moving I realized quickly early on I mean blue is the color of cool it's the color of monitors it's the color of the screen the the the primary color and Blade Runner is blue and the first apple ad blue and I got the first Macintosh and I was it transformed my writing life instantly because I was writing on typewriters and I could write on a typewriter but I did not want to it took forever and to correct something yet to go into it so when the computer came along I was all over this ditch it changed my writing life and I was like okay I can instantly delete and correct and I got the first screenwriting software and I started writing I got the first Sony Handycam and the night that I actually came up with the phrase the blue age I was looking to the lens I was having an epiphany maybe under controlled

substances or not I'm not saying but it doesn't you don't question what PIFAN e's come from but I realized that the future is was going to be through monitors and when you walk down the street what's the color you see from all the rooms blue blue blue light we like people looking down blue light blue light blue light so we're moving into this POV of screams and mirrors and reflection and refraction and by the way these this theory is just theory theory is in theory it's not canon you can save this guy's full of [ __ ] and that's okay because it's just a theory I went to Berkeley so I was saying this is full of [ __ ] about all sorts of theories but I loved learning them because I do think it you it adds when I was a 25 that was my 64 Cadillac I needed to change my life because I knew I wanted to be an artist but I realized that I wasn't I wasn't going forward I wasn't I wasn't moving the direction that I needed to move into and so I went back to school I changed my life completely moved down to Southern California and rolled back in school I knew I had you know I thought I

had some raw talent but I had no discipline and I run I won I entered it but the first writing thing I ever entered was a national play contest and I ended up being one of the hundred finalists of 5,000 people and that was literally the sign that I was looking for from the universe like okay I'm I'm maybe maybe this will happen when I went back to school it was wonderful great teachers they inspired me and they taught me the best thing I learned about school is the Platonic knowledge is no one you don't know i-i-i used that rule to this day just know when you don't know it's okay to not know there's nothing wrong with that you'll learn oh you'll figure it out you won't it's okay and then while I was at Berkeley John Romero who had already of course become John Romero through doom called me up and said the magic words hey do you want to come write for my new game and I said let me think about it I'll think about it and then then my apartment burned down and I was in Texas a week later so life worked out we can talk about daikatana and ion storm on another lecture that's a whole other

story but it was an amazing experience and I learned a lot about game development working with a team and also it was a very early indicator because the online war was still very early and of how very toxic the online world could be when it didn't like something and I never forgot that moment I still have not forgot that moment and then a certain point Hollywood came a-callin for my scripts and so I moved to Los Angeles and started selling scripts and option scripts and Randy for games and writing for everybody who wanted me to write for them and it was wonderful because you just you're working through this entire system and this is what am I ever screenwriter has the dream of being in a variety and when I option my script a tune will butterfly they did the with Evan Rachel Wood signed on board to play the lead and Michael polish a director who happened to go to my same high school and rock then along with John ended up attaching himself as a director so from there I've been thinking like god I really want to get back in the

games I've been missing III I kind of left the game rolling away because I thought like it was a little bit stagnant and I in needed new blood and it also needed to go through growing pains it was a little bit too it was just a little bit too boyish let's put it that way and I was waiting for that changeover to come and then when my friend David elbow a French writer who is my it's always good to have a French cheerleader he had heard they were looking for a writer for this new game and so he recommended me and I ended up panicking with Michelle the co-director and they sent over the menu and some clips from the game and this is the first thing I saw from life is strange with with the menu moving and that little piece of music and I knew immediately I knew immediately I said this is awesome I get it I get it I don't even know what the games about I get what they're doing I get the tone they're going for and Brenda Romero who on the faculty and invited me to speaker today she said we should you know for your test because every game company gives you a test usually and the tests are not always

indicative of what you can do as a writer a 7 just like describe the scepter okay it's just you know there's only so many ways you can describe a scepter but for twine it was it's a anybody using twine at all it's actually I highly recommend it just in terms of building story blocks and when I started using it I was like wow this is like narrative Lagos yeah that's what a great phrase narrative Lagos I'm so proud of myself when I watch a GDC election with Ken Levine talking about narrative Lagos from like two years earlier that's okay great minds and so that you can see like this is the branching dialogue of the of the twine and you can see the level how detailed and how many it goes up and that's part of the problem wrenching dialogue for people is you have to think not only just one linear you have to think of all the tangents and you that's a trick for some writer since why a lot of screenwriters don't really do well in games because they don't quite understand the concept of branching dialogue and how to do it but you can see just you you know you

can see you keep moving in and it's you're able to go to one here and one here and this is the very first mention of the word hella in the this is for the test that I gave them and they they they were sold on the word hella so I had a Skype interview they loved what I did for the test the test was totally not like a test it was simply felt like it was made for me and then two weeks after I took it I was in Paris and Paris was wonderful and what's even more amazing to show you the the curve of life how strange it how strange it is is that this is the route Rui moaned say this for me please Missy who happened to be John Cocteau's lover and one of his mentor's so the fact that I was actually working on this street I just felt like there's no accidents and this is just a glimpse of us doing some voice recording in the studio this

is me letting that letting me I bugged them I begged them to let me do a cameo voice because I'm even though I'm not an actor I loved I loved to ham it up some time so they let me say the part of trust limbo the radio talk show host in in Everett does every member that fan fantastic scene trust limbo oh yeah I thought so it's right before nathan has his amazing message but it was really it's a great experience because you get to learn once again everybody should learn how Boise actors work if you're a writer you need to know you need to be writing for actors they need to think about actors and you need to have respect for actors it's an incredibly hard job my very last day in Paris after writing Waipa strange for tears I had to take that famous one last shot in the rain it was sad I was crying I was feeling I had the fields and the game the first episode had already dropped and the first night the first episode dropped of course I sat down I was visiting actually my hometown in Rockland where I grew up and I was by

myself and I realize like oh [ __ ] the entire world is about to judge me and it's it's kind of a scary feeling and then when I start watching it I just was like you know you're watching the twitches the twitch streams and I was and I could tell by about ten o'clock that night I this is not ego by the way this is just me saying I just said and I just felt really good because I could see people responding to it even the people you know and of course there are people that were responding to it negatively so the first night I'm watching the the chat stream one of the comments is I wish I could go back in time and give the writers mom and abortion now you could say that is darkly funny and I probably would it's it's that I can handle it it's just it's but who does that who says that why do they do that and it made me think because the point of life is strange is also how the social media bullying affects young and I of course it would it's terrible to have to deal with that and and the scope that young people do they have to

deal with this you know it's very powerful and it and it's psychologically very damaging so it's really proud that the game was able to impress upon people we were able to move forward in terms of storytelling and and have deal with these issues you know abortion and suicide and you know just making it busting your friend for we these moral decisions that the game forced you to make it was just taking games in the direction that I was just always excited to go for and I was so happy and so humbled that the fandom and the critical acclaim came X and it was just to really you don't always get that you don't get that very much and so you're happy if you if you get it at all and we were all overjoyed to get it you know I said early on I really hope we're gonna get some BAFTAs we got five BAFTA nominations and we won for story and just getting the awards is fantastic it's just it's just approbation from the community and the fandom responding to the game and sending us their cosplay and their messages and people saying

that I was gonna kill myself but I played life a strange and I decide not to it's powerful its powerful and I you know the fans always blame us for giving in the fields but I'm like no you give us the fields that's that's really what it's all about and GDC early seer we got the audience award which is really wonderful and for me one of the great honors we got was the Peabody Award for the first Peabody Award for a video game the Peabody Award is basically the electronic communication equivalent of the Pulitzer which I kind of said boy I really think we should get the Pulitzer straight my ego is not in check at this point but we got the Peabody and I got to go to the ceremony accept it and it was really wonderful because I got to tell Jon Stewart and Keegan key about life is strange and they were both everybody was like huh video game about a pea buddy like that's really huh the video game which shows you'd be the mindset that people have about video games a couple months

ago I got to meet John Carpenter and he's a huge fan of don't nods remember me so I brought a copy of life estranged to have him sign for the team and take a photo and we talked about remember me and he said he would play life is strange so it just shows you how far I came from this point as a child just wanting to be involved immediate to actually being involved and the best part of the story is when I went back to school later on and I was winning some awards for writing I ended up what meeting Ray Bradbury and for a contest I'd won and so they asked to take a picture for us and I stood next to Ray Bradbury for some reason he reached out and he grabbed my hand and he squeezed it for the picture and I really felt like he was blessing me he was saying I'm giving you some energy I believe in you I know what you did it though I just felt so like moved so that's basically my background and how I came to write for life is strange let's segue into the clinical part of the discussion which is

anatomy of a scene so we're gonna watch the scene here from life estranged it's it's a spoiler alert by the way it's a boiler this is not a major spoiler but so you're okay but this is a pretty big pivotal scene in the in the third episode hold on in the third episode where David Madsen the overzealous security guard has come back to his house complaining because to some punks had broken into the school the night before those Punk's were his stepdaughter Chloe and the lead character Max and we're looking for clues for the mystery so this is a scene where all the characters they've been very antagonistic and this is kind of the pivotal moment where max gets to finally confront David for being an [ __ ] and what I love about the game is that yes David's an [ __ ] but he's maybe he's not and and people can decide for themselves how they feel about him or Chloe so let's watch the scene and we'll discuss the making of it afterwards

let's hope this works nice breakfast David you back already I have to take a nap after writing up vandalism reports last night what happened it's a little [ __ ] ass Punk's broke into the swimming pool this is what happens at these PC [ __ ] colleges entitled students taken over the campus do you know for sure it was Blackwell students who else would do it and I'm gonna bust them figures you'd be here is that your Rachel amber Halloween costume you know more about her than me no you and Chloe think you know more than anybody like all teenagers leave max alone David stop threatening students he threatens them with surveillance cameras so he can spy on everybody like he spies on all of us here don't

start Chloe not now yeah I'm just always starting [ __ ] right you're a total paranoid thief not now Chloe we used to call me a loser for getting kicked out of Blackwell so who's the loser now David who haven't you accused or harassed between your investigations into Rachel and Kate what have you done besides get in trouble we're siding with Chloe in this one you're a bully David I saw you harass Kate Marsh when she was going through hell you could have totally helped her everybody at blackwell is a suspect to you except for Nathan Prescott that's why the students and faculty don't like you you even threatened me I do respect your service but you don't respect anybody you're smoking pot in Chloe's room that's illegal so is spying on people in your family at your work why do you have photos of Kate

Marshall Rachel amber and your files anyway what is this true max yes David what do you have these files at all I find this very disturbing I do not have to take this kind of interrogation not from you punks maybe you should calm down oh you're turning on me now huh of course women always stick together well screw you David you better go to a hotel until we figure this out you can't kick me out of my own home it's my home David paid for and in my name you know the law right oh I thought I knew a lot of things like when I'm outflanked have a nice day Chloe for once just please shut up I hope Joyce doesn't hate me for tearing into David I don't see or hear you again

max you've hurt me and my family enough okay so what I love this is actually my favorite scene in the game and I have a lot of favorite scenes in the game and the team is so amazing I mean what they put together is so incredible and I was always always amazed at the work they were doing the artists and the musicians and the directors and michonne role and everybody just firing on all cylinders and it's not often you get to work on a team where you really feel like you're all on the same page but I really feel like we were all on the same page and so what I loved about that scene is is just the is just that Joyce who I feel like it's kind of like the most underrated character in the game in a way and one of my favorite characters she just doesn't she never really gets the good end of the stick but she finally gets to tell David what's what I really love that and I love Mack saying to David I respect your service but you don't respect anybody because David served in the military and so that's an important point to make that Chloe does understand that David went through hell and he's

seen horrors that she can't comprehend but David doesn't mean it gives him the right to hold up his hand to his daughter or anybody and my favorite probably my favorite article that anybody wrote about life is strange was from a lieutenant in Afghanistan and he said that David Madsen is the best veteran character in the history of videogames let's take that I'll take that as a compliment so as a writer what I love doing is entering different POVs and one of my big writing epiphanies was when I wrote my first script called not my first script in my fourth script called little girl lost and it was the first time that I decided to not be Christian Devine I was always Christian Devine and I was like god I'm kind of bored of being Christian Devine let's I'm tired of hearing myself think and talk the same way so I thought let's write from a different point of views of two sisters two females on the run and as a writer you do write all sorts of different characters you know somebody you know I met I went for meeting one time and they said well what do you know about writing you know female truck driver I said well I probably know as much as JK Rowling does about a boy wizard you know I know as much as Shakespeare knows about two lovers in

eternal love you know it's it's a kind of a silly question because when you're when you're writing you're it's up to the I mean you have to convince the viewer the reader or the audience that you're convincing them so they you know that's the trick it doesn't mean you can you can try it you can do it but when you're writing different points of view you know I put myself in that characters mindset when I'm running David Matz and I'm like you PC and titled college Punk's and then I max I'm like you [ __ ] you don't know anything about the world you know so you you have to be I like to be fair to all the characters and the point of life is strange is in fact this kind of empathy for people to look at what they're going through it doesn't mean you have to say a proof of them but you look at what they're going through so that's just an example of how you kind of you know put these characters together and have them you know kind of dance around let's go on to this section that field simulator so probably the most amazing thing about the game for all of

us I can probably say it's just the the level of emotional response that the players you know gave us and and watching people on Let's Plays and twitches crying I mean we're writing we were hoping to give them those emotions but we it was hard to believe that I don't think anybody knew that we would tap into this and I'm not sure I'm still not sure why but I think as part of this blue age I think it's because a you're you are involved in Max's personality you're playing max so you're within that world so of course you you there's a bonding there within that screen there's a bonding going on so I think that's what what gives you this kind of emotional connection to the characters and so you know just once again just as a small example of the out point of amazing fan art and once again to me the greatest tribute for life is strange for me is when somebody sends me a picture of them drawing a character in class ignoring the teacher which is exactly what I did and John Romero's in front of me coding when I was 15 and I was drawing comics and they're drawing hell and Chloe so she's got a great future

ahead of her I can I can already see so for this section I want to quickly go through a couple some clips just to show you maybe how we lay or emotional weight within characters and their tangents they're not necessarily big pivotal emotional scenes but they're like emotional building blocks and they build up to how you how you respond to the character so this is this is the introduction of thanks no problem so you saw that he reached in for the hug there and he didn't get the hug you got the flash drive and originally the script just call it for Warren - you know leaning in and kiss max on the cheek but culturally that's we don't do that America so common and so based on Warren's kind of cringy clinging character you know I thought it's much funnier to do this go for the hug thing and they just nailed the style of it's so great but that really that moment defines

Warren for so many people because people are like a friendzone okay now we know friendzone poor Warren and and and though and there is a lot of people that get really don't like Warren and I tend to think some of it is they can certainly not like one because the writing that's fine or some in some ways I think Warren reminds some people too much of themselves you know a bit including me so but it's okay because you know Warren's a teenager and that's how teenagers are sometimes so this is what another section this is what they called it what Michelle and rel called is end moments where Max would sit down and have these little contemplative moments to think about what's going on the lighthouse looks so mysterious I wish I could say in this moment forever I guess I actually can now but then it wouldn't be a moment I really like that line I'm you know I mean as a writer you you know you're you're your worst critic and trust me I can read criticism life

is strange and you know I we all do and so you're your own worst critic and you know what works and what doesn't work for you and there are moments there writing things that you should be happy for I'm proud of because that's kind of what you're doing you should like what you're doing hopefully you enjoy whatever if you're designing or writing or drawing hopefully you do love what you're doing and you and you pat yourself on the back once in a while because the world is not going to that often as an artist that's just the that's the caution air and I tell people that get ready you know you better develop a very thick skin if you're gonna be an artist because the world doesn't care they don't care if you write or draw our paint or design they just don't care you have to make them care that's your job and then hopefully they will care this is another little moment that I really really like I look an otter in my water dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun you are so obvious and I still get freaked out by that movie so stop I can't even watch any other structure now in the script Michelle and row really wanted this this is the last moment between Max and Chloe that's really quiet and bonding and

Michelle are all the directors you know they were very specific about about the intent of the scene in what they in the emotional level they wanted to create and Michelle was like you know we want to have them splashing water you know and it's so it's what kids do everybody does when they jump in the pool and I thought you know every there's probably not anybody who doesn't jump into a pool that doesn't start going doesn't and I mean it's just it's Joss might be the most you know recognizable musical theme of all time there could there could be an argument made for that and it's just it's just a little moment and then she goes I don't even like to watch those shark shows which is a reference to all these endless shark shows they seem to have on TV in America and I'm sure around the world so it's just it's a cultural you know part of the what the layering of life is strange emotionally is the cultural references and and just to it makes people identify it helps people like oh I know that I see that I get that and not to overdo it in a way both because life is strange is set in art college they are purposely overdone because I've been I went to UC Berkeley

and that's all you do you're dropping names all day long you're talking pop culture everything so this is a this clip is moment in an alternate universe when Chloe is actually in the wheelchair and she's talking with Max max thanks for coming out to see me you're you're doing awesome I don't think so um my my nose is getting cold maybe we should get back to my place it is hella cold out here Helen I hate that word no offense none taken [Music] [Music] now nobody says hello this is a something that comes up in the game and part of what I was really excited about writing life is strange where I'm very familiar with in Pacific Northwest I go up to Oregon Portland San all the time

and I'm there all the time and as a Northern California boy the word hella is probably one of the most indigenous expressions you'll hear and it's been around forever and ever and around 2013 I noticed that young people around me were saying it again it was so fun as iCloud people are seeing the hell again you know I haven't heard that a while and then when life estrange came along I thought well this is perfect Chloe because what you're trying to do when you're writing characters it from a certain region you you can do some research or if you know you can put that information in there and develop and give a kind of realism or to the characters or you're a similar to ative realism little did I know that nobody says hella I had no idea and I I found the response interesting because I would see in comments say well yes I'd nobody says hella and it's from somebody in London I would never assume to tell somebody inland like nobody says suss nobody says that nobody says brilliant you know I wouldn't know I could research I could

find out but I I I can't honestly say that I would know how somebody talks elsewhere in the world and I certainly don't think teenagers talk in one way I know they don't I know they don't and part of what was fun for writing Lipa strange is to and you know I think the dialogue whether you like it or you don't it's its own it's different it's it's it's it's it's stylistically it's true to what the game is and so I think in this new Blue age of storytelling we're gonna move towards more and more dialogue that's more more like films and literature which as a whole nobody talks like they do in Reservoir Dogs nobody talks like a Quentin Tarantino character in real life nobody but we love the dialogue because it seems true in some ways and it's clever and that's why we go see movies you see people talking better than what you do are talking in a Whittier way than we do and if we want naturalism which I love writing that too then that depends it's it's the medium it's the form follows function and so I felt very very satisfied a year later when you know somehow mirror and

Webster's dictionary added this word even though nobody says it but they do now and and I love the fact that around the world people are saying hella because of life is strange that that's the best that's the best revenge possible there's nothing better than that and I want to skip this one yeah I'm gonna skip that other one because that's that's a major spoiler and I actually don't want to give it away and we're coming down to the wire here and I do want to take some questions so I'm sorry I rushed through others so it seemed like when I said when I when Brenda asked me to speak and she said here 45 minutes of mic oh my god how am I gonna felt that time comprised you are like oh wait a minute I need two hours just to do this but um so hopefully I've given you a little insight into what goes into the dialogue writing and please you can contact me on Twitter online and talk to me I'm always available to questions and I love answering questions and I love talking to the two two people so to sum up briefly the best gift for me from life

is strange is not only the you know just the satisfaction of it responding with people around the world it's just seeing people trying to take the high road when they make these choices they don't make fun of Victoria they try to get along with their they actually they want to always take the high road and I was always shocked because I would often take the low road and so I was very you know impressed and I know I'm being very genuine here is that life is strange gives me hope for the future of young people it really does and people because I just love seeing people open up emotionally as I'm trying not to do right now and many people have told me and the director of the Peabody said you know life is strange is not a game you know it's it's a photo that's not even me it's another thing I don't know what what's going on with that and I put that back up there okay

I'm not clicking anything I'm clicking but nothing's going on that's fine you know what it's actually fun because that's the last line but it's basically somebody wrote thank you for the game and the experience and of course it's a game but the idea that it's so emotionally involved with people and it seems to take you know the interactivity of games this whole other emotional level you know always kind of you know blew my mind and that to me is the greatest gift of the game and when I say the blue age once again it's just a theory you know but I really feel like we're moving towards this era of reflection refraction watching watching watching experiencing I don't know where it's all going I'm a writer so I'm a cautionary writer too so I never say everything is all good I always say there's a flip side everything and people should be aware of the flip side everything because you have to be aware you have to really be aware but I'm very aware of

the game's success and I'm very grateful for it and I'm really grateful for all you coming today so thank you very much for listening and I love answering questions because then I can riff and I'd have to look down and all this [ __ ] so any questions please I know everybody hates to be the first person I love the first person to answer yeah not afraid of that first of all let me just put on that the loft absolu of the game was fantastic spirits thank you but I was I was getting into the right in the middle of the game so there think the first two or three episodes have been out and I was still waiting for the next one next one and I felt the fifth one was very different to the rest is that more scripted very slow recovery a little intact at the end it made sense but did you feel the fifth one was kind of different than the rest well I mean I there's you know people talk about this the everything was scripted I mean there nothing was changed I mean everything when I when I

got the original episodes the Jean Luc you know by the way wrote the original story for life is strange brilliant writer and that was built into the end of the story and when Michelle enroll on the team put together that fifth episode was that's what it was it was always two choices it was always built around you know these things now of course you always wish you had more time and more money to do more things but what they wanted to do was what was in episode 5 so I can only speak for and I and I and it's it's a different episode because you're kind of wrapping everything up and you've got to make these amazing decisions so you know that's all I can say is that it's it's it's exactly what the team intended thank you for asking that question hello hello um I wanted to know what was the design intention for the ending one was longer than the other was there

preference for one or no no I mean seriously we all we all thought you know it's there's no cannon it's the players it's your choice you you decide the cannon and once again if you know one ending is short because that's the way they wanted it you know it's simply the way it worked out and I you know that's that's it that's the end thank you thank you hi hi so I love this game and actually I was really amazed by the how I really felt that it made a relationship with Chloe like I really felt that I had this strong friendship with her and I want to ask you if you have any advice of how to create these kind of emotional attachment with the I mean free games in players well first

have every character say hello that's the number one thing does have insane obviously I mean like I said you have to give credit to John Luke I know who wrote the original story because their relationship was you know built in and and then when the Scriptures have hand it over to me the story to start you know drawing it out and giving it a more American idiom you know I always watched my sister's friends growing up and I thought they always had such you know different relationships than my male friends who you know who we don't you know men are expected in America to be a lot more like emotionally secluded and not to be like not to share their emotions so I was always envious and jealous of my female friends my sister's friends because they could kind of I don't know they could hold hands they could goof around and it was didn't mean anything it wasn't a thing but they they seemed to have this emotional connection I can't say how we do that and I can only speak I approached the characters honestly just as characters for us to are these people I try not to look at them as anything else but who is the character and then you start from there

and you and you also treat the characters fairly and objectively which means if they do something that's wrong let it you know work that into your story it Max is not right to the game there's tons of moments with max [ __ ] up and she doesn't always do the right thing but that's very human that's and I think that's why people respond to the game and I was I was someone expecting people to say well you know okay dude writing these female characters you know but as a writer once again your job is to go into all these different worlds and make people believe that but that's research I believe strongly in research but that's what I'm talking about this cultural layering is all these things kind of add you know to the characters they're setting in the environment that the artists the way they drew the characters tells you so much about the characters I mean immediately you look at Chloe you know who Chloe is based on her look you know who max is somewhat based on the look so it's not just voice and dialogue it's it's it's how they look it's in its perception how they view the world maybe the kind of music they listen to tells you a lot about a character or their

politics you know things like that David Madsen I grew up with a you know with the military dad and he was not at all like David mounts not brusque like that but certain had certain similarities but I was not gonna write a character that was a typical military [ __ ] that's an easy character to write and I really try to make things not easy like don't write the easy character and don't write the glib character write the complicated character even if it's just one little line like every script I write I give every minor character a name I don't care I never like Man 1 what you seen a lot of scripts woman 2 child 3 give him a name give him one moment to have a little beat and there's you know Tarantino doesn't that well I think Edgar Wright actually does that beautifully and Shawn the dead that's a great example of a film where it gives characters you might not like I was like suddenly I was watching Shana then I'm crying I'm like what it's you know so you know things like that just always looking for outside of the character and what you can bring in to just give them more weight more spiritual weight more you know aesthetic weight if that helps

it's gonna be a technical question was it difficult or very different from other games to work on life is strange because of the time mechanic like going back to going back in time to change your things was it different from another writing point of view well I mean in terms of just me it means more writing I mean there's 13,000 lines in life is strange about and only eight are hella by the way so it's that's a massive amount of writing but and so much of that is rewriting having to write all new dialogue when you go back and you know we were all doing this were all learning on the same learning curve the team because we've never done this before and we never made a game like this before although remember me have this brilliant memory mix is what they pull it into life is strange so I mean it was easy in the sense of and once I got in the groove I was like oh yeah okay a complete opposite complete

opposite complete opposite that really helped because then I knew it you know and the team knew we all knew like when we're gonna be off in these two choices let's really beer off into these two choices even even if there's no right choice the more opposite you go the more interesting the writing became and the more kind of narrative narrative lee dramatic it became so yeah it was difficult but in the end it became really second nature to what we were doing thanks for the question you have nothing is that okay hi first I'd like to say that I'm just really glad to have experienced the game thank you the first feeling I had about is like I'm just glad my question is since I understand I understood you came into the project when a lot of things were already said like the broad story and everything yeah did you ever feel

limited were there any moments where you felt like you want to do things and might not be possible how did you deal with it how did the team deal with it your wishes well I said I'm an American so we do what we want the it was so it was the most freedom I've ever had writing and I like I said we I've never been on a team where everybody was so much in the same page when I met interviewed Michelle Rowe and Luke and they said they want to begin to be subtle I was like what what did you say did you just say the word subtle that is a word you will never hear in Hollywood you will never hear maybe it's very it's not a word that people like to use because it means quiet and not obvious and not explosive so when they said that we wanted to be subtle and then they were think they were thinking well we know because of this because max has got these powers the game has got to be like and I said like magical realism and they go yes and I that's actually when I knew I was gonna get the game because magical realism is in a way what the story is

about in the experience is about but no I always felt like I felt and and Michelle and would always say feel free to feel free feel free I heard that more than anything feel free feel free to do this feel free to do this and they really trusted me because you know I'm bringing a lot of America and they trusted me to do that so and there are times when trust me there I really there were times when have debates and you know you're as the writer you're you're working for the designers I mean that's your job that's they have the vision and your you share the vision and you're making sure that you're putting their vision into the game so I never felt limited because I believed in what they were doing and I was very happy to be part of that engine and the only thing the big fight we had is I can't even tell you because I don't spoil earlier but we had but fortunately the French do you like to debate which is fantastic so do I but they're not mad debates are just like like okay and then it goes on so no I I felt amazing

freedom so much so that I'm I'm scared for the future you mention the future I don't know too much about your career I haven't played a life is strange although it's on my to-do list I hope oh I've got it like good limited edition box I bought it brand new first day still sealed but that's not the point the point is you you said Ups to how you want to get back into games obviously life is strange was one of your first projects what did you learn from your gaming right right some related experience that you can take on board with regards to your future projects and at the same time what advice would you give to aspiring writers you also want to break into the gaming field well what I I guess what I learned from writing life of strangers I learned that you can write this kind of game I wanted to write this kind of game of the 90s I wanted to do this kind of not necessarily exactly this game but I

wanted to have characters have conversations that were more naturalistic and tangential and not have cartoony voices which really bugs me to this day it's why I can't stand watching I don't watch any anime dubs because Americans always like or are and the Japanese are always like soft and they speak naturally but Americans always have this Saturday morning cartoon sense not so much anymore obviously it's changed much but there's still this era of like actors have to always go over the top so I just learned that you can actually put together you know everything that you actually believe in and feel like you're skilled at into a game and have it work now that's just my own person and what I love about writing as far as advice for writers the most amazing thing and I lived in LA for 10 years and I wrote for nonfiction magazines for years and I still do because I love nonfiction I teach about genres and film and I do film presentations and my brawn I came to LA my small writing group with you know which is a group of us and then within five years

since ten years my friend kirker is a producer on the family guy my friend Matt who started the group creates a show per notice my friend Jen writes a book on how to be a badass this is on the New York Times bestseller list today my other friend Chris Rossi writes a movie called Medellin my friend Anna Kasia is in Silicon Valley and TV show so the most the biggest advice that I have to write as a right you have to write you have to write you you have to put the work in don't half-ass it because you're not going to get far because there's ten other people that are gonna be writing a lot more than you if you think you're gonna just do it like I mean you have to you have to be passionate about it and I tell people all the time like you know what if you're gonna be an artist you're not gonna listen to me and that's gonna make you an artist you're not gonna listen to anybody tell you no you're gonna believe in it and you can't be like oh maybe I want to I just say you know what if you have that feeling you better stop now because you're gonna give up at some point and and and and the cruelty of the the universe of this aesthetic universe is that you will be crushed you know by a lot of rejection you have to deal with

rejection and you have to embrace it because what I learned when I got the I'm glad you asked that because when I got Lipa strange I felt like wow this came at a time when I didn't think it was coming and I can't believe it came but I realized that in my entire life built up at that moment all my acceptance is all my rejections on my triumphs so my tragedies everything led to me getting the game at that moment and I wouldn't change a thing I wouldn't change out I if I could go back in time and be born with another hand I wouldn't do it because I may not be up here today that may be the thing that gives me a certain objectivity as a writer that I can look into other people's viewpoints and empathize so I you know I think passion is that is that is the main thing to have yeah

well the game community is very oh I mean they're Xterra they're changing too they want these two games to and I I'm so happy with the way more games are going I mean look at I mean her story in the last if isn't mean it's just it's just so and no man skies it's like that's like that's my jam like seventies style science fiction looking paperback covers is a game yeah sign me up it's cool you know I love the fact that all these new aesthetics are coming and that's really important don't like make your disadvantage or advantage don't worry about the big budget focus on what you can do and that and every I tell your writer once again your point of view is your gift nobody sees the world like you and that is your biggest gift and so don't worry about what they're doing don't and yes you can copy people

early on that's what you do you copy and you you in take it and then you put it out and then you start merging with your own personality hopefully so you know always true believe in your POV because that's really you know you know how you'll change things in terms of the you know game community they embrace the game immediately as far as you know other people play the game you can go online and pick and find both points to do so anybody else we're done thank you so much and I'll talk to you out there [Applause] you