Life is Strange: Using Interactive Storytelling and Game Design to Tackle Real World Problems

[Music] thank you uh hello everyone thanks to be here for this talk and sorry in advance for awful French accent um my name is rul Barb and Ariz Michel cor we are the two co- game directors of episodic Adventure game life is strange we had the opportunity in this game to approach several world world issues and difficult subjects so our goal in the next 30 minutes is to share with you some of the creative process and thoughts behind the inclusion of those themes in the game we learned a lot while he doing this and we hope that we can give some insight on how we use storytelling interactivity and game design to deal to deal with those issues in a respectful and meaningful way and of course if you didn't play the game this talk would be quite spoiler heavy so s sorry about that so not let's quickly introduce ourself um after academic drawing

studies I started my career as an illustrator and concept artist for various projects like even line world of Darkness go of Tulu and ruse for example and then I joined not eight years ago to work on the first game of the studio remember me thanks on my side I did engineer studies I began my career in more the Audi visual field film festivals and cultural events in Canada and France and visual Center in Cambodia my first experience in the game IND industry was for E rain for motion capture and game design I've worked also on animation long feature for elimination mgu as a layout artist I finally joined don't no entertainment for their first game remember me that's where I met Michelle I was art director on the game and I was working more on the Cinematic as a cinematic designer and motion capture supervisor after remember me we directed together life is strange it was our first game as directors why do we love making games

great question one of the reason is that video game is for us a very strong media mostly because it is interactive we all have some great memories playing games some things are stuck in your mind and most of the time the interactivity has a huge Ro in those memories video games can be much more impactful than movies or TV shows which can be more passive sometime in a game the players become the main actors of what is happening and for the this reason video game is a great s provoking media it can be used to bring some awareness to the players about important subjects and willward issues and also push them to develop some personal opinions about those subjects and during the past years we've seen more and more games go into that direction of course it happens a lot in the in the scene but also sometimes with high budget published games let's quickly talk about a few examples for example the gamees that Dragon cancer which deal with the issues of the illness of child cancer and family

this war of mine with the subject of war from the point of view of civilians and collateral victims or heavy Reign which approached Parenthood depression and grief another example is paper please which talk about immigration conflicts family obligations and public duties even GTA GTA5 sorry which has chosen to tackle a lot of issues of modern society we can see here for example use of torture or private armies or militias like black water and spec of the lines which talks in a brilliant way for us about The Madness of War civilian casualties in a conflict and again the responsibilities as an individual there is a lot of other examples like those of course and really happy to see all those subjects treated in game but let's focus now on our own experience with life is change so for for those of you who don't know our game um don't know life is strange we will briefly explain what it is life is Str is a modern episodic

Adventure game who tells the story of Max colfield an 18 years old high schooler who just came back to our hometown after a 5 years absence quite early in the game Max will discover that she has the unique ability to go back in time for a few seconds when she Witnesses a former childhood friend Chloe getting shot and save her and with this new Power Max will realize that every time she has she tries to change the past to fix things this will have huge unwanted consequences within our world and even if we have this Supernatural power in the game Leist Str is not a Sci-Fi game it is anchored in reality the rain power is just here as a catalyst to serve the main narrative theme of our game to grow up and become an adult you have to stop Looking Backward wanting to fix everything but instead you should accept accept sorry that life cannot be perfect and move on having think this main theme and realistic setting ordered us to explore some willward issues

here are some examples of the various themes and issues we approach in the game lonliness domestic violence cyber bullying tin pregnancy euthanasia drugs and a lot of others some of those are very tough subjects and it was sometimes a challenge to work on them but we didn't start the project with a checklist like this one we didn't want to work this way our goal was always to think of the big picture the main story and the overall player experience of the game and actually the inclusion of those SC did appear organically while we were working on the story of the game we feel that it's important to stay focused on the main main message of a game and to never lose track of it then at a point some subjects and some themes situations will surface during the writing process when they make sense and when they move your story forward it was also very important for us to not show any political agenda even if some of the themes in life is strange feel political we knew that we should not force our own opinions to the

players but let them sing by themselves we think that if a theme is presented in a neutral way and if it makes make sense with within the story it will leave space for the players to maybe learn about it and maybe even to start thinking about it with a different light the other point that was very important for us was to be extremely respectful when dealing with those issues again video game is an immersive media and this is our responsibility as developers to be extremely cautious and to think about the players reaction and also about players that might have experience similar situations now we are going to focus on two examples from the game to explain our process the first thing takes place in an alternate reality where your best friend Chloe with terminally ill will ask you to end her life the other one will be a Sude attempt from student victim of cber bullying those sces are quite heavy and

difficult Society issues but we think that they are good examples of a creative and design process for each one we will explain the context of the scene how we got there the preparation and anti anticipation sorry of the scene the moment or we treated the scene itself and the consequences after the scene all over the episode and the game so let's begin with the first scene ch [Music] how we got there one of the main narrative Drive in life is strange is a friendship between Max and Chloe getting attached to Chloe and helping her is one of the reason Max and the players are always using her power to try to change the past and fix things during the first three episodes we did build slowly this friendship starting with a quite selfish Chloe who slowly opens to Max and shows real concern and connection with her it was crucial for us to succeed in to creating um a strong

attachment between the players and Chloe then following our main theme we needed to show that your actions can have devastating consequences so the players will be able to at the end of episode three go into the past and change a destiny of Chloe's father saving me saving him sorry from a car accident and this action had a terrible butterfly effect the players did put chlo in a very OD situation she got paralyzed with a degenerating terminal respir at illness and since we wanted to push the idea of responsibility we needed then a strong and difficult choice that would show the player that sometimes there is no easy way out of a situation you created that's where the story The sces and the narrative pushed us to talk about this very very difficult subject assisted suicide we knew that it was a really touchy subject but we felt that it was the right moment to talk about it at this point we knew that we would have to spend more work time on this this scene than in most of the other in

the game so in order to create the scene in a realistic and respectful way we got starting by doing a lot of researches and looked for documentation we started with the handicap and the Right medical medical equipment needed by people in this situation with respiratory issues we've looked at blogs websites testimonies to be sure that we had the right references and since since ultimately Chloe is asking Max to end her life it was extremely important to never impli that she wanted to die because she was she was handicapped it would have been a terrible mistake and a very wrong message and the main reason for her request is her degenerative terminal illness so we've contacted some doctors to have more insights about this and to get everything right the wording the medicine used the condition then we also looked at the consequences on the family the associated cost for keeping an uncapped ill person at home it was also a subject

we wanted to talk about as there is a lot of families that have difficulties mostly because of the medical expenses you can see some examples here of letters Bill social care documents all those researches are also here to create the overmental storytelling of the game environmental storytelling is one of the important aspect of life is strange all the interactions have to be relevant and give information to the players making this universe believable and interesting in to discover for this scene where you have to make this difficult Choice it was crucial to have a long moment around 40 minutes to explore this alternate reality where chlo is handicapped and get familiar with it so we used a lot of those resource and documentations you have seen before to create all your props and the general organization of the room one of the interesting aspect is also that the players knew this house very well during three episodes where CH wasn't handicapped for the new timeline because of the accident we had to resync the

world organization of the house Chloe's bedroom for example has been emptied as she can't go upstairs anymore so it's quite disturbing for the players to discover this room where they spent a lot of time during three episodes they got a real emotional attachment to this place and some of the best memories with Chloe we really wanted them to realize what happened and the consequences on the family following the same ID the old garage where David was working has been transformed into his new bedroom it's another room the player knew well as they have even solved some puzzles there during the previous episode so those two rooms are also transformed in a gameplay point of view the interactions and possibilities have changed for the players we wanted to stay logical in those changes what the parents could afford or they would have changed the house after chlo's accident we really think that all those small details help the players to believe in the story and care for what happened

the environment of the new bedroom also allowed us to show more about chlo's character and her new life showing that she still manage to adapt to our condition even if it's difficult life goes on and Chloe keeps our spirit up that's also where we can use the character development from the previous episode to strengthen the scene and be sure that the player will care about the subject and see every facet of the issue for example before Chloe asks Max request and put the player in front of this terrible Choice Max can spend a lot of time with Chloe take time to fully understand the situation learn about her terminal terminal illness and her medical condition but also discover her positive attitude some jokes and cism she she she feels about this subject we also created interactive branching dialogues with chlo's parents those characters are familiar but know everything is is different because of ch's condition those dialogues allowed us to let the player ask questions and get the information they wanted about

the situation they also discovered that even with all the difficulties chlo and her parent are still uring family trying their best to cope with everything trying to keep up and to stay positive and the last tool we used was of course Max herself and her reactions through the whole SE sequence in our game we used a lot of inner voices to reflect Max thoughts and and our view of the world and in this particular sequence those were extremely important to show Max's guilt and our doubts and reactions to cl's request to end her life but now let's focus on the scene itself and how we approach the moment where the players have to make this decision so the players had the time to discover the new universe of Chloe heren and the family situation since the beginning of the episode the two girls have spent a lot of time together at this moment looking at a photo album Chloe is going to ask a

terrible question to Max will she help her to end her life when the moment comes to play this scene and to take this decision it was really important for us and for the players to have enough time to process everything and to reflect reflect sorry upon the question for yeah one of our Credo was really we nothing should never be rushed for example the framing and editing was were really important very slow editing shots where the girls are not talking just looking at each other for example not too many camera angles a quite classic shot reverse shot not too much movement in cameras and we wanted to stay close to the girls but not too close no closeup on tears or stuff like that the absence of score in music is also very important we want it here to stay realistic and not over dramatize this moment with music we also add it sometimes before every choices the UI fed in for example it can be just few seconds but it means a lot in this kind

of moments I just wanted to feel like when we were kids running around Arcadia Bay and everything was possible and you made me feel that way today I want this time with you to be my last memory do you understand yes I do all you have to do is crank up the IV to 11 and when Chloe eventually asked the question we decided to add a third option I don't know a very human reaction if Max and the players cannot think of a right thing to do in a situation like that it allowed us to give more time to the players to make up their mind and this was the only moment in the game when the where the players could decide to not make a choice but then again ch Max to make a stand she

has to make a choice we wanted to show that sometimes there is no easy way out and that you have to take responsibilities for your actions and one other really important element for a scene like that was the voice acting we decided to use more resource than usually and recorded the two actresses together with with a dual microphone setup it was crucial to get authenticity from their acting with subtlety and no other acting I I think my help is hurting at least you have a choice when you want to make a decision you can just do it look at me I'm at the mercy of everybody for once I want to make my own choice the most important one of my life please help me Max let's start a bit about gameplay on

UI um here we decided to bend the rules for this important moment in order to remove all kind of gamification for example we removed some UI feedbacks a butterfly appearing on the screen or some sound effects and we also remove the voiceover of Max just after the choice here we didn't want any out game stuff we wanted the players to be alone with their choice what is really important is also to give a right to this Choice with consequences it could be short or long-term ones the following scenes are extremely important the players will be back in another reality where Chloe is no more ill or handicapped but the choice the players have just made will still resonate and it's it's important to take some times also in those scenes to deal with the decision the mistake would have been to jump back into the game too quickly and we have made the same decision for all

characters death we death sorry we really wanted to give an an unimportance to grief sometimes in video game we tend to Tri tralize death one of the characteristic of our game is it slow pacing we really wanted the players to take their time in the game we have for example what we call Zen sequences some moments where Max can just sit under a tree on a Fontaine and the players enjoy SS music and camera angles here we added one of those sequences to be sure that the players had the time to think about their decision and it's Al also extremely important to have long-term consequences to a decision like this one to carry this Choice over the rest of the game and not to make it disappear as it never happened or it would lose lose all Impact and remove some of the players reflection if we if we never talked about it again so for example we created a dialogue in episode five between Max and Chloe in the original timeline where

Chloe wasn't sick where the player can talk about what happened and share this heavy load and emotion with her and getting to seek her reaction her support and her acceptance of what Max did there is also a nightmare sequence near the end of the game and this Choice come back at Max and Hunt her somehow all those consequences are really important to show that such a decisions has a lot of weight on Max so we tried to explain in detail our process to approach a difficult subject like this one no we talk more briefly with about another example a scene that happened at the end of episode two dealing with another another subject cyber bullying which can lead to severe severe depression and suicide and as the players we have to try to convince one of your friend Kate to not jump from a roof so how we got there we needed at the end of episode two to have a serious event happening showing the players that they might face bigger responsibilities than just having fun with their power like they did in the beginning of the

game Kate is a close friend to Max she's feeling more and more depressed because of pressure from the other students about a viral video posted on internet even if Kate is more like a secondary character it was important for us to build a strong relationship like for Chloe between her and Max Kate will try to find some help but her situation is more and more difficult and at the end of episode two she feels alone and abandoned as the game takes place in an high school we wanted to talk about cber bullying and the social pressure teenagers can feel nowadays the overc connected World they are living in can be very difficult and we really wanted to have this them in the game since the very beginning let's see how we prepar this scene so we worked with the same general approach as for the the scene with Chloe we started again by doing a lot of researches about bullying testimonies from students students looking at blogs and interviews also in order to prepare

the interactive dialogues we looked at Suicide Prevention websites and reach for psycho analysts in order to to know how to speak to people in this kind of distress we used all those elements in the environmental storytelling for example for the bully free posters for some harsh Anonymous message and graffities targeted to Kate and also for every details in our room show showing our emotional distress then we also use the characters and gameplay to build the players relationship with with Kate over the first two episodes several scenes and decisions from the players in the beginning of the game are linked to Kate and we can use them to alter the final scene all of this allows the player who wants to explore and Kate about Kate to be able to know more about her and this will give them more possibilities to help her during the scene our idea was to show that to help your friends you may need to care a lot about them and know them well enough and let's have a look at the scene itself

so this scene takes place at the end of episode two the players know that something is going on with Kate they discover Kate jumping from the roof and know that makes and know that Max is the only one able to save her but we wanted to add a Twist to make them involved so we decided to get rid of the main gameplay feature the one power at the moment they needed the most who is that up there oh no she can't die she can't I hope not not again not now I have to try something I won't be able to rewind again and again so we crited a new feature just for this scene the B to freeze time is not used in any other moment of the game this scene has a huge visual impact on a

production point of view you can see a lot of different things we have produced just for it vfix particles lights sounds motion kit and animations the music has also a huge role in the feeling of the scene we wanted the players to feel uncomfortable Jonathan moral a composer has created a different music than the rest of the score colder and more digital the choice of the instrument the Pi is also linked to the SE heard in Kate's bedroom we had the opportunity with this SC to show an interesting aspect of human beings some of the other students prefer to capture Cate with their smartphone taking some pictures when David the head of security runs to try to help [Music] her yes [Music]

what are you doing here Max stop don't come near me not now it won't work I don't have any power now I have to do this by myself Max seriously don't come near me I will and one of the main difficulty of this scene is that it is also a dialog puzzle where you have to choose the right words to prevent Kate from jumping without the rewind power the players will need to think carefully about what they say to Kate like in real life there is no magic safe barrier that's why it was extremely hard and crucial to write this puzzle dialogue in a respectful way we started by looking for the right wordings and using the logical choice and sentences one could say in a situation like this then we also use the previous knowledge

the player might add about Kate using gameplay choices and ins they found in the game if they paid attention to her and her problems then we needed to be careful with over gamification as a situation like this can be real and should not be tralized or it could be really disect disrespectful we had to carefully adjust the difficulty of the scene to reflect reality as it should not be too easy to talk someone out of committing such an act but it also shouldn't be too hard in order to give hope to the players and like like for previous examples we thought and put short-term and long-term consequences after this event immediately after this scene we have another scene in the principal office where people involved can give their versions of what happened the scene has a lot of difference based on Kate's situation and your previous decision in the game as the player you can try to explain what happened and accuse who might be responsible for putting Kate into that situation but even if you did the right things previously in the game you can end up

getting expelled from school showing that like in real life you can't always predict what will happen and that there is no perfect choice and outcome and this episode has also two different endings with different scenes depending on Kate's situation during all the next episodes Kate needs to be present in a way this shouldn't be a throwaway character and her suicide attempt or death needs to matter in the story such an event should not be forgotten as soon as the episode is finished so The Following episode the third one is really haunted by Kate memory we can use a lot of different tools to achieve that in our voices from Max talking about it different dialogues props and textures depending of the end of the scene text messages from Kate or other students even a confrontation with Kate herself during a nightmare scene we also decided to add a complete new scene where you can meet Kate again at the hospital if you manage to save her her we're really satisfied with this

addition it gives some hope in a way to players who feel connected to Kate she feels better less lonely positive and it was important for us to show that even if those consequences could sometimes have a cost in term of production the brand new scene for example it's really important to think about them and integrate them in the planning again to not tralize the loss of someone the subject are difficult so we decided to have a special P page for people who could feel concerned create this talk to someone page has been decided with Kix when we were working on the design of Kate scene we felt that this scene could be hard for some people so we wanted to have those information available there are numbers or addresses where players affected by some of the subject of the game can talk to people the game reached a large audience and we got a lot of messages from the players on the social networks by emails or even Unwritten

letters we want today again to thank this great Community for all those messages the game sometimes helped them made them feel better or pushed them to think about those subject but we also got some message from players who felt bad because of some of those scenes so this highlights even more the utter importance to be extremely cautious and respectful with those subjects not to censor ourselves but to take as time as needed to do it right so we learned a lot during the creation of this game it was a real challenge to deal with those serious issues but also a very interesting process and we hope that we were able to share some interesting experience with you of course we had a lot of Dubs during the production it was sometimes hard to keep those scene in the game but if we can again approach some serious issues in the next game we know that we'll put a lot of resources and time into it and trying to find new way to improve

like we were saying at the beginning because of interactivity video game is a very strong and impactful media it's really our responsibility as developers to be careful and not to tralize some subjects we have to take some time to think about it is difficult but is that's also why we love making games thanks a lot for your attention thank you