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(Always conflicted on how to start these since they’re supposed to be informal little thoughts on a game. Not sure if I should explain the game as I write about it or just write with the expectation that the reader has already played it. Let me know ANTHONY-JOHN DUNLEAVY!)
Life is Strange (2015) is undoubtedly one of the most personally impactful games I’ve ever played. I immediately became infatuated with the soundtrack, and it permanently impacted my taste in music. Along with Fullbright’s amazing ‘Gone Home’ (2013), it also laid the foundation for my interest in game narratives and digital environments, which I’m still unhealthily obsessed with today.
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage – Tape One (not the best name of all time) has the same DNA as Life is Strange. You play as an angsty, awkward teenage girl in a small town with a camera, and there’s something sinister going on.
Although they share a kindred concept, their narrative executions are far from similar. Life is Strange guides the player through a relatively consistent linear narrative, with most sequences moving the overarching story forward in some way. Aside from this, there’s moments where the game shows it isn’t afraid to dedicate time to seemingly meaningless tasks - hanging out in Chloe’s room, eating at the diner and doing target practice at an abandoned junkyard.
These scenes serve little to no narrative purpose, and yet they’re still some of my favorite moments. They act like little vignettes that really flesh out the characters and make them feel like real people. They don’t exist to serve a narrative; they just exist in this world.
Bloom and Rage flips the script on Life is Strange – most sequences are narratively aimless and serve to do nothing but show that these characters exist within the world of the game. It’s summer, and they exist. You look for lost keys in an abandoned playground, go to band practice and do each other’s makeup. It works excellently. The characters really do just feel like a group of teenagers killing time during summer vacation.
Typically, people playing narrative-oriented games are driven by.. the narrative. I’m usually engaged because I want to see what’s going to happen. In Bloom and Rage, most of the time there really isn’t a narrative to follow. You’re motivated by the characters – it’s nice to just spend time with them, doing nothing.
The narrative is split into two halves, the past and the present, which it cuts between frequently. The sequences in the past take place in the summer of 1995, and make up the gameplay I’ve been praising so far. The other half, the future, places you as the same character in 2021, reuniting with the characters you spent time with in the past sequence.
The future sequences are in first person, while the past sequences are in third. When you’re not seeing directly through your character’s eyes, the past feels like a distant memory. The 1995 sequences are also soaked with these hazy, nostalgic, high-saturation glow effects that only contribute to the positivity emanating from them (most of the time).
Despite the seeming fondness that these memories should be looked back on with, they’re discussed in the future sequences with a mysterious sense of awkwardness and secrecy. There’s a dark cloud looming over the past, and it’s inevitably going to rain.
The attitude of secrecy, paired with the cryptic voice clips you can trigger by ‘reminiscing’ on certain objects in the future attach this weird feeling of dread to the past. Something bad is going to happen. Eventually. This aimless summer is temporary.
I really hope tape 2 is able to follow through with this level of quality. If it does, Bloom and Rage is shaping up to be one of my favorites.
(Also the soundtrack is so awesome!! Cocteau Twins and Brat Mobile?? Yes please!!)
(there’s also a specific needle-drop at the end of this game that really fucked me up. Myth by Beach House was definitely in my rotation of songs I’d listen to when I was like 16 and it made me really emotional for some reason. Very lucky they didn’t choose to play something from the life is strange soundtrack instead, that might have killed me.)
