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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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B
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to New Books and Game Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. On this channel, we explore a new scholarship that unpacks what games mean, how they are designed, and how they are played. I'm your host, Rudolf Inders, professor for Game Studies at the University of Applied Sciences, Neue Ulm, Germany. And now let's dive into today's conversation. I'm delighted to welcome Caitlin Tremblay, who's here to talk about her book, let's Life is Strange, published by Boss Fight Books. Caitlin, welcome to the show. Hi.
- [00:36]
A
Thank you for having me.
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B
To start us off, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your background as a writer and narrative designer? What drew you to Life is Strange as a project worthy of such a close and personal reading?
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A
Yeah, so I'm a writer and a narrative designer. I've been working in Games since about 2011. I'm currently the narrative director at a small indie studio called Soft Reigns. We just released our first game in brochure, Skyline last year. So I've been doing writing and narrative design in the games industry for a bit now. And outside of games, I'm also a writer. I do short stories, I do poetry, all that kind of stuff. What really drew me to Life Is Strange, though, is just how it's just kind of stuck in my head ever since I've played it. When I first played it, it made me both really excited and also really angry. And it managed to capture these really intense emotions on both sides of the spectrum. The way it talked about grief and being a teen girl and queerness. But then the way it also kind of filtered those through a lens that felt really at odds with my own experience kind of just created this emotional aspect of playing the game that I just kind of couldn't let go of. And then revisiting the game so many years later, I was like, oh, I think there's something really interesting here. And what it's doing and how those two things are kind of speaking to each other that made me really want to write about it now.
- [01:54]
B
Your book opens from a fascinating tension. Life is Strange features time travel, high stakes, and even a pulpy murder plot. Yet one what truly sets it apart was its unapologetic focus on queer romance, friendship, and emotional intimacy. Why do you think this particular combination resonated so deeply with players around the world?
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A
I think there's a bunch of reasons for that. One, I think at the time, there weren't a lot of mainstream games that were kind of focusing on teen girls as the protagonist. Right. Like this was published by Square, a huge publisher, and it had all of this kind of attention that I think kind of made it stand out in that way. Now, that's not to say that there weren't other games, especially like in the indie sphere that were talking about these things, but it was one of these seminal kind of mainstream games and grappling with it. And I think that's where a lot of people started responding to it, just because it hit a wider audience than a lot of the games I was playing or making at the time were kind of finding. Right. And then I think when you combine real life issues like how teen girls are, are not treated seriously, grief and all these other things, and you give and you put those in a specul setting, I think a lot of speculative settings like time travel and sci fi can be used to kind of talk through really empowering scenarios. Right. Like I think of the game kind of fitting nicely within the young adult tradition of book publishing. Right. And like young adult often tends towards these speculative kind of settings because it is an avenue for teens to feel empowered and to grapple with things that feel so high stakes and that are high stakes, but that they don't have all of the experience or learned language yet to deal with. And so I think YA and speculative fiction go really well together in that way in which we are empowering teens to talk about what's concerning them and to have power over it. So I think everything about it just kind of actually fits really nicely when you take into account it is these stories that we haven't heard a lot in this type of setting and we want to give power to them.
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B
Right.
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- [04:31]
B
And dear listeners, by the way, if you haven't had the chance, please listen to the soundtrack. The game is now a little bit older, so people might have forgotten, but this was such a great moment in the history of game scoring and game gap. Basically. Game soundtrack, that's really great, but that's just me now talking old man talk.
- [04:50]
A
Oh, I agree it's an excellent soundtrack.
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B
Now, at the center of your analysis is Max Caulfield, a perceptive yet insecure teen photographer who can rewind time. That's actually something we can do also here in the podcast industry. You describe her as the sum of all the possible choices that she could make. Wonderful description, by the way. How does this idea reshape how we understand player agency, especially in a narrative driven game where choice is so deeply tied to identity?
- [05:25]
A
Yeah, I think this is the part that I really like about choice driven games and that I like as both like a player and as somebody who's written and designed a bunch of choice driven games as well. Right. Like the idea that giving the players choices over how the character behaves or talks or does a certain thing doesn't mean you are necessarily like creating a different version of a different version of this character. Right. Like you are always playing this character no matter what choices you're making. So am playing Mass Effect, for example, Right. Like playing a renegade Commander Shepard versus a paragon Commander Shepherd. Like both of those are true to who Commander Shepard is. It's just the player's expression of how they understand that character. And I think that's a really interesting way of thinking about choice. Right. It's not dictating necessarily like who this character is and everything about them, but it's giving you the room to kind of play with their psyche and their inhabit, like, and inhabit their thought processes and like what would make them behave this way and how would they come to this kind of conclusion and just kind of creates this robustness of self. Right. Because I think as people we often do contain these kind of multitudes. Right. Like we're not only ever one thing and we are capable of being mean or being caring or, you know, being silly or doing something reckless or taking the safe route. Right. Like we contain all these possibilities as well. And so like, I think character choices that kind of reflect this expression as an expression of the character who exists and has a defined perspective, I think is a really interesting way to think about choice design. And I think it's what really clicks for me with life is strange because it's not presuming Max is a blank slate. Max isn't a blank slate. She has perspective. And instead you are just kind of navigating through all those different ways in which she could self express.
- [07:09]
B
Right. Dear listeners, before we continue, a quick note to our listeners. That's a double listener. Well, it is like it is if you're involved in running an academic program in Game design development or game studies. This podcast might be the perfect place to share your vision. Consider placing a short promotional segment to connect with this thoughtful international audience passionate about games and research. And now back to the show. So one of the most striking aspects of your book is how intimately you connect player choice to questions of self reflection, who we are and who we want to be. What do you think Life Is Strange reveals about the emotional and ethical work players do when making decisions in games.
- [07:55]
A
Yeah, I think the fact that Life is Strange allows you to rewind while you're making choices is what makes it a really interesting way, right, because it kind of gives you this space to explore reactions. Like it doesn't let you know the long term consequences of changes, but you can explore those kind of immediate reactions, right? So like, if I am feeling grumpy and I make a choice where like, like I choose to react to a character grumpily or negatively or whatever, then like being able to kind of see the ways in which other people would react to that and being able to like, take that back on, right? So like sometimes I want to be this version of myself, but I can't be that version of myself. So that's okay. So how do I explore what it's like to be the less than ideal version of myself? And there's value in that, right? So like sometimes making what you think is the right decision isn't necessarily the right decision. And I think about this a lot with, with when Kate Marsh in the game goes to Max looking for help and she asks Max if she should go to the cops or not. And being people who want to do well or playing as somebody who would like to do well for my friends, but who has a lot of suspicion about, you know, how the police treat teen girls and things like that, my instinct is to say no, right? Like, don't go to the cops. But the way Kate hears that instead is actually like, oh, well, you don't believe me. Like you don't believe what happened to me, so therefore you don't think I should tell people, right? And so like this rewind ability and this ability to make different choices kind of lets you see that and see the way through. Like, oh, I'm trying to behave this way. But it actually had this unintended consequence. Let me think a little bit more about like, what does this NPC or what does this character actually need from me in this moment? And I think that's really cool. And I think that's why, like, the rewind ability for me isn't like cop out for consequences. It's actually asking you to think through more like, how do you actually help people? What do people actually need from you?
- [09:43]
B
Right. So we already, at the end of our interview, has been really great talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me today. I think this book offers a wonderful example of how close reading or close playing and personal engagement can enrich game studies. So thanks again for your time and your lovely, lovely book. Thank you very much.
- [10:03]
A
Thank you for having me.
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B
Dear listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you're an author or editor working in game studies and would like to discuss your latest work, please feel free to reach out@rudolph.industoglemail.com you can also find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky under amestudies. And please, please, please leave X until next time. Keep it playful. And. Sam.