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奇妙人生/奇異人生(Life Is Strange)是款由Dontnod Entertainment製作團隊所研發的劇情互動圖文冒險遊戲，並由Square Enix在Microsoft Windows、PlayStation 4、PlayStation 3、Xbox One以及Xbox 360等多種平台上發佈.

遊戲的主要劇情聚焦在女主角瑪克辛‧考菲爾德(Maxine Caulfield)身上. 瑪克辛‧考菲爾德是位攝影系的學生，某日她碰巧發現自己獲得了回朔時間的能力，而她所做的每個抉擇都將對未來產生蝴蝶效應般的影響. 整部遊戲由五個章節組成，每個章節的發佈時間都將相隔七個星期. 第一個章節在2015年1月30號發佈. 故事劇情以及角色的成長系統是本作的主軸，而非傳統圖型冒險遊戲多以滑鼠點擊解謎為主. 玩家的舉動將會改變遊戲劇情走向，並且可以藉由回朔時間來作出不同的抉擇. The player's actions will be able to adjust the narrative as it unfolds, and reshape it once allowed to travel back in time. Themes of memory and identity are used to convey a sense of nostalgia in the realm of adolescence, while the allegory of inner struggle comes from the mystical aspects featured.

奇妙人生從2013年4月便已開始製作. 它最初是由財務方面及創造方面的考量而得出的想法發展而來. 他們藉由遊歷西北太平洋來進行考察，並用顛覆傳統的方式塑造角色. 本作一發佈便廣受稱讚，角色塑造及遊戲結構這兩方面更是倍受好評.

奇妙人生因為遊戲內包含的幾位女性角色而受到關注. 在與Square Enix合作前，出版商們曾要求Dontnod Entertainment在遊戲內置入男性主角.

Gameplay
Life Is Strange is a graphic adventure, played from a third-person view. Introducing the mechanic of rewinding time allows the player to go back and redo any action other than what is done past a checkpoint (however long a checkpoint lasts). Outfitted with a polarity system, the choices made will alter and affect the story through short or long-term consequences. Dontnod creative director Jean-Maxime Moris added however that "for each one of your choices that you make there's no definite answer. Something good in the short-term might turn out worse later". Dialogue exchanges can be rewound while branching options are used for conversation. Once an event is reset, the details provided earlier are permitted to avail themselves in the future. Items that are collected before time travelling will be kept in the inventory after the fact. The player can also examine and interact with objects indicated by a UI of hand drawn icons, which enables puzzle solving. Easter eggs are present in all the levels of the game to accommodate exploration.

Plot
The game's prologue begins with Maxine Caulfield (Hannah Telle), thrown into the vision of a lighthouse destroyed by a swelling tornado. She awakes instantly to find herself in the middle of class. To restore her composure, she proceeds to the restroom. There, Max witnesses the murder of a girl. In a single, sudden effort, she rewinds time and is moved back into the classroom from before. Informed of the following outcome, she hurries off to rescue the girl, using her recently developed ability. It is revealed that the person Max saved was her childhood friend Chloe Price (Ashly Burch). The two reunite and then go for a walk to the same lighthouse she recognises from her nightmare. Shortly after, she is moved back into the nightmare. Max then reveals to Chloe her capacity to travel back in time. It is made known that what she thought was a dream is rather the reckoning of a future event, and the storm, an approaching disaster headed for the town.

The following day, Max observes fellow student Kate Marsh (Dayeanne Hutton) being subjected to bullying for a viral video depicting her making out with several students at a party. It is suggested that she may have been drugged. Max eventually visits the diner where Chloe's mother Joyce (Cissy Jones) works as a waitress and meets Chloe there. They decide to experiment with Max's power at Chloe's secret hideout. However, this strains Max and results in her having a nosebleed and fainting. Once Max feels well again, Chloe ends up taking Max back to Blackwell Academy. During class, everyone is called out to the courtyard. Kate is up on the roof of the girls' dorm with the intention to jump. Max stops time unexpectedly and uses the ability in an attempt to reach Kate. At this point, she has the opportunity to convince Kate to get down from the roof and come with her. Ultimately, Max vows to uncover what happened to Kate and Chloe's missing friend Rachel Amber.

Development
The game started development in April 2013. Originally codenamed What If, Life Is Strange was born out of the idea for the game mechanic, which the developer had already experimented on with their last game Remember Me. The episodic format was chosen by the studio for both creative reasons and financial restrictions. This allowed them to tell the story in its preferred slow pace. It was decided early on that most of the budget be spent on the writing and voice actors, because "they were really what was important". They proceeded to emphasise story and character development over traditional and intricate point-and-click puzzles. As stated by Dontnod Entertainment, "choice and consequence play a key role in how the narrative unfolds".

Dontnod co-founder Jean-Maxime Moris said of the setting and art style, "The Pacific Northwest was something that we determined very early in the development process as the place we wanted to set the game in. That's because we wanted to have this very nostalgic and autumnal feel to the game, and in terms of colors ... to me it's really one of those places that bring this kind of nostalgia, and I mean this in a positive way. This sense of looking inside yourself". The development team visited the region, took photographs, looked at local newspapers and consulted Google Street View to make sure the environment was accurately portrayed. For the sake of serving the realism, the supernatural elements that appear in the storyline are designed as a metaphor for the characters' inner conflict. The textures seen in the game are entirely hand painted, adapted to achieve what art director Michel Koch called "impressionistic rendering". Moris remarked, "We’re not only crafting the best game we possibly can, we also feel we’re providing the type of experience that perfectly fits today’s renewed taste for originality and diversity".

Although Life Is Strange holds significant differences from Dontnod's previous title, Moris noted that it addresses similar themes of memory and identity, and specified that, "If Remember Me was a digital look at the human identity, Life is Strange is the analog look at the same theme". Running on an improved version of Unreal Engine 3, the game takes use of the tools and special effects "like lighting and depth of field" engineered for Remember Me as well as subsequent advances. Visual effects like "post-processes", "double exposure" and overlapping "screen space particles" are used as an artistic approach to be displayed while the lead character rewinds time. All of the episodes are being made reportedly at the same time, with influences like The Walking Dead, Gone Home and Heavy Rain in mind. The Catcher in the Rye was an additional source of inspiration, whose protagonist shares a surname with the game's main character. The characters were created using known archetypes, at first to establish an "entry point for the players", and then to subvert those archetypes.

Life Is Strange is Dontnod's second title starring a female protagonist. It was disclosed in a developer diary that, as with its first project, efforts were made by potential publishers to have a male protagonist put in place instead. Moris has brought up the Gamergate controversy in the same context as an example of "a great debate to have", but puts emphasis on that "we’re not pretending to address the issue or use the issue to stand out from the rest. We’re just making the games we want to make and characters that are suitable for the story; in this case with 2 female characters". During a Reddit AMA, co-game director Michel Koch reiterated, "To be honest we ... really think that the gender of a main character is quite irrelevant when creating a good story".

The score is composed by Jonathan Morali of the band Syd Matters. Inspired by modern indie folk music, the soundtrack is intended to inform the mood of the game and has been said to "permeate through every layer of story, art and sound". The music contains a blend of licensed tracks and composed pieces, considered by Moris as "50% of the experience". Featured artists include José González, Mogwai, Breton, Amanda Palmer, Brian Viglione, Bright Eyes, Message to Bears, Local Natives, Syd Matters, Sparklehorse, Angus & Julia Stone, alt-J and Mud Flow.

Release
Square Enix announced Life Is Strange on 11 August 2014, along with its developer Dontnod Entertainment. In November 2014, the publisher expressed interest in having physical copies released of the game, but added that they "are currently 100 per cent focused on the digital release". The release date of the first episode was announced the following month as 30 January 2015. The announcement also accompanied the reveal of the game's first trailer.

In February 2015, an unfinished version of the second episode was leaked online. In response to this, a Dontnod representative told in an official statement, "We’ve seen the leak ... and it deeply saddens us that something we’ve invested so much time and passion into is available unfinished and not as we intended you to experience it. Please support us by ignoring the temptation to download work in progress code, we promise you there are still plenty of things we’re improving and polishing and episode 2 will be ready for release in mid-march". On 26 February 2015, Destructoid reported that episode 2 would be delayed and not meet its expected release of 13 March 2015. However, the developer clarified that it would be released "before the end of March". By early March, the second episode was finished. It was given a release date for 24 March 2015 during a developer session at EGX Rezzed.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Dontnod dismissed the previously reported release schedule of six weeks between each episode, which had initially caused the rumours of delay. "We're doing our best", said co-game director Michel Koch, "The idea is to keep it at less than two months".

Reception
While criticised for its lip-syncing and use of dialogue,  critics most notably lauded the character development  and time travel component,  declaring that "there should be more games like [it]".

Episode 1: Chrysalis received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Microsoft Windows version 78.07% based on 14 reviews and 77/100 based on 28 reviews, the PlayStation 4 version 77.66% based on 32 reviews and 75/100 based on 43 reviews,  and the Xbox One version 79.07% based on 15 reviews and 77/100 based on 18 reviews.

Episode 2: Out of Time received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Microsoft Windows version 80.33% based on 6 reviews and 76/100 based on 12 reviews, the PlayStation 4 version 78.59% based on 22 reviews and 77/100 based on 28 reviews,  and the Xbox One version 71.00% based on 9 reviews and 72/100 based on 8 reviews.

Sales
The first episode was ranked fifth among the best selling PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 video games of February 2015.