#deck nine

[xamiipholia]

This is a really important read. (fyi the title refers to the upcoming LIS, not True Colors)

Rebekkah Valentine is the real deal, she does great fucking investigative journalism.

Honestly it seems like a miracle that True Colors is as good as it is. Fuck Square Enix.

[rach-amber]

Just played Love is Strange

Bawling. Amberfield* really is an electric combo like I believed

It gave me the closure I needed. Start living for yourself, Rachel. In my mind this is canon.

Got the date ending. This game characterises Rach so on point, more on this later.

Truer words have never been said

Rach like you said, you & Chloe should quit smoking :)

But this shot I got I really love. She's let go & she's assured. You are free, RA.

Bawling 2.0/true ending

[jimquisition]

Life Is Strange has been called an "SJW game" by chuds around the world, but maybe they'll start appreciating it now developer Deck Nine has come under fire for an IGN Report detailing abuse, bigotry, and harassment. Either way, as the company hides behind diversity to dodge the allegations, we can take a look at what real virtue signalling looks like!

Full IGN story here.

[cherriblossm]

THE LIFE IS STRANGE PEOPLE MADE NEOPETS THE DARKEST FAERIE???

[canonqueercharacters]

The canon queer character of the day is:

Alexandra “Alex” Chen from Life is Strange: True Colors, who is bisexual.

[virtualfotodivision]

Camina Drummer | 07.28.2023 | The Expanse: A Telltale Series

Camera by Frans Bouma. Captured using ReShade.

[lemonsourcrisis]

The Expanse: A Telltale Series (2023) dev. Deck Nine & Telltale Games

[dalekofchaos]

Fucking yikes.

I just fucking KNEW Zak Garriss was sus as fuck the moment he said "Chloe's probably gay" and saying Rachel was toxic and the overall changes to what was planned for BTS episode 3 and for just how much the game hero worshiped fucking David and vilified Chloe for not giving the abuser a chance.

But apparently it's worse than I ever fucking thought.

Fucking yikes.

[svpergirly]

I come back to tumblr after a few weeks offline to news that there were n4zis in the dev team for the new LiS game (hello???????) and that apparently, Square Enix didn’t want Life is Strange, notoriously gay franchise, to be a ‘gay game’… goofy mfs

[tiny-design]

The player character of Alex Chen is able to psychically understand the emotional states of others throughout Life Is Strange: True Colors, and in some cases even takes on those emotions into herself. This even extends to some items that possess a great deal of emotional attachment to them. However, in addition to providing a great deal of context to the world and its various inhabitants, this also serves as a useful method of expanding on Alex’s character by giving her opportunities to express her own emotional state when trying to come to terms with how other’s see her, how they’ve been impacted by recent events since her arrival, or even how she herself is absorbing and addressing the trauma of her past and present. By using other people’s emotions as the lens, the player is able to more deeply connect to Alex Chen’s emotional state as well.

[zeldamomoe]

Happy birthday, Rachel Amber!

I was featured by Square Enix a couple years ago in this Rachel cosplay of mine; but it was using some older photos from 2017, and I had a lot of people commenting on my skintone and how much I didn't look like her (great moderation on their end, eh?). And so I had the motivation to take my partner Raph out to take some new photos for me to edit later that year.

I'd bring her out again if friends needed a Rachel for their own cosplay endeavors, but that experience left such a bad taste in my mouth sadly😩 Life is Strange fandom be wildin.

bracelet from ProsperasPlunder on Etsy

[yaboisorzoi]

Square Enix Should Apologize To Deck Nine - And By Extension, Us - For How Terribly They Squeezed On the Life is Strange Remaster

Okay so I know it's old hat to say that the Life is Strange Remasters are… not good.

Everyone and their dog knows that at this point.

But I want to talk a bit about WHY they're so bad. And how it isn't Deck Nine's fault they are as bad as they are.

I've just finished my playthrough of Before the Storm on the Remaster, and while it is definitely a downgrade from the original release, it wasn't terrible. The new character textures are fantastic, the new meshes are impressive, the lighting changes are… fine. I only ever had one or two audio lines drop per episode, and the subtitles would commonly lag behind a full sentence but it was never too bad and was always worth a laugh.

But then I got to the Farewell DLC, and oh my god. It is just unplayable. Like, I straight-up gave up and just bought the Farewell DLC for the base game.

At the top of this post is a video excerpt of the straw that broke the camel's back.

I regret throwing Deck Nine under the bus in the video's editing. I was so frustrated at the time, though!

So let's talk about how we got here.

The development of these remasters was done while True Colors was still in development. They released 4 months after True Colors' release, and I have heard that the original goal was to have them all release at the same time.

Which is an absolutely absurd mandate for Square Enix to push. Like, just think about it for a minute.

Life is Strange 1 is about double the length of True Colors. Before the Storm is about the same length as True Colors. And while Deck Nine didn't have to write and build the games from scratch, the remasters still involved engine upgrades (Life is Strange is a heavily-modified UE3 game; Life is Strange Remastered is on UE4.23; Before the Storm was similarly upgraded to what was at the time the latest version of Unity for the remaster).

Beyond that, Deck Nine also upgraded character face textures and character outfit meshes (and for some reason remodeled the characters' noses; I don't know why…). None of which is to mention how, in order to apply the mocap facial animation upgrade to the base Life is Strange, they had to effectively rerecord all of the dialogue for the game - and then throw out the audio, to keep only the facial animation data.

Top is Life is Strange Remastered, bottom is original. Note how much higher-poly the outfit is, and how things like Chloe's tear or her bra are actually fully modeled now.

All of which is to say, they had to do a lot of work for these remasters. And Square Enix expected them to do all this work while working on True Colors? For games that equate to 1.5x the length of True Colors? Effectively working on 2.5 games within 1 dev cycle?

When playing through the remasters, you can clearly see what Square Enix's priorities were. Life is Strange is the star child, the one that launched this whole franchise (read: money machine for Square Enix) and is the fan-beloved. It very clearly got top priority from Square Enix, and Deck Nine very clearly spent the most time and money on it.

Next up was Before the Storm, and by the time you get to Farewell, it is clear that we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Farewell was Square Enix's last concern, and Deck Nine had to work with the dregs of what was left of their time and budget to remaster it. And it very clearly shows.

The absolute worst part of this all to me, though, is that of these three games (I am counting Farewell as its own game, given how it is a DLC expansion that was made in a separate development cycle from the rest of Before the Storm), two of them are Deck Nine's own babies. And of these three games, only one of them was given priority by Square Enix.

I can't even imagine how terrible it must've felt for Deck Nine, being forced by Square Enix to release their own games in Before the Storm and especially Farewell in such a broken state. To have to effectively cripple their own children, while fawning over their step-daughter brought into the marriage that is Life is Strange (developed by dontnod).

Obviously we're not going to actually get Square Enix to ever apologize to Deck Nine, and I doubt Deck Nine will ever be given the resources to properly fix Before the Storm and Farewell.

But dammit, the injustice on display is so apparent and so egregious, I just have to scream about it.

I hope I'm not alone in feeling this way. That the terrible state of the remasters is Square Enix's fault, not Deck Nine's. That Deck Nine deserved better than how Square Enix treated them on these remasters. And that, through extension of the sorry, broken state these remasters were released in, we the players and fans of these games deserve better than what Square Enix forced out the door on us.

Fresh out of giving up on the Farewell Remaster, I was upset. But now, thinking about it, about all the things that had to go wrong to get us to this point?

I'm just disgusted.

Shame on you, Square Enix. And I'm sorry, Deck Nine.

[rach-amber]

We finally have something close to a Rachel Amber DLC 🔥🥹

Y'all have to check this out. The details are amazing!

No but if i see a blue haired girl with a beenie and a blond in plaid shirt driving by in a truck like the end there I'll prolly chase after them 😂

This is the development needed

Chap 2 Chap 3 here!

[thealexchen]

How would you feel about a True Colors prequel "Before the Aura" where we play as Gabe as our main protagonists? ;)

That is EXACTLY what I'd want. Gabe's character is surprisingly complex based on the Chen siblings' backstory and the details from Alex's journal. How did he handle the grief of losing his mother? Why did he feel the need to pick fights with his father, and did he realize the pain and responsibility he was inflicting on Alex?

Not to mention, under the sweet and generous exterior, Gabe seems to struggle with guilt and self-loathing. While Alex repressed her own emotional needs and ignored her grief to survive her home situation and later foster care, Gabe’s trauma seems to manifest in the form of regret, overcompensation (like how generous he was to Alex on her first day) and being unable to move on from his past mistakes.

In Chapter 1, Alex can read his thoughts and he calls himself “such a fucking fuck-up” after Ethan goes missing. In Wavelengths, he reveals to Steph that he never contacted Alex in seven years because he was too terrified to reach out and convinced himself that his own sister hated him. It would be so interesting to explore his psyche more and track his character growth from the kid grieving his mom to the teen in juvie to the adult who worked long and hard to turn over a new leaf and find the love and community he needed, and you could set a game at any point within those ten years.

There’s so much material D9 could explore, and this time working within their own canon: What was juvie like? How did it affect Gabe? When and how did he decide to track down his dad in Haven? After failing to find his dad, what made him decide to stay and how did he carve out his own niche in Haven? What was the beginning of his relationship with Charlotte like? It’s almost like D9 was setting themselves up for a Gabe prequel through Alex's journal entries. Also, Han Soto is basically Gabe irl and gave a performance as equally compelling and nuanced as Erika with far less screen time, and he deserves to be in a starring role for D9's next project.

Thank you for asking! It's so fun getting a True Colors ask after so long!

[canonqueercharacters]

The canon queer character of the day is:

Stephanie “Steph” Gingrich from the Life is Strange franchise, who is a lesbian.

[virtualfotodivision]

Camina Drummer | 07.29.2023 | The Expanse: A Telltale Series

Camera by Frans Bouma. Captured using ReShade.