The episodic game life is strangeuses high schooler Max Caulfield’s ability to rewind time to comment on friendship and consequence and the fact that, hey, life is strange. The game reminds me of the Everyman character in the story, the gossip girl Dans the world, the Bilbo Baggins-es meant to represent us as an audience. life is strange, we all think.
Max’s boarding school for seniors is also strange Blackwell Academy, where players can explore, gossip, and uncover mysteries as part of the game. But on top of the intentional weirdness, the fictional school suffers from an unfortunate oversight on the part of the developers – it’s incredibly white-centric.
In a 2015 article for ViceGames journalist and author Shonté Murray-Daniels describes how life is strange is “a pretty compelling game about high school life — unless you’re a student of color, in which case it completely ignores your experience.” Subtle racism like this, present in nearly all games (even those that we really, really like) and in real schools across the country, are unfortunate reminders that in games you can escape for a while, but the reality they were made in will always sneak through at some point.
What do you play school games for? Nostalgia, reassuringly familiar storylines, or just because? In addition to some of your favorite games for school, tell me in the comments.
