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Now Chloe has blue hair and it *was* indeed Chloe in the bathroom. Max just didn't recognize her because she looked so different from way back then.
So no narrarive mistake at all.
Copy/asted from my FIRST post:
"I had found a picture of her and Max in Max's room so I knew the two were best friends, ok."
thank you retyping what I just explained already (maybe reading fully a post next time will avoid that?)
As it seems, yes narrative mistake, and a big one then.
As for not recognizing her, it's just a terrible and weak excuse:.
If i follow your logic, she did NOT recognize her in the bathroom while watching the scene long enough, but in a heartbeat when Chloe, with the same blue hair, opens the car door in a snap, she immediately recognizes her and jumps in the car?
Are you serious? It's absolute flawed logic and unless i missed some critical clue between the bathrrom event and the parking lot one, it doesn't bode well if everything is so badly brought to the player.
It's a game that focuses on strong narrative aspects and yet, things like introducing new characters are messed up from the very start?
It was really a WTF moment when i found out in a matter of seconds, i was supposed to know that girl. I mean, Max best friend is having some shady biz in the bathroom and not one moment she can come with: Oh my god, Chloe, what is she doing here with this guy?
BAM
in one sentence, we get to know these two are related and the car scene doesn't come as some wtf moment.
Again unless I missed something critical right after the bathroom scene, it does come as terrible on a pure narrative aspect
edit: I can't remember if Nathan calls Chloe by her name when the two are fighting in the bathroom. If he does, it could be some help. But the fact is we discover Max and Chloe are best friends quite late (in Max room), and between these events, nothing points out at how these two are so close, and the bathroom scene barely seems to affect Max on that level.
I don't know, I'm really skeptical now about how all of this is presented.
BAM
There's your one sentence.
Really weird storytelling. Might be I focused a lot on " the blue hair girl" since the event in the bathroom brings a lot of questions: Max powers, who are these two people fighting, about why etc etc. The scene happens early, and is depected in such a way it seems to draw a lot of attention to it.
Maybe I missed something about the car scene. Your explanation made me want to watch it again and see if I didn't miss something.
Thanks for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR5f-3oRd-M
Chloe: Max?!
Max: Chloe ???
and that's all. You're right though. But it's just effing terrible in the way it's brought (and sorry, storytelling is my job, I do find this way probably the worst of all the given possibilities).
Maybe a few more dialog lines could have avoided that and tied it to the bathroom scene.
Max: Chloe? Is that...you?
and there, it was just as you said, she realizes now she didn't recognize her good old friend before. But the way it's told, is just too vague.
Well, thanks for your input and making me work some, it was interesting. I'm really hoping the next parts are a bit less approximative. ;)
Really, if I had known from the start she was Chloe, I think I could have related better to her, maybe even acted differently in the game (like trying to look for her rather than wandering on the campus after the bell rang etc etc). It's probably why too, it was a shock to find out this "late" (basically only an hour or two after the event) she was my dearest friend.
I actually think the game is doing a pretty good job with its storytelling. I like it a lot more than the stuff Telltale puts out, for example. Of course only one episode has been released so far, but I am hopeful that they can maintain their level of writing (fingers crossed).
It's just basics when it comes to storytelling, nothing more. You introduce characters, story etc etc.
We have here two characters meant to know each other but on the VERY FIRST scene you are introduced to them, there is NOTHING that tells you: hey these two are great friends.
Even the pic found in Max bedroom is optional since you basically come here to get the flashdrive. You could totally skip it and never get to know Chloe is her great friend.
Major flaw 1.
These two are meant, I suppose, as i stopped right after the parking scene, to play a big part in the story.
At least, that's the way the bathroom event is presented. Does max get her powers elsewhere? Could it be that scene that triggers it? etc etc
As a writer, your job is to get as you say, a flow. it's terribly handled here. That Chloe had a minor facelift and she isn't recognized during the whole bathroom scene? Barely believable. Would you forget about your best friend even after 5 years? Even after she died her hair blue? doubt it.
Even if the whole "she didn't recognize Chloe" is what comes to some as an explanation, it doesn't work. But let's say it does and skip to the moment the two meet each other, in the parking lot.
How is it handled? Check the video. Chloe? Max?...and done
The way the actors played barely tells you these two knew and Max JUST realized it was her old friend in the bathroom, and that she toooootally missed that.
The whole thing is terrible, whatever aspect you put your eyes on because some pieces are missing to make it work and to have the right *drum roll* flow.
Storytelling basics.
edit: I'll develop a bit my take on the bathroom scene because it's probably the biggest element in the first hour of play, which is critical since it's how you get to hook the player...or not, to your story.
Max goes there, and witnesses a murder. A girl that stands out of the lot: it's a game, it has an artistic direction (which I like mind you), but yet everything is presented with a realistic feel. No anime-ish look. So that electric blue hair girl does stand out, definately. Hard to forget her right? Then she is shot dead. Then...you save her. Everything, every single part that kinda defines the game is brought here, in that specific scene.
It shapes what happens nect, maybe even the main character, I didn't go far enough to judge. I like to discover details about a character I play, but the more I know, the more I can relate to it. Skipping the fact one of the 3 people being in that bathroom scene is your BEST friend, not just some pal, or old acquaintance,no your very best friend, is baffling. I don't know yet what role she will play later, but since she was too in the trailer, I suppose she is one of the key characters?
No matter how you turn it, some critical information was held, on purpose or not. I can't talk for the writer/dev team. But it was. And if Max could not recognize someone so close and dear to her, it should had been a lot more obvious than just some beanie and blue hair. And at least, as I already said, some more dial lines added by the moment they meet each other as Chloe drives in her car, explaining how Max didn't get it in the bathroom that it was her great friend.
I'm not trolling or trying to bring the game down, but I won't defend what can't be defended either ;)
Done right is indeed a subjective thing. Now that I point at the flaws, minor or major, and gives ways it could have been handled to get a better flow as one named it, is not this subjective. After 20+ years as a storyboard artist, I dare say I know just a bit about storytelling...
Purely from a story perspective, had Max recognized Chloe right off the bat, she almost certainly would have called out to her, and/or followed her out of the bathroom, which would have screwed up the pacing in the first half of the story.
Do you honestly think Max would have cared about giving Warren's flash drive back, or gone to the parking lot and been attacked by Nathan, if she had just rediscovered her old friend, and more than that, just saved her life? No. That whole part of the story would have just fallen to the side.
Looking at it logically, I'm not sure how well you paid attention to the dorm scenes, especially Max's room. There are pictures of Chloe and Max as kids, and Chloe looks dramatically different, with long (non-blue) hair, no tattoos, and so on. That's just the superficial changes, too. You have to remember that it was 5 years ago. Think about the physical changes between the age of 13 years old and 18 years old. That, combined with the fact that Max was under extreme stress in the bathroom scene makes it quite believable that she wouldn't recognize Chloe.
Plus, Nathan was standing between Chloe and Max the whole time, and as a result Max didn't even get a great view in the first place.
So yeah. It seems quite logical to me.
For the bathroom scene I get the idea that Max saw the guy coming in acting crazy, and talking to himself, hid and then got most of her information from hearing them talk up until she reacted to the girl getting shot. So in my mind Max only really saw Chloe for like a second when she came in and a second when she got shot, so it makes sense that she might not have recognized her, and also they leave it up to player choice whether Max recognized her or not.
On another note, I do find it kind of funny that Max is all of the sudden really concerned about Rachel Amber. She just leaves the school and decides to ask everyone about the missing posters out of the blue, despite having been there and seen them for a month so far, unless it was Chloe that put them everywhere on that very day.