Written by Claire 2022 Cohort
Last week I completed an interactive narrative game, Heavy Rain. I can’t imagine this game was published 10 years ago. The story adds up to more than 18 endings, and the player can enjoy the 4 main characters with different perspectives views. By the end of the game, I didn’t expect that private detectives Shelby would be the Origami killer (major spoiler alert). The game interprets the theory of the Butterfly effect because every choice player makes will impact the main character’s fortune in the ending; all choices made by the player make their own choice to assume.
I ended with the perfect story in the first round of the game. Ultimately, the main character survives, and Ethan saves his son’s life. And the heroine Madison, Ethan’s future wife, said two words: “The right to happiness depends on ourselves to fight; by the three of us fighting, we can finally forget about that incident and go back to ordinary life.” The FBI Norman Jr., my favourite character, also won the nation’s unanimous admiration and appreciation for his resolute decisiveness, courage, and knowledge, and he overcame his drug addiction and started a new life
However, the story is not as perfect as imagined, and the ending is also unfortunate; the Origami killer Shelby’s childhood is miserable and incomparable, and the father, permanently plastered, never cares about the life and death of the two brothers directly leading to the brother drowned playing on the site, the mother because of economic and physical reasons, Shelby “thrown” to his adoptive mother and father: the final reasons led to 40 years later Shelby’s revenge, this is also proving the theory of butterfly effect.
The game theme is love and responsibility; because of love and commitment, Ethan perseveres to the end and reunites the family, and the FBI agent perseveres in the fight to the end to punish the evil. Overall, although there are a few points in this game that are not clearly explained, the experience of the game is enjoyable; I highly recommend people who like to play interactive games. I am ready to replay this game to explore more endings.