The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit: a Quick Look

Oh look, a new Dontnod game…

I know, I know, I said I’d give it a rest but I promise this will be the last one until I complete LiS2!

Captain Spirit serves as a demo for the next instalment of the series, debuting in September, and is centred on the life of Chris, a 10 year old boy living with his dad in a snow covered, two bedroom house in rural Oregon. He also likes to fight the forces of evil as his alter-ego Captain Spirit!

The environment art is utterly gorgeous, and sees the devs return to using the Unreal engine to its fullest. Snow drops off the pine trees, and the environments hold their trademark level of detail and painterly textures that made the original so eye-catching. The music, as ever with this series, is contemplative and complimentary to the visual style.

Life is hard in Chris’ house. His mother passed away at some point in the past; Chris has immersed himself in comic books and make-believe adventures as a cushion for the blow, whilst dad has turned to the bottle. The player can use snowballs to skeet shoot dad’s empties from breakfast. Captain Spirit tries to “Power Clean” the dishes, but triggers dad’s aggression by breaking a glass.

Dontnod, 2018

In fact, most of the demo is spent doing these household chores with a superhero flair. Chris has to do the laundry, throw out the mouldy leftovers in the fridge, and battle the deadly “Water Eater” when the taps run cold in the bathroom. Arguably, these are the least engaging parts of the demo, but the little fantastical vignettes do offer a slight twist to the presentation so that it is more palatable.

Through all this, dad sits in his chair watching the game and polishing off a bottle of scotch. You’re supposed to be going to get a Christmas tree, but with dad passing out, why not fight your arch nemesis Mantroid instead? Defeat his minions as they litter your bedroom floor. Go out in the garden, destroy the evil Snow-Mancer, and then search for your long lost treasure. Fly your spaceship (AKA: dad’s pickup) to Mantroid’s home planet to do battle with him.

The puzzles involved in these segments are a little more in depth, though some are perhaps a bit convoluted, verging on obnoxious. For instance, the pin code to dad’s phone so Chris can play the “Mustard-Man” minigame is ridiculous, and has little to no hints as to its solution in game.

But to segue from this terrible bit of puzzle design, the addition of minigames is really interesting. It’s a simple runner game (think the Dinosaur game when Google doesn’t work), but it does so much to break up the gameplay and demonstrates, I think, that the team have upped their game in terms of interactivity.

A real sense of playfulness pervades the demo, one that Dontnod haven’t yet been able to explore in their quest to provide youthful escapism to their audience. Life is Strange has traditionally followed a teenage wanting to belong, to rebel, and to not want to grow up. We see, somewhat, the opposite here in Captain Spirit, where Chris has grown up in terms of being forced to take on responsibilities early in his life, but still finding ways to be a kid around them.

Dontnod, 2018

Dontnod convey this beautifully, and seem to have avoided their issue of hiring bored voice actors so far, because these two central characters are portrayed fantastically by some wonderful people. Chandler Mantione is a total joy as Chris, really hitting the overactive imagination of a 10 year old boy, and able to grab hold of some heartstrings in the really rather serious finale. Nick Apostolides does well as Charles, Chris’ dad, managing to find a balance between the clichéd angry, melancholic alcoholic parent and still trying to be a fun and caring dad.

Animations overall are greatly improvement, from body to environment to, thank the lord, the lip syncing and facial animations, all thanks to an investment in motion capture tech. Character models are also far more detailed and subsequently feel a little more like living people.

There are some truly poignant hints as to what is to come, with Chris mournfully stating “now you won’t run over anyone ever again” after knocking over his toy car whilst playing with it, newspaper cuttings detailing the hit and run that claimed his mother, and Charles painfully trying to hold it together in several conversations.

Sadly, this is where it all ends. At about two hours, the demo isn’t very long at all. It’s a shallow dive into what looks to be a promising and touching story about a dad and his boy dealing with loss. But, at the end of the day, if the main gripe from many critics is that the demo is too short, isn’t that a good thing?

Life is Strange 2 begins on 27^th of September.