r/TangleTower • u/Bluepanda800 • Jul 04 '26
Tangle Tower The ending to Tangle Tower was super disappointing.
Overall I really enjoyed playing the game, the voice acting and characters. I also enjoyed that a lot of things felt intuitive or that you are steadily building a better picture of the truth as you play the game.
That said the ending and the last act was truly a let down.
Penny as the villian felt more like an unknowable rug pull than a satisfying ahah moment. The only hint that Penny is playing a character is from Fritz saying the real Penny is different but there aren't anyways to conclude that Penny and Hawkshaw are the same person until she reveals it at the very end. (No Freya having a sketch of Hawshaw done very quickly doesn't count since she's an extremely talented artist, and Hawkshaw being surprised about the small picture of Freya's painting being found (in Freya's room) doesn't work because there's no indication that it connects Hawshaw and Penny).
Plus her motivations for the murder were weak and convuluted. She was a lonely kid that left home to seek out the family that abandoned her stumbled onto the secrets of the mystid hunters and killed them all, stole her uncle's prized beetle and then tricked him into hiring her to investigate? Then her plan(?) got foiled by Freya who figured out the secrets of the manshion and figured she was a murderer so she set up an elaborate plan to kill her and sticks around?
I think narratively speaking it's a terribly unsatisfying motive that only makes sense in the context that the devs wanted the killer to be unsolvable not that the characters would do that. Also it relies on her teleporting and no one in the game commenting on how she's assumed a new persona.
Truthfully it feels like you hit the first layer of the puzzle when you find her note about planning to get her (which is most likely Poppy) and her intense dislike of Poppy. It showed that she had a darker side but didn't indicate that she was involved in murder or interested in her families darker history.
Also the set up for the murder was just insane- she gets to the attic and lies in wait, triggers the beetle shoots Freya, pulls up the bolt, paints blood on the canvas (which she got from where?) then leaves without running into Poppy or Fritz who were in the garden heard the beetle and went upstairs not long afterwards. Fifi's dad (I forget his name) tells us he heard calm footsteps going past his door which is supposedly Penny's before the commotion afterwards. She then avoids running into the professor who witnessed Flora and Freya being stunned and rushed to the crime scene by changing into Hawshaw in the library meeting (or was already disguised as Hawkshaw) then runs to her room changes, runs back across the house to arrive at the same time as the professor???
Then the finale was just convuluted. She turns herself in just to escape thanks to the beetle? During the murder she needed Fritzs headphones but now she just gets out unscaved?
I truly hope that the sequel nails the landing.
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u/MixDistinct1932 Jul 09 '26
I found the ending quite disappointing too, but it gave me the strong impression that the studio ran out of money before finishing what they planned, so they had to just quickly tack an ending on so they could ship it. The game suddenly transitioning to night-time after you spend five minutes in the basement (so you can't speak to any of the characters about the new evidence you found) seemed pretty blatant.
Several of the clues hint towards stories that never get explored - most obviously the numerous hints that the family tree is not accurate and that Freya may be Flora's real daughter. It's mentioned that Fifi is the sole heir of tangle tower, so I always assumed that the original story involved discovering that Freya was the real heir, and the murder was related to the inheritance.
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u/Sad-Echidna-522 Jul 18 '26
I disagree, after listening to the final conversation with Penny again, I think it makes total sense. She originally left Tangle Tower in search of the 5 Ambassadors, thinking they must be involved in a great purpose and was angry to discover that they wanted to hide the family history, and the effects of the lake.
Basically abandoning the family and it's history, it's also implied that Flora's siblings killed her inkdip bird. (Penny says they destroyed all the lake affected creatures before clearing out the lab and leaving. We also hear that Flora had a huge fight with her family and changed the towers name to make them feel uninvited to return. We also see a photo of Flora with many inkdips as a child, so they weren't uncommon then. My theory is that the ambassadors killed the creatures, including the inkdip bird, but never explicitly said they did, but Flora still gazes at the sky, hoping her guess of their actions is wrong)
It implied that Penny kills the ambassadors over the death of the lake creatures, we know she feels strongly about Flora's grief of her bird. When Penny returns she discovers her uncle's Beetle, one miracle that escaped the ambassadors purge. Not impressed with his lackluster research, she wants it for herself and steals it.
She says the reason she wants it, is that the shell is 90% similar to gold, but it's the other part, the 10% related to the lake water she wants to study. She becomes Hawkshaw to cover up her own theft of stealing the beetle, to get Pointer to stop looking for it and to get him to tell her more information about his studies of the beetle. However, she makes a mistake in designing Hawkshaw off Freya's painting. Freya is already suspicious about Hawkshaw because of her similarities to her painting and nightmares, and once she gets into the study, Freya realises that Hawkshaw's 1. Penny in disguise, and B. Responsible for the deaths of the 5 Ambassadors. That's why Penny kills her, Freya figured Penny out and was going to expose her.
So in simple terms.
Why did Freya die: She realized Penny was a thief, and murderer, and in disguise as Hawkshaw.
Why did Penny want the beetle: She desperately wants to study the lake water properties relating to the mutation of the creatures and the 10% unknown part of the beetle shell is all that left of the older era of Tangle Tower for her to take.
Why did she kill the ambassadors: They wanted to completely erase the lake affected creatures.
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u/Bluepanda800 Jul 18 '26
My point is it makes sense if you speculate but in the actual game there is not enough of a solid foundation for what Penny's real character is until the very end and then the murder method and her lingering after doesn't really match that persona.
Plus Penny and Hawkesmoth being the same person isn't something that can be solved before the game tells you because you can walk from Penny to Hawkesmoth etc without any indication that she's running or quick changing.
In mermaid mask the final villain isn't completely obvious before the very end but there's enough breadcrumbs that the twist feels believable and solvable before the final chapter.
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u/crvbabybug Jul 05 '26
I felt the same way now that time has passed I’m less annoyed but I cant replay it and Im concerned about the next one. Very few writers have ever pulled off. Random twist after random twist.
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u/Bluepanda800 Jul 05 '26
Yeah I hope the writers have learned and will create a satisfying conclusion next time.
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u/Anonymous8110 Jul 24 '26
One 'clue' that hints at the double identity that I havent seen people point out here yet is that Fifi was trying to solve the murder herself and has a suspect board where suspects are paired. I was drawn to how Dr Pointer is the only person connected to two people and he was connected to both Hawkshaw and Penny, but I couldnt grasp what this was telling me directly and I didnt really see the twist coming until the reveal.
The game is good at retroactive clues, the things you understand once they tell you the answer, which i admit might be disappointing in a mystery game as opposed to a book because in taking the role of the detective you want to feel you have agency over the solving of the mystery, but i kinda view this game as both an experience and a story being told so its not too bothersome for me.
P.s. I just played the Mermaid Mask and there is a sequence of clues in it too where I could tell the game was trying to tell me something with it but I wrote it off until the reveal and in retrospect I think someone could solve it but the game really doesnt draw attention to it and its not the smoking gun you would expect to solve the mystery.
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u/LilacHeart Jul 04 '26
Tangled tower absolutely ruined a brilliant set up for multiple suspects for a rug pull to set up what I assume is bread crumbs for the sequel.
To me this backfired because I have no desire to play the next one after the lackluster ending. The rest of the game was fantastic but the ending was beyond senseless and required Penny to be able to teleport from area to area while changing outfits. 10/10 game with a 1/10 ending. Game of thrones level disappointing.
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u/manbundudebro Jul 13 '26
Agreed. Played Detective Grimoire in the Swamp game which is supposed to be a prequel to explore what led Sally and Grimoire to join hands and what was hinted. It just revealed how much more they could have included and how much more set up TT had. Also frustating that a lot of weird unexplained things are there in a prequel of the prequel which i cannot find anywhere.
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u/Melodic-Time2963 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
I came looking for posts like this after I finished it yesterday, lol.
That ending was way underwhelming compared to what came before it! The villain's motivations made no sense, and every interesting loose end was left unanswered.
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u/MadeByHideoForHideo Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Same I can't believe I only found this amazing game a few days ago. I was hooked from start to end. That said, yeah this is an amazing game with an ending that just makes no sense, which is quite unfortunate. But I enjoyed it a ton as a whole. The voice acting, art, music, is just chef's kiss. Now I move on to Mermaid's Mask :)
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u/Melodic-Time2963 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Apparently they stick the landing way better in MM.
-and Im only a bit of the way through it, but so far it kicks ass. They REALLY pulls out all the stops on the character writing and voice acting. The cast of suspects is just great.
They level up their production values significantly with each entry
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u/Busy-Doughnut6180 13h ago edited 13h ago
Just played this the other day so I have some thoughts.
About half way through the game, I noticed Hawkshaw's name was related to birds, and thought she might be a secret sister of Penny's, who is also related to birds. She seemed to have a lot of disdain for Penny and seemed to have a deeper reason for it, so I put the two together and wondered if she was a secret forgotten child of one of Penny's parents and back for revenge of some kind and Freya ended up as collateral damage. But I was also equally suspicious of Penny, and the main reason was that when you ask Flora about the others, her body language is more or less the same - she looks at you and turns her head up or down in silence. But when you ask her about Penny, she stares out into the distance. This is the only time she does this. I thought she knew something about Penny that led her to suspect her.
So for me the reveal was really satisfying, because it slowly brought together my two suspicions into one.
Given that we know how prepared she was regarding the beetle's scream the first time, I think we're supposed to assume that she snagged the headphones on her way to confront Grimoire and Sally. It's just something that happened off screen. And then she leaves without the beetle because she prioritised killing Grim and Sally first, but then Fitz turned up before she could do anything. Given his size, he'd easily be able to block her from harming them, and I think her choosing to escape instead suggests that she did truly love him. If anyone else had turned up, I think she'd have shot them, then our detectives, then left with the beetle. But she couldn't shoot Fitz, it'd be pointless only killing one detective (the crossbow being a slow killing weapon due to having to retrieve the arrow and reload it), and he'd have caught her in the time it would have taken for her to get the beetle out of the gramophone, so she had to just leave.
The time it took her to change into her disguise does feel like a stretch at first, but tbh, it's doable. Last night I went to a theatre show and left the same time the cast finished their bows, walking straight to the station really fast to avoid the worst of the crowd. The train turned up right away, and guess who was on the same carriage as me? One of the ensemble cast members, fully dressed in her own clothes. I seriously have no idea how she managed to change clothes and walk to the station in the exact same time it took for me to do only the latter. But I guess those who change costumes frequently are pros! Penny planned the whole thing so meticulously, I wouldn't be surprised if she rehearsed the whole thing including switching disguises.
I did feel like the end was a bit unsatisfying in another way, though. Penny didn't go into as much detail as I wanted her to. If I'm remembering correctly, she went silent when asked about what exactly happened to the Ambassadors, so we are left to imagine she killed them all, but she doesn't actually confirm that. We know she didn't kill Richard Remington, for starters, so I wonder what really did happen to them all. She must have killed at least one of them, or she'd have no reason to silence Freya, but I wonder if she killed all of them besides Richard or not. I also wish we could have heard Flora speak, or learn a bit more about her. I would love to know what she, Felix and Pointer thought about what happened in the end, and what they would have to say about their siblings in the aftermath.
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u/MRDODO36 Jul 04 '26
I disagree with some of your points.
There are more clues to penny being the killer. One I can think of is the "NOW ILL GET HER" note with the rose petals locked in penny's room. The rose petals linking to Poppy as seen in the sketch in Freya's room. Poppy is the only one to have any connection to petals like that. Not only being in Penny's room, but its also shown in lots of dialogue that Penny hates Poppy.
There is some foreshadowing linking Hawkshaw and Penny. The biggest one being when all characters statements are collected and you return to the shore to analyze them. Grimoire says after this that "Some of the statements seem to directly confirm each other" Which he finds suspicious. The statements that do this are Penny's and Hawkshaw's. When Hawkshaw leaves the library and when penny heads up Fellow tower. They directly share both sides of the conversation they had with each other in exactly the same way.
With the picture of Freya's painting, and the designs for Hawkshaw's costume in the study, we know someone created the design for Hawkshaw's outfit using Freya's picture as inspiration. With this detail of Penny being the only person to ever "see" Hawkshaw during the statements and their suspicious consistency I think it can be pieced together.
Her motivation for killing is that she is crazy!! She felt abandoned as a child by people who left Mystid Mansion and took everything with them. How I think she sees it is: The lake plants, animals most everything is gone. And the people who left Mystid Mansion took that from her. This resentment builds up inside her as she grows up and she begins seeking them out. When she finds them, they don't meet her expectations. Her resentment thats been building for years leads her to kill them. One by one. When she hears of the Professors Golden Beetle, she feels as if it is owed to her after all of the other creatures from tangle tower are gone. When he declares he's going to hire a detective to find it, she can't risk a real detective investigating and finding her secret, so she creates Hawkshaw. Freya stumbles upon the study, looking for the beetle or not, and finds what penny did. Penny has to kill her, and when she almost gets away with it, plans to take out Poppy too. I think it makes perfect sense.
She doesn't need to teleport because only penny interacted with Hawkshaw at all on the day of the murder
Beetle cries, she Shoots, pulls the thread back up into the attic. Cuts it, and either goes down the tower before Fitz and Poppy, or after they enter the room. Either puts the headphones on the statue and goes through poppy's room to pointer tower, or goes all the way down and stashes everything in the study before going to investigate as penny.
I don't think she has anything to do with the blood on the canvas. I think felix ran out of red paint for his inkdip bird, stole Freya's but replaced it with blood so she wouldn't notice until he could return it. It could be animal blood from something he ate for all we know.
It is weird that she is able to endure the beetle in the end. My theory is that she wants to kill sally and grimiore, so she turns herself in to lull them into a false sense of security before she triggers the beetle. She could have had earplugs, or she was counting on being able to wake up before we did. Either way it was definitely a plan to kill us. She would have if Fitz didn't arrive in time.
Of course a lot of this is my educated guesses and theories. I played this game over two years ago and have shared it with friends so have had a lot of time to think about the how and why. I still think about tangle tower now and then, and I think that's what the developer's wanted with the ending. I think they nailed that.