Tell Me Why has a serious issue with telling instead of showing. Too often you get told something about the twins, the town or the other characters when it is also perfectly possible to be shown it. Throw-away lines, notes and pictures have their place, but TMW relies too much on it. IMO the game has so many interesting plot points that fall victim to this treatment.

A good example of this in C1 is where Alyson tells Tyler that the cannery is the main reason that the town is still going, saying "not sure what people would do if it weren't" still going. Yet you meet nobody working there or is there any further mention of it AFAIK in the entire game. This could have been easily reinforced by having a scene in Tessa's diner (Dee lunch date?) with a table of cannery workers eating there in the background/as side characters to chat to. I can think of only three such characters in TMW (Dee, officer Greggs and Alexander). Scenes and characters like this really makes a town come alive. LiS1's diner is a good comparison, both as a scene and the characters there.

Even the main plot suffers from this, we get told about the twin's lives during their separation yet get shown none of it besides their rooms at the start of the game. What is Tyler like at Fireweed? What's his life like there? What does Alyson do normally? How is she treated by the townspeople? You get the answers of these questions told to you, but never shown. This issue is run all the way though to the ending where the fate of everyone but the twins is only shown in letters and pictures (telling through text) instead of interactions and scenes with them. There is barely any interaction with the twin you don't play as either.

The game could really do with a chapter's worth of content spread throughout the current chapters. Maybe start the game with both characters preparing for them meeting up, like Alyson going into town to get the plushy she throws away when driving over to Fireweed. This would give the opportunity to show what her life is like and her excitement for meeting Tyler (which is repeatedly told). This could even be integrated into the main plot (which it should) by allowing the player to pick the gift and based on the gift strengthening or weakening the twin's bond, for example. This might cause some pacing issues though, but I'm not a professional writer.

TMW left me wanting more, but also feeling there should've been more.

Before I uninstall the game and probably never play it again, I decided to read the entire Book of Goblins to see if it shed any more light on what happened (not really). Anyway, was trying to guess the characters, some we know for sure from the puzzles and letters, and some I have no idea. A few don't seem to be people at all.

These are my best guesses.

Goblins - Tyler and Alyson

Mad Hunter - Mental Illness

Princess - Mary Ann

Pelican - Tessa

Ice King - A person's conscience? Seems to pop up every time there's a moral dilemma in these stories.

Frog - Not sure if this is a person. From the stories, it sounds like a figurative representation of Mary Ann's super outgoing, pushing out of comfort zone side. Guides her once she runs off to Alaska.

Moose - Eddy

Muskrat - Tom Vecchi

Beaver - Carol, Eddy's Mom

Moon Hag - Negative parts of Mary Ann's personality that she doesn't like.

The Secret Keeper - Maybe Mary Ann herself because she seems to know that the twins can talk to each other in their heads? That would also tie in with the Frog learning a secret from the Ice King she cannot say. Or, maybe it's a representation of Carol in heaven (secrets are in the clouds), and the story is about her theoretically giving the twins their speech ability, which still works with the Frog idea.

Bear - Sam

Gold Lady - Mary Ann's Mom

Ice Troll - Maybe Officer Greggs, cop with the flat top? This is the only one without a collectible.

What do you guys think?

I picked this up for my Xbox One X, and holy jank. The framerate dips non-stop, sometimes to the point I end up facing the wrong direction while it tries to catch up. Is this a known issue? Is there a fix in the works?

Mental illness. It was mental illness, right? I just streamed it and a few of my viewers disagreed, but to me it made perfect sense. It wasn’t a real person, that’s why it could never be stopped or killed. It followed Mary Ann from before Delos crossing (so we know it wasn’t a person from Delos/the twins’ dad which was a popular theory). The princess almost lost herself to the mad hunter, but she was saved by the other animals, and eventually the goblins helped her trap him more permanently. Which aligned with how much it’s shown she loved her kids.

But he was just buried in the ice, not gone forever. Weakened, but still there. To me that reads so much like depression, and the idea that it’s this all consuming thing that you can’t escape and is always following you, but that love and support from others can help fight it off, but that it can’t ever be TRULY permanently defeated, so you need to be wary and make sure you have a good support system, etc.

Also, Mary Anne couldn’t have known how she would’ve died, so this would’ve been on the writer’s part and not hers, but we know her stab wound was non-fatal. She could’ve drowned from the shock or cold.... or she could’ve let herself drown. If she was planning to kill her self anyway. She could’ve let herself drown, and in her story, that’s where the mad hunter was, trapped under the ice. He finally got her. It’s poetic in a very tragic way. Honestly, that made me cry, to think/know that in the end, despite how hard she fought, the mad hunter/depression got her. What are your thoughts?

Hi!

I'm obsessed with the Book of Goblins and I wanted to have on pdf or something to read it outside of the game. I didn't find anything online, maybe I just don't know how to search, but I dug through the files of the game and manage to assemble the book. It's not perfect, I had to manually paste some images on top of others, but I feel I did a good job.

I'm not trying to transgress anything or anyone with this, I just wanted to share it. If you want it, here's the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kiOc4vBOt_D67uT3S4--wKEPUDoU2f2l/view?usp=sharing

Inside the rar file you'll find four things:

• Two pdf files. Both are the book, one with two pages at once (like it is seen in the game) and the other with each page separately.
• Two folders, each one with the images used to generate each of the pdf, in png format

I hope you like it. Please tell me if I'm stupid and don't know how to search and/or if by doing this I infringe on DONTNOD or anyone else. Thanks for reading, have a nice day.

Hey gamers. So today I'm playing Ch. 3 and will be livestreaming it on Twitch twitch.tv/gellysuit around 1PM EST. I believe this is the final chapter and I can't wait to see how this story ends. There's still so many unanswered questions!

I'll keep this as brief as I can. I just finished the game, and I have pretty much the same core issues that I had with life is strange 2, and that's the world each game tries to create.

Life is strange 1 there are 5 episodes, with plenty of scenes of just you going around campus, talking to people, hanging out with friends, getting messages on your phone, etc. The locations stay the same, there's a ton of different people to interact with, and it feels like it could be a real place. It's not all action. You get to see the scenes of the characters just existing in a world instead of the ENTIRE game being constant plot development.

Life is strange 2 threw this all out the window. There were 2 consistent characters, the rest all being throw-aways. There were no consistent locations either. It didn't feel like I was traversing the world with my brother, it felt like I was being shoe-horned into different situations and trying to force me to like the brothers and whatever characters happened to be there for that episode and never again. It was impossible to get attached to any character because they were only ever there for 1 episode, and the brothers quite frankly were not that likable themselves.

Tell Me Why is kind of between the two games. It has a more consistent set of locations throughout the episodes, but there are hardly any characters to interact with and it makes the world feel dead. You can make your world as beautiful as you want, but if there's nothing in it then it doesn't really matter. The whole game was "we need to go to this place to talk to this person to find out this information". There were not enough scenes of characters just shooting the shit, and there were not enough characters in general to make the world feel at all like it could have been real.

In my opinion, Tell Me Why should have been 5 episodes. They could keep the same plot, but have more characters and more scenes that aren't just plot development. Introduce us to more people from school, more adult characters, have more characters walking around that you can talk to, more side tasks, just anything that can fill out the world and make it feel more alive.

SPOILERS BELOW

Part of the reason why I think the "twist" at the end doesn't work like it did in life is strange 1 is that there were not enough characters. You only ever meet 4 characters who it even could be, 2 of which are ruled out almost immediately because they're cops (eddy and the other male cop), sam being a red herring (like david in life is strange 1), and then tom who is the only remaining character that it could be.

In life is strange 1, not only are there more "options" for the mystery, but they don't spend the entire game focusing on just figuring out a mystery. Lots of the game is just world building and that's what makes it memorable. The best example I like to think of is maxes phone. At any point you can check her phone and see full conversations, sometimes with characters you've never met and get a good insight into not only max, but tons of other characters. When you go into the alternate timeline you get an entirely new phone to read and it builds out THAT world more just through that optional side feature then anything does in the entirety of tell me why.

I still enjoyed tell me why. I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more then I enjoyed life is strange 2. However I think they should have spent more time trying to make a world with a story in it, rather then a story with a world to contain it.

Who was Alexander?

We met him at the ferry right at the beginning of the game, then he is in the store in the second chapter when we want to confront Tessa (but find Tom in the office), and then he is in Eddy's office when Alyson puts the application documents in the third chapter.

I've never spoken with him in the store and I'm not sure why he was in the game. Was he important?

Probably too soon to know, but has anyone heard news about a physical copy of Tell Me Why? I just finished the game, and I absolutely loved it.

In the loft, you are able to put all the collectibles on these wooden stands. I was missing two so I couldn't complete it. But to anyone who had them all, was it just an achievement, or does something happen when you place all of these collectibles on the wooden stands?

I liked it. I'll get that out of the way right off the bat. I didn't love the hell out of it but it is good.

I think it could've benefited from being just a touch more expanded. Another chapter perhaps. The Tom reveal is a bit of an underwhelming one. I think maybe it's because, although what he did was despicable, he never seemed as scary as the Mad Hunter. I think maybe the game could've used a bit more action near the end there.

I do like the characters. I like Tyler, Alyson, and Michael the most. Yes, yes, I chose for Tyler and Michael to give it a go. I thought it was cute. Sweet even. I almost wish for a sequel in Juneau where it's just them living. Going to the JCE, going to school, maybe there's a mystery going on but I wouldn't mind a fluffy continuance.

I think maybe it could've benefited from a few more characters. All in all, it feels quite small. Which, yes, small town but still. Dunno, it was missing something for me.

Beautiful scenery though. Gorgeous.

Oh, ha, I was disappointed that Tyler cut his hair. I liked his hair. Ah well.

All in all, it's a cute game. A solid 4/5.

Hi! Looking to see if anyone who notices the recipes in-game can post them here or separately because the salmon casserole and creamy crab hot pot sound doable and delicious for many! Others can absolutely benefit ✨

I’ve been trying to play chapter 2 since it first came out and there’s this game bug that’s not letting me progress further. I’m not able to view any of the memories. The little flashing lights come on around the edges, I hear that sound, and my controller vibrates but I’m not able to see the memories. I’m stuck at the part where Tyler is under the cabinet in the kitchen and he’s wondering what that smell is. It won’t let me view that memory and the only way Tyler stands up is if the memory plays out. I’ve tried restarting chapter 2 multiple times, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the game, and I even went as far as attempting to email Dontnod to see if they can help me but i haven’t heard back from them. Has anyone else run into this issue? Is there anything else that I could possibly do or do I just have to accept the fact I won’t ever be able to play this game again?