Recent Playing: Tell Me Why
Dec. 20th, 2023 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rocky41_7Tell Me Why is an output of DontNod studios, which is for some reason not included in the Life is Strange universe, although it follows the same pattern as their other games. I'm not sure why it's never taken off in the fandom, because it hits many of the same sweet spots as the other games.
In Tell Me Why you play as a set of twins, Tyler and Allison, who are returning to their childhood home in Alaska to sell the property now that their mother is dead. Tyler has just been released from juvenile detention and a rehabilitation program. Like the LiS protagonists, Allison and Tyler discover they share a strange new mental power, and use it to uncover their family's past and understand the circumstances that led up to Tyler's arrest years earlier.
DontNod released Tell Me Why free in June for Pride month because Tyler is trans, which is not the sum of his character, but neither is it irrelevant to the plot of the game. Tyler's reception by the locals of their small town and his perception of that reception shapes his relationship with the town and his history with it. No one is openly transphobic to him, but occasionally they do make deeply insensitive comments, which Tyler can either gently call them out on, or more aggressively shut them down. Tyler's struggle with whether or not his mother would have accepted him if he had come out before her death is central to his emotional journey.
The game does a great job of setting up two young adults who had been essentially two halves of the same whole as children coming back together and wondering if any of that closeness can be regained, or if they're simply too different. And part of that is up to you as the player--in lieu of LiS' famous "this action will have consequences" notice, you'll get one of two symbols after making choices, which will indicate either Allison and Tyler growing closer or further apart.
The game also posits some really interesting emotional difficulties with the twins' relationship with their mother, Mary-Anne. Obviously they loved her, and they exclaim at various points over how imaginative and creative she was, as well as how well she managed with little resources. However, it's also clear that Mary-Anne's erratic behavior damaged the twins growing up, and their deeply isolated childhood created strange dynamics in the house where Allison and Tyler were often each other's only company, with no Internet and limited technology to reach beyond the boundaries of the property.
Like DontNod's other games, Tell Me Why firmly situates itself in the locale, with vast expanses of Alaska's wilderness serving as the backdrop for the family drama. And like its other games, Tell Me Why follows the same pattern of ferrying you around to different locations in town so you can explore, have conversations, and then use your powers to wring more information out of the moment.
My overall thoughts are that if you enjoyed any of the other games in the Life is Strange universe, you'll also enjoy Tell Me Why. I did and I'll probably play again to see what changes if you pull the twins apart rather than pushing them together.
In Tell Me Why you play as a set of twins, Tyler and Allison, who are returning to their childhood home in Alaska to sell the property now that their mother is dead. Tyler has just been released from juvenile detention and a rehabilitation program. Like the LiS protagonists, Allison and Tyler discover they share a strange new mental power, and use it to uncover their family's past and understand the circumstances that led up to Tyler's arrest years earlier.
DontNod released Tell Me Why free in June for Pride month because Tyler is trans, which is not the sum of his character, but neither is it irrelevant to the plot of the game. Tyler's reception by the locals of their small town and his perception of that reception shapes his relationship with the town and his history with it. No one is openly transphobic to him, but occasionally they do make deeply insensitive comments, which Tyler can either gently call them out on, or more aggressively shut them down. Tyler's struggle with whether or not his mother would have accepted him if he had come out before her death is central to his emotional journey.
The game does a great job of setting up two young adults who had been essentially two halves of the same whole as children coming back together and wondering if any of that closeness can be regained, or if they're simply too different. And part of that is up to you as the player--in lieu of LiS' famous "this action will have consequences" notice, you'll get one of two symbols after making choices, which will indicate either Allison and Tyler growing closer or further apart.
The game also posits some really interesting emotional difficulties with the twins' relationship with their mother, Mary-Anne. Obviously they loved her, and they exclaim at various points over how imaginative and creative she was, as well as how well she managed with little resources. However, it's also clear that Mary-Anne's erratic behavior damaged the twins growing up, and their deeply isolated childhood created strange dynamics in the house where Allison and Tyler were often each other's only company, with no Internet and limited technology to reach beyond the boundaries of the property.
Like DontNod's other games, Tell Me Why firmly situates itself in the locale, with vast expanses of Alaska's wilderness serving as the backdrop for the family drama. And like its other games, Tell Me Why follows the same pattern of ferrying you around to different locations in town so you can explore, have conversations, and then use your powers to wring more information out of the moment.
My overall thoughts are that if you enjoyed any of the other games in the Life is Strange universe, you'll also enjoy Tell Me Why. I did and I'll probably play again to see what changes if you pull the twins apart rather than pushing them together.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-21 08:01 am (UTC)I think a large part of the reason it didn't take off in the fandom was just that it was a Microsoft exclusive. If it had been on PlayStation, I'd definitely have played it myself, but I don't own an Xbox and I don't like playing on PC (I'm not sure my PC would be capable of running it, in any case); I imagine there are others in a similar position.
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Date: 2023-12-29 12:41 am (UTC)I really liked the theme of digging into the past and recontextualizing it and how that impacts the present and the future, but this difference is also something I hadn't considered and you may be right that other people found it less "active" than other titles by DontNod because the characters have less influence over the events, which have largely already taken place.
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Date: 2023-12-21 10:41 pm (UTC)In terms of being engaging / drawing a large fandom, I think part of it also is that it doesn't have as much of a dramatic plot as the other games. Of course figuring out their place in the world is very important to the twins, and coming to terms with their past and the people in their present life may be dramatic to them, but it's an internal motivation. The LiS games I know both have a high stakes plot.
I felt that Tell Me Why was in a way calmer than LiS and LiS True Colors, which are the ones I played. I liked the conciliatory atmosphere (well, probably depending on how you played it) a lot, but I suppose the slower pace and lower stakes put more pressure on the chatacters and place to carry the story.
I love the characters a lot, and the sense of place in the game is awesome (and the place awe-inspiring).
I've been meaning to write a coda to the game. I feel (again depending on how one plays it) that Tyler got a lot of focus and attention, and a satisfying kind of closure. Meanwhile, if you chose the memory that Mary-Ann did not mean to threaten little Tyler, that it was a misunderstanding, Alyson's internal journey of coming to terms with her past would just begin. I've been meaning to explore that some time.
Which character were the most interesting to you, which part of the story the most moving?
no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 02:57 am (UTC)Someone else commented about "Tell Me Why" being less "active" than the LiS titles, which I think jives with what you're saying here and I suppose it makes sense. There's not so much a present threat for Alyson and Tyler so much as trying to make sense of one they've already dealt with. I love stories like that, but it may be that not everyone else does!
There's definitely not the drama there is with the storm in LiS or Gabe's actual death in True Colors, so this one maybe just didn't grab people the same way. I really enjoyed digging into the claustrophobia of their childhood though and them trying to sort through those feelings as adults.
I think Alyson's journey probably feels particularly incomplete where the twins end the game not being super close. In some ways her life has kind of been on hold waiting for Tyler to get out (not to the same degree as his ofc) but for him to finally come back and for them to just never recover that closeness and then perhaps for her to find out she never needed to kill Mary-Ann at all...her baggage is just BEGINNING.
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Date: 2024-01-03 10:52 am (UTC)I really love your phrasing there, "digging into the claustrophobia of their childhood", that's so evocative and fits the game so well. I loved getting to see that part, getting to linger in these moments, when the twins were remembering but also saying farewell. The whole atmosphere worked really well for me.
What was your epilogue, how did your twins end up?
I agree that her life has been on hold, too. Even more than Tyler's, I'd say, because in the (perhaps idealised) world of the game, he got support in Fireweed, and got to learn/study something he liked. Meanwhile, Alyson was without direction, without much help, and we see in the game how that influenced her, but we don't really see her get over it (iirc).
The picture you paint there is also enticing in its tragedy.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-06 10:37 pm (UTC)I kept the twins really close! It was my first instinct, so if/when I play again I'll try pushing them apart and see what, if anything, that changes about the game.
True, Tyler has a much clearer vision of what he wants his future to be than Alyson, who's been sort of floundering ever since Mary-Ann's death. I think it's much harder for her to move on when she has to keep living in the same small town where their childhood transpired and can't even get rid of the property where they lived, and where she committed the crime that got Tyler sent away. It keeps her tied very closely to those events and that would be difficult. I did love the epilogue vision of her, Tyler, and Michael all getting a place together in town! (For a happier take on the ending XD)
no subject
Date: 2024-02-27 04:21 pm (UTC)All three of them getting a place together is a beautiful ending, I like it a lot. And IIRC Alyson is getting therapy? The fact that not only did she spent her whole youth in the village means that she never got reprieve from her trauma - on top of never getting adequate support for it.
I personally would love their house, I think, but I feel it would take quite a while for them to become a home again instead of a burden. All art in it, especially above the garage, shows that it once was a place of love, but also, if no one is there to bring it to life, then it's hard to feel that.