Whether they are outright lying, mistaken, or confused, the story you’re being told isn’t the whole truth. And memories can be imperfect, biased, and influenced over time.Īn ‘unreliable narrator’ is a narrative device in which the point-of-view character’s telling of the story is questionable in some way. The twins’ visions are not of events, but of memories. It’s not so simple as that in Tell Me Why. In Rapture, the visions are a depiction of past events, exactly the way they occurred. Yes, it’s all very Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. These memories all appear to the twins in the form of glowing silhouettes of earlier versions of themselves and other members in their lives. This isn’t a stretch for the audience to believe we know their relationship with their mother was strained to say the least. In each memory, Mary Ann is fairly cold and distant. In the Ronan’s home, we see the twins stare at a memory of a spectral-like version of themselves and their mother. Throughout the first chapter of the game, we get a few examples of how some of these memories play out. However, this is also explored another way: through the game mechanic of the twins being able to relive shared memories. In dialogue and shared important moments, we get quite a generous amount of time learning the difficulties that have come with the Ronan twins’ lives. There’s excellent story-telling and character development in Tell Me Why.

Add ten years, a juvy rehabilitation sentence for Tyler, and a boatload of trauma, and the twins have a cocktail of issues they’ve got to work through. I mean for Christ’s sake, one of them killed their mother, Mary Ann. Alyson and Tyler both went through some shit, and they carry quite the emotional baggage between them as a result. What I do want to explore in this article is the ways in which the game uses the twins’ relationship and shared ‘voice’ ability to explore a large variety of themes. If you’d like to hear our thoughts on that, go here. If you’re planning on playing the game, maybe sit this one out and revisit this article once done. This article contains large spoilers for all three episodes of Tell Me Why. Additionally, its game mechanics are even used to explore the idea of an unreliable narrator in one of the best ways in recent memory.

It has a surprising depth about it when it comes to exploring characters with both mental illness and trauma.

Being one of the first AAA games to have a protagonist that’s trans isn’t the game’s only feat. Tell Me Why is French developer DONTNOD‘s latest title.

Tyler tell me why