Ending question (heavy spoilers)

[eytanzweig]

So, what do people think about the choice to bring characters to life? It seemed to me to come out of nowhere - was there any previous hint that Mindcop could do that? - and sort of undermined some of the impact of earlier choices. Or maybe I'm missing something.

[Vitlöksbjörn]

Oh boy. We're entering spoiler heaven, so I'll block everything. Also, it's all just my personal understanding.

The very first thing you see when you start the game is one of the mind doors, one that someone's clearly entered. This door has one to the left, but no doors to the right. So which door is it?

That's right. The LIE door. Therefore, the events of the game did not actually happen. Or rather, they did happen - but not the way you experience them.

If you get to the very end of the game without catching the killer, you're getting strange distortions and visions of a character you haven't seen before, some old cop, with Kenneth as his partner. He's explaining to Benji that he's only human, and apologises for not having found the killer. But someone's eavesdropping - little Zacory.

If you dive into Zacory's mind, you can see that he's clearly a huge fan of the Mindcop. Also, in the middle door, you meet the "true" Zacory - he tells you that he's able to dive into his own mind. Mindcop tells him "don't do that, you'll make your mind way too huge, this is dangerous". But little Zacory kept on doing that, it seems.

The middle door of Alex's mind shows Alex presenting Zacory with a long doll in a trenchcoat, saying her name is Linda, and she should be Mindcop's partner. Zacory accepts.

Also, ever wondered why Mindcop and Linda are so out of place? A person called "Mindcop", doesn't that sound like something from a cartoon - considering everybody else has relatively normal and realistic names? And why Linda is so freakishly tall compared to everybody else, while still having a somewhat feminine demeanor?

The conclusion is simple. Everything you see is the content of Zacory's LIE door. If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that LIE doors don't necessarily show complete falsehoods. They show real events with some imaginary changes. The way the person wishes things turned out.

Mindcop - as seen in the game - is either some kind of cartoon character that Zacory likes, or his own creation. Linda is in fact the doll, which Zacory happily added to his mind's canon of Mindcop.

What actually happened is the Old Detective seen in the bad ending doing the investigation - and failing. Was the Old Detective actually capable of some kind of mind reading? Considering that the game presents the doors as factual, if you take the first screen of the game as text, maybe he was. Or maybe this is just Zacory diving into his own mind, stretched from all the diving that he's done. Notice that the left and right sides of the town just run out of road. Perhaps it's because these are the limits of the mindscape?

This is also part of the reason why the game is so open-ended. You're almost "expected' to reach the bad ending first, and then get your happy, fake ending. Because that's how it happened in Zaco's mind.

So, yes. There were hints. And the choices didn't matter. Rebecca died, Sean died, Gabe didn't face justice. And this is Zaco's fantasy.

[bachterman]

yeah, I was wondering about the Linda toy, and
really thought that we get a matrix-esque ending, where it'll turn out that everything is false.

[Santocomet]

Something I thought was strange was how the sky looked at the overlook.
I was like oh... That shouldn't look like that.

[Luna🌙]

Originally posted by Vitlöksbjörn:

Oh boy. We're entering spoiler heaven, so I'll block everything. Also, it's all just my personal understanding.

The very first thing you see when you start the game is one of the mind doors, one that someone's clearly entered. This door has one to the left, but no doors to the right. So which door is it?

That's right. The LIE door. Therefore, the events of the game did not actually happen. Or rather, they did happen - but not the way you experience them.

If you get to the very end of the game without catching the killer, you're getting strange distortions and visions of a character you haven't seen before, some old cop, with Kenneth as his partner. He's explaining to Benji that he's only human, and apologises for not having found the killer. But someone's eavesdropping - little Zacory.

If you dive into Zacory's mind, you can see that he's clearly a huge fan of the Mindcop. Also, in the middle door, you meet the "true" Zacory - he tells you that he's able to dive into his own mind. Mindcop tells him "don't do that, you'll make your mind way too huge, this is dangerous". But little Zacory kept on doing that, it seems.

The middle door of Alex's mind shows Alex presenting Zacory with a long doll in a trenchcoat, saying her name is Linda, and she should be Mindcop's partner. Zacory accepts.

Also, ever wondered why Mindcop and Linda are so out of place? A person called "Mindcop", doesn't that sound like something from a cartoon - considering everybody else has relatively normal and realistic names? And why Linda is so freakishly tall compared to everybody else, while still having a somewhat feminine demeanor?

The conclusion is simple. Everything you see is the content of Zacory's LIE door. If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that LIE doors don't necessarily show complete falsehoods. They show real events with some imaginary changes. The way the person wishes things turned out.

Mindcop - as seen in the game - is either some kind of cartoon character that Zacory likes, or his own creation. Linda is in fact the doll, which Zacory happily added to his mind's canon of Mindcop.

What actually happened is the Old Detective seen in the bad ending doing the investigation - and failing. Was the Old Detective actually capable of some kind of mind reading? Considering that the game presents the doors as factual, if you take the first screen of the game as text, maybe he was. Or maybe this is just Zacory diving into his own mind, stretched from all the diving that he's done. Notice that the left and right sides of the town just run out of road. Perhaps it's because these are the limits of the mindscape?

This is also part of the reason why the game is so open-ended. You're almost "expected' to reach the bad ending first, and then get your happy, fake ending. Because that's how it happened in Zaco's mind.

So, yes. There were hints. And the choices didn't matter. Rebecca died, Sean died, Gabe didn't face justice. And this is Zaco's fantasy.

Hello. Great analysis.

[Vitlöksbjörn]

Thank you.

[Raven]

I was having similar thoughts about the story. I really like how you laid it all out, here, it's very cohesive.

[Barely Average@sptfy/yt/sc]

Originally posted by Vitlöksbjörn:

Oh boy. We're entering spoiler heaven, so I'll block everything. Also, it's all just my personal understanding.

The very first thing you see when you start the game is one of the mind doors, one that someone's clearly entered. This door has one to the left, but no doors to the right. So which door is it?

That's right. The LIE door. Therefore, the events of the game did not actually happen. Or rather, they did happen - but not the way you experience them.

If you get to the very end of the game without catching the killer, you're getting strange distortions and visions of a character you haven't seen before, some old cop, with Kenneth as his partner. He's explaining to Benji that he's only human, and apologises for not having found the killer. But someone's eavesdropping - little Zacory.

If you dive into Zacory's mind, you can see that he's clearly a huge fan of the Mindcop. Also, in the middle door, you meet the "true" Zacory - he tells you that he's able to dive into his own mind. Mindcop tells him "don't do that, you'll make your mind way too huge, this is dangerous". But little Zacory kept on doing that, it seems.

The middle door of Alex's mind shows Alex presenting Zacory with a long doll in a trenchcoat, saying her name is Linda, and she should be Mindcop's partner. Zacory accepts.

Also, ever wondered why Mindcop and Linda are so out of place? A person called "Mindcop", doesn't that sound like something from a cartoon - considering everybody else has relatively normal and realistic names? And why Linda is so freakishly tall compared to everybody else, while still having a somewhat feminine demeanor?

The conclusion is simple. Everything you see is the content of Zacory's LIE door. If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that LIE doors don't necessarily show complete falsehoods. They show real events with some imaginary changes. The way the person wishes things turned out.

Mindcop - as seen in the game - is either some kind of cartoon character that Zacory likes, or his own creation. Linda is in fact the doll, which Zacory happily added to his mind's canon of Mindcop.

What actually happened is the Old Detective seen in the bad ending doing the investigation - and failing. Was the Old Detective actually capable of some kind of mind reading? Considering that the game presents the doors as factual, if you take the first screen of the game as text, maybe he was. Or maybe this is just Zacory diving into his own mind, stretched from all the diving that he's done. Notice that the left and right sides of the town just run out of road. Perhaps it's because these are the limits of the mindscape?

This is also part of the reason why the game is so open-ended. You're almost "expected' to reach the bad ending first, and then get your happy, fake ending. Because that's how it happened in Zaco's mind.

So, yes. There were hints. And the choices didn't matter. Rebecca died, Sean died, Gabe didn't face justice. And this is Zaco's fantasy.

Damn that's sad. Reading that does take the bitter taste I had with the "good" ending though so I'm glad i read it thanks.