Post Game Questions SPOILERS

[pinkmellow]

First off I really loved this game and enjoyed it a lot and will probably replay it. Secondly I'm just confused about a few things. 1. Why did she see her family in the end as she was leaving the house? Like she saw her little brothers running around? But they died, so was that just her wishful thinking? 2. The theater part was somewhat confusing to me in regards to the scavenger hunt. I'm hearing people say they beat it without doing all of the items and I don't really get how....I beat it without ever using the bird. Like I knew you could give the bird to the baby, but I didn't want to because I knew he was just gonna kill it.....but in a previous save I had given him the bird and it doesn't give you anything....so what's the point of the bird? What are you supposed to do with that? Also related to the play, why did the nutcracker say he missed his dad? I guess that wasn't revelant to anything? And who was the toymaker? And who the heck are Benjamin's children?? I feel like the theater threw in a looot of questions that needed to be answered. (I was stuck on that level forever lol but I enjoyed the setup of it even if other people didn't, I just used the repetitions to watch all the different outcomes of the play, since you get more story that way....) Anyways great game. If anyone knows the answers to my questions feel free to share :D

I thought the car ending was sad and almost thought I got the bad end at first....but it's also realistic because just because you can remember and accept a trauma doesn't mean you get over it and are never bothered by it again. Either that or she crashed her car and she was a ghost the whole time @.@ Also I don't get the crazy looking blind boy. Did he have legs? What''s the deal with him? Why is he in a dress? Wa?

[friend frog]

I just finished the game so I may be a bit off with my interpretation but I will try to answer your questions:

SPOILER AND PERSONAL INTERPRETATION WARNING

1. The entire house and everyone inside was a memory, maybe memories that went a little out of control, or maybe they took those various forms to help Cat remember. Either way, this was their true form. It definitely could have been wishful thinking on Cat's part but I like to think they were giving her closure.

2. I had no idea you could beat it without using the bird! In the theatre part I saved up enough for the popcorn -> Gave the popcorn to the girl actress -> Got the wooden block -> Made a toy soldier and gave it to the angry boy ram. Apparently this differs for a lot of people from what I can tell!!

3. The nutcracker may have said he missed his dad because Benjamin gave toys to Cat. When that stopped Cat felt like he hated her and that she may have lost that connection. The Toymaker may have been a form of Benjamin, since they looked kind of similar. The Toymaker could have been Benjamin's own regrets for not being able to/being too preoccupied to give Cat gifts.

4. I am pretty sure Benjamin is Cat's biological father, but it would also make sense if he was her stepfather and had other children!! I haven't seen all the dialogue in the game so I might have missed something. If Benjamin is her stepfather, though, it may have contributed to her desire to run away, since the twins would have been his biological children and she is not.

5. The blind boy was wearing a hospital gown that was probably way too big for him!! I like to think he was the one orchestrating this whole thing, but not everything was under his control. He was the foundation Cat stood on as she remembered, but the rest was up to her and the other residents of the memory!!

I HOPE THIS HELPED IN SOME WAY!!!!

One question I have: Why did the Sphinx (and maybe other characters in the garden) mention seeing Cat for the second time? Were they referring to the younger version or is something else going on that had something to do with the mother's memories?

[pinkmellow]

Thanks for the response! The hospital gown for the boy makes sense, but I'm not sure why he was wandering the streets in one....

Everyone in the garden says she's come back because she has, that was her childhood home. I believe each part of her house holds memories for a different family member, and each section of the game she remembers a different family member. So the basement is the twins (I have no idea why her doctor and his son and dog(?) were like possessed by them. Part of me wonders if they all visited the house earlier, Faust wrote the diary, and then was possessed by the ghost.) the garden is the mother (the game mentions the mom had a garden she loved, it also mentions that she says "My brain is full of worms" making me think her illness was mental....also explains the worms in the garden.) and the dad was the attic. (I don't know if I can believe they weren't biologically related considering her mother looks nothing like her and she actually took after her dad....)

Anyways most of the characters in those areas are related to the parents. The giant worm was the mom (they both talk about wanting to give her tea...) and later the worm turns into a freaky bug thing (her mom's mentally ill side) The sheep and her son were from the bedtime story her mom told. The wolves tied back to her mom's feelings about seasons. The password to get to the red worm is even mother. I don't really know what the red worm signified. Maybe alcohol or medication her mom was on.

The attic was the dad because he's there, and there's a bunch of toys everywhere. I think just like the worm and sheep represented the mom, the toy maker and all the other masked people represented her dad.

Another thing that confuses me though is the time. The play says it all happened 20 years ago, but the clock stopped 15 years ago? Is 15 years ago when she stopped remembering everything? Or was that just an error on the developer's part? Who knows.

Anyways that's my thoughts.

[MomoPkmn95]

If you look closely at the basement, it looks just like the female reproductive system. I believe the chicken was there to represent the eggs in the ovaries.

As for Dr. Faust, if you look him up on Google, he specialized in alchemy, magic and some other things. Alchemy was on the right room of the stage while magic was on the left room. Also, Dr. Johann Faust may just be a reference to the actual person since he was born in 1880's and died in 1900's.

The Red Larva is probably the heart of the stage or well... The heart of the mother. When Cat frees the Red Larva, the little creature starts loving her and cherishing her like a true friend would. Note that the ram likes to eat conjoined hearts. At the end of the garden stage, notice that the Sphinx turned into a red fly and began asking Cat "Where is cat? Have you seen cat?" Meaning, that the mother regained back the heart she lost for cat.

Milton is the name of the kid photographer whom you go to save.

The bird should symbolize freedom and life. Since the twins wanted the life and freedom they hoped to deserve.

15 years ago was most likely when she stopped remembering the traumatic events that unfolded in the story. Remember, when she fixed the clock, it was when she regained her memory while talking to Benjamin.

[ChrisFromResidentEvil]

Amazing comments thank you so much for helping me understand the game better.

I'd also like to point out that the mother at the end of the garden not recognizing an older Cat, could be a buried memory of her mother not recognizing Cat as child, most likely due to her illness consuming her brain. I think it might be some form of brain disease that causes her to forget.

I also ended the game without using the bird, thanks for letting me know I wondered about that. And the first level design went over my head good eye!

And now, a collection of arc words in unquoted green text, which I lovingly marker-ed onto sticky notes as I played.

"It wasn't your fault."
"You couldn't have known."
"They loved you very much."
"They don't hate you."

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I just realized those are the answers to the questions at the end of the game man this game is clever I'll definitely replay it.

Let me know if you discover anything else

EDIT: Do you mind if I add you on steam?

[friend frog]

(I don't mind being added at all and I wish I could have replied to this thread sooner)

These are great responses!!!! I had no idea about the rooms representing ovaries!!! A really good catch!!!!

I may be remembering this wrong but Milton (where did you find his name???) mentioned a Dr. Faust. It seemed like a lot of his memories, memories that the twins could have never had, appeared in the basement. Now that I am thinking about it, it could be what the silent film was representing: The twins assimilating Milton's memories and imagination!!

The Garden was easily the most complicated, mechanically, out of all the areas (for me, anyway........) and it was thematically, too!! We have a bunch of characters that are all aspects of Cat's mother, and (POSSIBLY) the way in which Cat remembered her. I'd like to go through the game again soon to get this down a bit more, since I am kind of lost on how to explain it. I am tempted to say that the caterpillar and bug headed Sphinx (which interestingly didn't have a butterfly head) are two sides of her mental illness, but there is a lot more going on with the wolves, the different larvae, the Sphinx herself and her relationship with her angry child, and why the toy soldier wanted to give her a rose.

The answer to the question could be Benjamin's regret for forcing his wife to make a decision in regards to moving. There could be something about him trying to make her happy with something she hates. Could also be Cat still, a really young kid wouldn't know that detail about her parents necessarily, and a mom would accept the gift even if she hated it (usually).

THIS GAME IS REALLY COOL and I didn't even connect how the answers were always there. That would have saved a lot of trial and error, but it was really forgiving anyway.

[Natural Puppy]

In regards to Milton's name, it's on the coffin across the aisle from Sebastian's -- they're all in pairs. Also the authors might have mentioned it in response to a tumblr ask before the full game was out but I might be making that up.