So what exactly is the story?

[Yumeno]

I still don't quite understand it... I have beat it 3 times, got all achievements and thought I found all notes.

[WastelanderZer0]

i think literally what you have "beaten" is it whatever you have seen that is it the park as is in this dlc is nowhere near as vast or complex as in the actual mmo,i think basically it sheds light on why the park wound up all creepy and evil etc ,due to the maniac killer guy etc (no i havent played it) just quite simple to figure out if you've followed the tsw lore as much as i have,unless of course the devs will bring something else out at a later date to tack on to this i am quite sure that is all there is to it ;)

[Yumeno]

Originally posted by Noobinator:

i think literally what you have "beaten" is it whatever you have seen that is it the park as is in this dlc is nowhere near as vast or complex as in the actual mmo,i think basically it sheds light on why the park wound up all creepy and evil etc ,due to the maniac killer guy etc (no i havent played it) just quite simple to figure out if you've followed the tsw lore as much as i have,unless of course the devs will bring something else out at a later date to tack on to this i am quite sure that is all there is to it ;)

I haven't played TSW, but I feel this game is incomplete... It doesn't tell me what that guy who made the park was planning, what the guy who used the land before the park did, and I am only ASSUMING she killed her son because she was going crazy from pills(and trauma from her mom leaving her with her dad plus her husband dying) but did she eat the boy? and also why didn't Chuck do anything in this game?

[non.horation]

In TSW, bes like the ones in the jar at the end can give certain people superpowers (idk if I actually need to spoiler that, it is literally the premise of the game lmao) and also Atlantic Island Park sits on some kind of site of ancient power that is powered by strong emotions and has been corrupted by pervious violence (you can see this referenced in Nathaniel Winter's notes in The Park a bit).

My impression as a fan of TSW was that most of the stuff that takes place in the game itself isn't actually happening and somehow the Council of Venice (via moustache man from the information booth at the start) is forcing Lorraine to go through this scenario repeatedly to try and "charge up" the park for one reason or another. I'm not even 100% sure the son is dead irl and if he is I don't think he died in the park.

[Yumeno]

Originally posted by non.horation:

In TSW, bes like the ones in the jar at the end can give certain people superpowers (idk if I actually need to spoiler that, it is literally the premise of the game lmao) and also Atlantic Island Park sits on some kind of site of ancient power that is powered by strong emotions and has been corrupted by pervious violence (you can see this referenced in Nathaniel Winter's notes in The Park a bit).

My impression as a fan of TSW was that most of the stuff that takes place in the game itself isn't actually happening and somehow the Council of Venice (via moustache man from the information booth at the start) is forcing Lorraine to go through this scenario repeatedly to try and "charge up" the park for one reason or another. I'm not even 100% sure the son is dead irl and if he is I don't think he died in the park.

thanks!

[non.horation]

One of the side effects of the whole bee situation is immortality (to explain why your character in TSW treats death as a minor inconvenience) and this year's Halloween event in-game actually dealt with Lorraine's elaborate and desperate attempt at suicide despite that.

The biggest hints for me that the son was never actually in the park during the events of the game are how they both pretty much immediately forget about the teddy bear upon actually entering the park, the fact that if you try to leave there's nothing there but mist, and the park attendant being that guy with the bee and repeating an exact phrase that he used at the beginning of the game. Also some of the nonsense on the books and notes after Lorraine is drugged are references to some fairly major players in TSW particularly Lilith.

ETA: lol I didn't realize this until I read the FAQ but the chipmunk guy is the dad of a TSW character and is probably just a reference, which is why he doesn't really do anything.

[Alhazred]

I doubt the Council of Venice was trying to do anything with the park themselves. It's well established in TSW that the Council has been slowly but surely falling into irrelevency for decades; recruiting Lorraine in the 80s and forcing a bee on her was probably an act influenced by this; keep in mind that there were very few people with bees before TSW starts the number increases dramatically as a response to the bombing in Tokyo basically as a panic measure hoping that the imbued will be able to stop the Dreaming Prison from failing and someone in the Council probably thought that having their very own bee-imbued agent would give them the leg up they'd been sorely lacking. Lorraine having some natural talent for the occult was probably the only thing they cared about, her mental instability be damned.

Because of her mental instability, it's also impossible to know as yet if her warning to us in TSW that Gaia takes something from people with bees is legitimate, just an excuse for her own declining mental state, or both, although given that the bees themselves clearly have a hard time comprehending human existence, it's probably a little of both.

[The Knight of Faerie]

For such a short piece, The Park certainly does have a lot of levels to it. There's the base events, but the underlying meaning is so open to debate that it's not funny. Which tells you just how good of a job they did. Psychological horror shouldn't lay everything out on the table. And the best of this genre don't do so. The Haunting of Hill House (novel and V. Price movie version) follow this mindset. As does The Park.

[eapenster]

i think the part about what the bees take from you is your mortality .. I think thats what lorraine was talking about because morality is a majour part of us being human .. if we loose the ability to die. we wont behave the same way we do now making us not human anymore in a way the mortality in us also gives us certain freedoms that we dont think of when we are mortal .. I think thats what she was talking about but thats just my assumption..