It follows a pair of twins, Tyler and Alyson, with the ability to communicate with each other through telepathy, who reunite after ten years in their hometown in rural Alaska and investigate the death of their mother.

Tell Me Why received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the complex characters, voice acting, narrative design and setting, as well as its competent handling of culturally sensitive subjects such as transgender topics.

[1] Besides their old home, which is maintained by Mary-Ann's friend Sam, the twins will also revisit parts of their fictional hometown of Delos Crossing in the U.S. state of Alaska and interact with its local residents.

[1] The central gameplay mechanic of the game involves players guiding the twins as they experience recollections and visions of what had transpired in a series of scenarios spread across three episodes, and piece together the plot by watching them unfold, with each individual having different interpretations of what happened.

[4] A majority of the game's puzzles are derived from decoding the metaphors compiled in the storybooks, which delve into the fairy tale life Mary-Ann imagined for herself and her struggles to manage her own reality.

Ten years later, an adult Tyler leaves the juvenile detention center he was sentenced to and reunites with Alyson, who has been adopted by Eddy, the investigating officer of the incident.

Intending to move on with their lives, the twins return to Delos Crossing to sell their childhood home, but finds the house in a state of disrepair despite the efforts of Mary-Ann's friend Sam, who had turned to alcoholism since her death.

The twins confront Tessa, who justified her actions and claimed that Mary-Ann isolated herself from the wider community, and that her alleged mental instability and parental incompetence was endangering her children.

After putting out the fire, the twins realized that the arsonist had tried to access a compartment beneath the barn floor containing a locked box, inside which they find letters from someone instructing Mary-Ann to get an abortion.

They discover that Mary-Ann's fairy tales were actually metaphors for her troubled past: born to an overbearing family, she fell pregnant and fled to Delos Crossing to raise her baby, a son named Leo, who did not survive.

[2] The developers' goal is to depict an "honest" narrative about "harsh American realities", and examines themes of poverty, mental health and prejudice as part of its focus on the truth behind the death of the twins' mother Mary-Ann Ronan.

[11][12] Adams said the game strikes a balance between "not shying away" from Tyler's gender identity and showing the manner in which it affects him on a personal level, which mostly involve how others react to him.

[3] Initially, only subtitles were offered for localization as the dubbed voice recordings in French, German, Spanish (Mexico), and Portuguese (Brazil) were delayed due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[2] Martens suggested that while the FAQ may be interpreted as trying to stay in control of a social media narrative, it also represented relatively uncommon minority representation resulting in an "extremely close reading" otherwise.