I like the ending but …
… I have to agree here with @Foinikas. Especially the thing the with the killer who is a major thing in the first half of the game.
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But I thought the tagline gives it away… “a dead body is the least of your worries”
I like that the ending allows you to play the wireframe world. Especially if you were following the dev blog and the podcasts. Even though there isn’t a ton of interaction, it was cool to see the evolution of the artwork.
I think the ending made me a little sad, but then seeing the C64 screen really made me smile. It seemed to make the circle of the story complete itself… if you think of yourself as part of the story by playing adventure games as a kid and now you just completed the lost LucasArts classic you “found in a drawer”.
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Yes, but the story sets the focus on the murder over large parts of the game. It’s only natural that the player will keep this in his mind: You are trying to investigate that murder over several hours and then the game is telling you that the whole murder isn’t important anymore.
The murder is only needed to introduce the two agents and the town. But in that case you would only need some of the puzzles (and not all puzzle chains with three tron machines). The main plot line is the disappearance of Chuck and the fire in the factory. Not the murder.
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I’d argue that it stays very true to a Twin Peaks-esque story even if they didnt intend it.
It starts off with a murder investigation (Laura Palmer’s body by the river)
The agents come across all the zany characters in the town (most people in Twin Peaks are odd in some way).
This investigation is quickly forgotten about (Agent Cooper’s rivalry with Windom Earle becomes the prevalent story).
The story has a meta-style ending (The Black Lodge is very metaphorical)
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All of it! The murder,what happened to Chuck,who killed Delore’s dad,what happened to the factory,what’s the deal with the signals,how can Ransome get the curse removed,what will happen to Delores afterwards…all that.It’s like,you play and play for hours to solve all that and at around 95% of the game or even 98%,suddenly all of this goes out of the window,it’s suddenly irrelevant,the walls are down,Chuck tells you that you’re actually living in the matrix and there you go,turn the switch off and forget everything.
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The answer to all that: none of it really matters. Turn your computer off and go to sleep.
I can see it being really bothersome if you’re not familiar with Ron Gilbert’s games beforehand. But if you’ve played Monkey Island at least, you should expect some non-linear humor and know not take the story too literally.
Even in a humorous,comedic adventure game with a lot of breaking of the fourth wall and in-jokes the plot still matters.The Secret of Monkey Island 1 had a fantastic ending.Absolutely marvelous.ME2 had an ending that from what I’ve read and heard(I haven’t finished ME2,but know about the ending)disappointed a lot of people,if not most.
Now,yes of course we can turn off the computer and go to sleep.It’s a game.It’s not to be taken seriously.But it’s also something that you end up falling in love with,it’s characters,quotes,memories,a tiny small world that lives in your heart.After all you spent hours and hours playing it.You invested in it,not talking about money,I’m talking about,the story 
That’s what I mean.
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That’s because it’s a glitch. Delores is not supposed to be able to go into the wireframe world, it’s not like the devs on the upper world wanted her to.
I guess the moral is, as a programmer, that even if you don’t want to make your simulation self-destroy, some software bug will.
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I wonder if this ending was also their way of tying off the story and preventing the chance of a sequel or revisit (unless it’s a prequel). It’s so wonderful and unique on its own.
Maybe they are trying to prevent Disney buying it and rebooting it with an all-star cast, like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Reyes, Selena Gomez as Ray, Tom Hanks as Willie 
Maybe they’ll bulldoze Star Wars Land and build Thimbleweed Park Park
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But the Ray spin-off practically writes itself. 
Where you can find the Edmund Mansion Mansion Mansion!!
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Yeah, but entering the wireframe world did not shut down the simulation. That still required manipulating the tubes on the computer in the factory. But I’m sure having that in the simulation was also totally unintentional 
.
Upper world PR: we analysed the destruction of TWP and found that it was due to a overworked developer falling asleep on his keyboard, thus typing the self-destruct routine, which passed QA because it looked like a regular prop to go into the factory scene. Just bad luck and totally outside of our control.
Won’t rule that out, but in case of TWP it looks more like the kind of “bug” that totally inadvertently transmits your address book to a remote server and invites all your contacts to the social media fad of the day 
.
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Yeah, a Google kind of bug. “Oh, this thing randomly seems to have happened that someone must’ve spent at least a few hours programming, but it was totally unintentional.”
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I thought the ending was great, and everyone I got to play the game also loved the entire game (ending included).
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TP’s ending is even better than MI2 in many ways, I love it!
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It was an unexpected ending for sure! I really liked it.
My only issues with it were: the ending pretty much prevents the possibility of a sequel, and it kind of tore down the world I had created during the course of the story.
Do you think that this is a sad thing? And if yes, why?
But isn’t that exactly what Ron wanted?
Well, I’m mostly against a sequel, though I believe Ron, Dave and Gary would do a great job if they had decided on one, so I’m open to the idea.
And yeah, I should have known Ron would have broken the fourth wall as he loves to do! :D. As I say, I did like the ending, but on a personal level, I first played TWP during a pretty stressful time, so it was a nice escape…until it got torn down. Haha. This is the main reason for that argument 
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